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The Need
Sustainable Development
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs" (from "The Brundtland Report",
WCED, 1987: 43).
Sustainable development is increasingly becoming a priority of governments
and businesses. But how can we sustainably satisfy society's demand for
materials and energy as it continues to grow?
Increasingly we are becoming aware of the need to reduce the adverse
impact of our activities upon the environment. Reducing emissions of greenhouse
gasses, of which carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the most important,
is set to become one of the major challenges facing us in the quest to
reduce the rate of climate change. Arguably, one of the major contributors
to CO2 emissions is the burning of fossil reserves for transportation
and for energy production. Whilst a major part of these valuable reserves
are squandered in this way, a proportion are converted to useful materials
such as polymer resins and plastics which are now ubiquitous. These materials,
whilst extremely versatile, are nevertheless produced from these non-renewable
resources, requiring significant energy input during manufacture (most
probably produced by the burning of fossil fuels!). In this way, they
cannot be regarded as sustainable. Furthermore, one of the features of
many of these polymers is that they are environmentally inert. This is
also one of their drawbacks - they do not biodegrade, leading to additional
problems associated with the ultimate disposal of products manufactured
from petrochemical derived polymers.
Nevertheless, society's demand for materials based upon polymers continues
to grow, for building, transportation and a whole host of other applications.
This presents a dilemma - how to satisfy this demand sustainably? It also
presents an opportunity. Renewable and potentially sustainable industrial
crops provide a possible key.
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