Implementing successful public policies to shape the sustainable future of the aviation industry
Introduction
It is time to reinvent ourselves. We have reached or exceeded several limits, such as the limit on the availability of natural resources, the limit on healthy human-nature interaction, and the limit on the generation of wealth decoupled from consumption and conscious production. The Anthropocene Epoch, marked by the extraordinary growth of our population and constant economic growth, has resulted in unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss, carbon accumulation in the atmosphere, and drastic changes to our climate. This reality urges us to review our trajectory and urgently answer the following question:
“How can we sustain economic and social development, while decoupling ourselves from our fossil fixation and actively restoring our natural capital?”
The notion of sustainability refers to maintaining the function of a system over time. A sustainable economic system thus implies the implementation of practices that allow an economy to remain functional. The only way for a system to be sustainable is to balance inputs and outputs. The economic system of the last decades is based on a linear economy that rewards extraction, production and consumption – quite different from any naturally sustainable system.
With a global population heading for 8 billion people, we require an economic system with high efficiency in its use of natural resources, which upholds the conservation of the processes involved in the production of these resources. Instead, we currently use about 1.6 times the Earth's capacity to produce resources. This means that even renewable resources, such as water and biomass, may reach a point where reserves will not be able to support future demands. To make our current production system sustainable, we require an economic system that minimises extraction and maximises efficiency, reusing and recycling instead of disposing waste materials, and consuming more thoughtfully. Ultimately, we must reduce our ecological footprint, making consumption compatible with Earth’s biocapacity while still providing a high Human Development Index (HDI). This is a challenge – and an opportunity.
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