A sustainable footprint

So our personal consumption drives both our economic growth and our resource consumption.

This leads to a compounding effect: if we grow our economy at say 3 per cent a year, we will nearly double resource use and pollution every 25 years, all other things being equal.

This new economics will need to use the best of economic theory and practice to work out equitable ways of taxing energy, greenhouse, water and land, and so force the rate of innovation in resource-saving. It is possible that this new economy could substantially replace personal income taxation and payroll taxes with physical taxes. And pigs might fly you’ll be saying. Well, to get a truly sustainable economy in the long run, they might just have to.

These six principles of physical sustainability should be in every chief executive’s checklist for each development proposal.

The consumption habits hidden deep in our neat suburbs are as far away from sustainability as the chance of the Socceroos winning the next World Cup. But the Socceroos are currently on the field, playing friendlies and working on it.

When will we become strong and toned for the great sustainability race? Well at least we are talking about it. Perhaps next year will bring some surprises.