Transparency in Support of Sustainability

• Author: Katrina Fischer Kuh
• Pages: 125-142

125

Chapter 8:

Transparency in Support

of Sustainability

Katr in a Fische r Kuh

Including only those activities over which individuals have substantial and

direct control, emissions from individuals and households constitute 30

to 40% of United States greenhouse ga s (GHG) emissions.1 Individuals

are responsible for an even larger volume of emissions when indirect emis-

sions, such a s the energy required to manufacture and transport purchased

goods, are included.2 e United States has, however, infamously approached

international environmental negotiations adamant that “the American life-

style is not up for negotiation.”3 is attitude persists in part because the

environmental harms caused by U.S. lifestyles are often most acutely expe-

rienced elsewhere: in the countries that produce the inexpensive good s that

we consume. We “let t hem eat pollution” so that we need not4 and, in the

process, prop up unsusta inable lifest yles, obscure the environmental harms

these lifestyles occasion, and quiet potential objections through the economic

benets that ow to the developing world.

At least in one sense, climate change does not so readily permit this sleight

of ha nd. e climate ha rms occasioned by the GHG emissions associated

with the production and supply of goods cannot be conned to the coun-

try of manufacture. Climate change thus presents an opportunity to force

a reckoning with the unsustainable practices that underlie U.S. lifestyles.

However, GHG emissions are not readily visible and are frequently produced

indirectly thereby obscuring the connection between U.S. lifestyles, underly-

ing unsustainable practices, and resulting climate ha rms.  is conundru m

underscores the need for law and policy that reveals individuals’ GHG emis-

1. Michael P. Vandenbergh et al., Individual Carbon Emissions: e Low-Hanging Fruit, 55 UCLA L.

R. 1701, 1710 (2008).

2. Shui Bin & Hadi Dowlatabadi, Consumer Lifestyle Approach to U.S. Energy Use and the Related CO2

Emissions, 33 E P’ 197, 203–05 (2005).

3. James Salzman, Sustainable Consumption and the Law, 27 E. L. 1243, 1256 (1997) (quoting

Joe Kirwin, Less an $5 Billion Pledged for Agenda 21 Action Plan; Final Document to Be Released by

United Nations in September, 15 I’ E’ R. (BNA) No. 14, at 486 (July 15, 1992)).

4. Let em Eat Pollution, E, Feb. 8, 1992, at 66.

126 Rethinking Sustainability

sions. Possibilities for creating such transparency include corporate carbon

reporting (that includes supply chain emissions), individual carbon calcu-

lation and reporting, carbon footprint labeling of goods, and reorienting

domestic climate policy to better engage individuals.5 If achieved, this trans-

parency could support the development of the personal a nd political wi ll to

build more sustainable lifestyles.

We must build communities, in frastructure, and systems that support

sustainable lifestyles. Proposals abound for how this can occur and some

communities have made signicant progress.6 It will, however, require signif-

icant will and commitment to give eect to the insights and specic policies

of sustainabilit y. Generating the commitment—personal, public, politi-

cal—necessary to achieve and maintain this goa l may, in the United States,

rst require a revelation about how current lifestyles occasion environmental

harms, including through greenhouse gas emissions. One challenge for legal

scholars, then, is how to use law and policy to reveal, or at least not obscure,

the environmental harms occa sioned by our lifestyles.

I. Consumption, Sustainability, and Climate Change

Achieving sustainable patterns and le vels of consumption is necessar y to

meet the goals of sust ainability. Susta inable consumption is clearly artic-

ulated as a goal in foundational international agreements addressed to

sustainable development. Chapter IV of Agenda 21 is titled “Changing

Consumption Patterns,” and asserts u nambiguously that “the major cause

of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustain-

able pattern of c onsumption and production, particularly in industriali zed

countries. . . .”7 A wealth of resea rch links excessive consu mption to a host

of environmenta l harms8 a nd no less aut hority than t he Pope has issued a

call for sustainable lifestyles and models of consumption and production to

avoid environmental degradation.9

5. John C. Der nbach, Harne ssing Indivi dual Behavio r to Address Cl imate Change : Options for Con-

gress, 26 V. E. L. J. 107 (2 008) (sug gesting how national climate l egislation could be tter

engage individual s).

6. E.g., John C. Dernbach, An Agenda for Sustainable Communities, 4 E’  E L.  P’ J.

170, 172–75 (2009).

7. U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, Agenda 21, ¶4.3, U.N. Doc. A/CONF.151.26

(Aug. 12, 1992), available at http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.

pdf.

8. Betsy Taylor & Dave Tilford, Why Consumption Matters, in T C S R (Juliet

B. Schor & Doublas B. Holt eds., 2000).

9. Pope Benedict XVI, Message of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI for the Celebration of the World

Day of Peace 1 January 2010: If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation, 11 (Dec. 8, 2009),

available at http:// www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/peace/documents/hf_ben-xvi_