photo: A green skyscraper: The Antilla Building, Mumbai
The Antilla Building is being criticized for being nothing more than a green facade. It brags green and plush on the outside, but is still full of not-so sustainable parts. I don’t personally have a say in this debate, but looking and reading about this particular building sparked another issue for me: in the ever-growing hype around sustainability, what about the little people?
My concern isn’t so much about creating this extravagant building of flowing vines and falling flowers. Where my focus lies is in the more practical side of the world, and that world is the one I live in – the world where people seek to improve their quality of life without burning a hole in their pockets, the world where access to a better life isn’t about solar powered shoe shiners, but about community building and social empowerment.
In my personal quest to understand the beneficial relationships between nature and humans, how can we bring “sustainability” down from the rafters and into our backyards in a practical, realistic and affordable way? Sustainability (and I apologize for its overuse), isn’t meant just for the Hollywood stars to show off their eco-superpowers. It’s meant to be practiced by everyone. And if everyone doesn’t have access to it, things aren’t going to change. I realize that this is not an individualistic endeavor. Sustainability, I’ve observed, requires two things right now: 1) long–term investment and 2) community. These are two qualities I want to continue to explore this term.
Sustainability is something that will trickle down through the layers of society like a multi tiered fountain.
As with all times of great change it is always the rich who can move first, the lower levels or base foundation, “the real people of the world will achieve sustainability as it becomes the normal” and it is the masses who create the normal self fulfilling prophecy……
As with the change times of the past the average person was still walking or on horseback when the rich had steam cars and then petrol fueled motor cars, the seeds of change just proceed this way. except when they don’t and we have seen instances of this unfortunately driven by war as in we entered the second world war still on horseback and emerged 7 years later on rockets and nuclear power….
My hope is that those with everything invested in everything that is now, don’t do everything they can to hold onto what they have and instead embrace this coming change and facilitate it to hasten the pace or we may not have enough time to complete this metamorphosis…..
Anthony Foo
Founding director
New World Concepts