Sustainability

The role of the CRNS and its members in a sustainable world

The CRNS represents its members on issues of sustainable community resource management. Our members value our waste resources and work to manage them for the good of their communities and the environment.

In 1987, the UN defined sustainable development as 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.' Some people don't believe that we can have sustainable development; others disagree over the meaning of sustainability.

We've used the word sustainable to reflect our belief that we need to manage our economic, social and environmental needs in a way that's compatible with our survival on this planet. It's not a precise or definite thing but we know that we have to do better than we're doing, particularly with regards our consumption and disposable of valuable resources.

Climate change

We believe climate change will impact heavily on the poor in society. Increasing energy prices and poorly insulated homes are a bad mix for many people in the UK. Community resource management (reuse, reycling, energy efficiencies, better land use, renewables, waste prevention) can help tackle the environmental problems we're facing in ways that can bring wealth, job skills and economic opportunities to communities.

Climate change will affect many areas of the world more than the UK but everyone will be affected. Community resource management can help lower our greenhouse gas emissions, reduce energy use and pollution and find creative solutions to many of our problems.

What others say What others say
'Climate change is not only a massive threat to the global environment, it is also perhaps the greatest economic challenge facing us in the twenty-first century. It demands an urgent and radical response across the developed and developing world.' UK Department of Energy and Climate Change, 2010

'When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.' John Muir

'We need to paint a better world, articulate a better future that doesn't involve wilful consumption' Will Day, Chairman, Sustainable Development Commission (February 2010)

'The best friend of earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on the earth.' Frank Lloyd Wright

'We must go through a natural revolution if we are to survive on earth. We need to change people's perceptions. If there's no environment, there's no human race. We are in a state of global denial.' Ted Turner

'There is no high-carbon future' Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (2009)

 

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