Sustainability and Capitalism

According to the text sustainability is defined as a term that is the human response to the issue of climate change and the natural resource depletion, species extinction, deforestation and many other crisis that effect the planet. Sustainability is often defined as inter and intra equity in the social, environmental, economical, moral and political spheres of society. The most common definition of sustainability is from the Brundtland Commission's Our Common Future: "sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

The main characteristics of capitalism is that it consists of creating new markets, constantly expanding always looking for new things to commodify and often subsuming non capital markets in order to strengthen internal markets. Often capitalism can also appear to be working on a sustainable solution or be ecological but in reality it is the idea that the people are buying into. As capitalism is not just a simplistic linear system in which it subsumes singular items, it rather is constantly expanding and trapping things this can causes crisis which vary in size, expressions and materialization.


A 'crisis of capitalism' is when capitalism reaches the point where it cannot expand itself any further. This is where in order not to die out and the capital to continually grow it needs to seek out new technologies, policies and ideas.


One solution that has been offered has been the introduction of Bio-fuel produced by Biox a company that produces lower emissions for diesel engines and giving the engine a longer life. The bio fuel is considered sustainable because it is reusing materials such as vegetables and animal residue found in the food production industry. The BIOX plant was situated in the residential green zone due to the ease and cheapness of the plot.



Although it is something that produces lower emissions being more 'sustainable' it has come at a price on negatively impacting on the community of Hamilton. First of all the plant was built on a green space, this plant causes constant tremors which damages the houses surrounding the area . "This constant exposure has the potential to impact the health and safety of the entire community."


Sustainability and capitalism do not go hand in hand as capitalism is forever growing and only really uses the idea of sustainability to accumulate more  expansions and wealth. Often we aren't able to be sustainable due to the lack of technology available to us or it being to expensive to buy. This shouldn't be the case if was to save our planet then these products would be readily available, but behind all the big schemes is the corporate, multinational capitalist companies looking to expand even further. One of the two must end in order for the other to capitalise and remain successful.