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Robert Hornung is the President of the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA), a non-profit trade association that promotes the appropriate development and application of wind energy in Canada. Enbridge is a member and sponsor of CanWEA.
- Is it possible to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs?
- We tend to operate in the short term, but sustainability requires a long-term perspective. Companies are driven by the next quarterly report and annual performance. Governments are driven by electoral cycles. Even individuals, who face an ever-expanding range of responsibilities and activities, get caught up in the day-to-day and are not thinking further ahead.
- But ultimately I think sustainability and our ability to continue to thrive and grow on this planet require us to make a mental shift. I think it means we have to change economic signals and change the way we think about governments. We need a fairly fundamental shift in the way we organize ourselves and in the way we think, and therefore it’s not an easy thing to do.
- And who starts that? You say “We.” Who is we?
- The honest answer is “all of us.”
- OK, so what do “we” need to do to get there?
- I think there are three key elements that define a path to sustainability. One is education. If people are going to make an adjustment and think longer-term about the linkages between their actions and society, the economy, or the environment, then they need information that helps them understand the impact of their actions. This is true for governments and businesses as well.
- Secondly, we need to regulate and respond to situations where it is clear that our actions are having a significant negative impact on quality of life. Governments need to play a role and say, “This is something that we simply will not allow.”
- Perhaps the most fundamental element is that we must change the way we think about the economy. The way we value things within the economy today tends to discount or ignore social and environmental factors. For example, an oil spill can be seen as providing a positive benefit to the economy because a lot of economic activity is required to clean it up. Our systems of economic measurement don’t consider the negative social and environmental impacts of the oil spill if it devastates a local fishery.
- There’s an intergenerational aspect to this discussion as well. Cost should not be defined solely as immediate payments you make right now. It should also consider the costs or benefits of a decision over its lifetime.