Bob Dolobois
Executive Director
Executive Director
American Nursery &
Landscape Association (ANLA)
There’s a lot buzz associated with the concept of sustainability. The term is applied haphazardly as a marketing tool, a standard of manufacturing, even a consumer mindset. As the creator and sustainer of managed landscapes, this term—at least for now—is unavoidably linked to us, and it’s important for the nursery and landscape industry to take a close look at what sustainability is (and is not) when applied to our businesses. Enter: the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA).
ANLA has officially adopted sustainability in our industry as one of its five major strategic objectives. It is the association’s intention to assist our member businesses and the surrounding industry in defining what constitutes sustainability for us and how this old-fashioned, but suddenly contemporary concept, affects what and how we do business.
(True confession; this blog is a teaser to encourage its readers to attend a more extensive presentation on this subject at the upcoming FNATS Show.)
Let’s start with a generic definition of sustainability: Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely. If we were living in an era prior to the industrial revolution, the notion of sustainability in agriculture or manufacturing (such it was) would be considered as obvious as breathing—something that’s done without even thinking about it. The industrial revolution, as its names implies, was significant and shifted our thinking from learning how to harness nature, to learning how to conquer it. It’s the conquering part that can cause problems.
For example, modern chemistry creates compounds that do not occur naturally and we now co-mingle those compounds in the natural environment. Some of these activities can fit the definition of sustainability. Other such activities result in substances that injure the natural environment over time and cannot be continued indefinitely (see definition above) without causing irreparable damage or loss.
Many industry practices fit into the definition of sustainable; some of our practices do not. As the marketplace and the regulators of that marketplace focus more on the “don’ts,” we need to identify and tell the positive story about the ones that do. If this is a topic of interest to you, please attend the FNATS presentation...and bring your opinions and ideas to this lively session.
ANLA has officially adopted sustainability in our industry as one of its five major strategic objectives. It is the association’s intention to assist our member businesses and the surrounding industry in defining what constitutes sustainability for us and how this old-fashioned, but suddenly contemporary concept, affects what and how we do business.
(True confession; this blog is a teaser to encourage its readers to attend a more extensive presentation on this subject at the upcoming FNATS Show.)
Let’s start with a generic definition of sustainability: Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely. If we were living in an era prior to the industrial revolution, the notion of sustainability in agriculture or manufacturing (such it was) would be considered as obvious as breathing—something that’s done without even thinking about it. The industrial revolution, as its names implies, was significant and shifted our thinking from learning how to harness nature, to learning how to conquer it. It’s the conquering part that can cause problems.
For example, modern chemistry creates compounds that do not occur naturally and we now co-mingle those compounds in the natural environment. Some of these activities can fit the definition of sustainability. Other such activities result in substances that injure the natural environment over time and cannot be continued indefinitely (see definition above) without causing irreparable damage or loss.
Many industry practices fit into the definition of sustainable; some of our practices do not. As the marketplace and the regulators of that marketplace focus more on the “don’ts,” we need to identify and tell the positive story about the ones that do. If this is a topic of interest to you, please attend the FNATS presentation...and bring your opinions and ideas to this lively session.
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