We use the word “sustainability” to describe products, diets, companies, lifestyles. But this indiscriminate diffusion risks emptying it of meaning. The central question – often avoided – is not “how to make our habits more sustainable?”, but “are we really willing to change them?”. So far, the response has been mostly negative. Not so much due to lack of awareness, but because some assumptions of the contemporary idea of progress, economic growth and relationship with nature remain incompatible with the limits of the Planet. It is worth focusing on these and not only on the occasion of Earth Day, which occurs on April 22nd.
Perpetual growth
Every modern economic system is built on one premise: it must grow. GDP must rise, companies expand, consumption increase. An economy that is not growing is described as in crisis. Yet we live on a planet with finite resources – soil, water, biodiversity – and demanding indefinite growth is an arithmetic contradiction. The debate on decoupling — grow while reducing environmental impact — has been around for decades. The data remains discouraging: technological efficiencies are being compromised by increasing volumes. More efficient cars, but more numerous. Better insulated, but larger buildings. It’s the rebound effect.
The point is not to invoke degrowth as an ideology, nor to imagine forced austerity. It’s about accepting a reality: some sectors must downsize and well-being does not automatically coincide with more consumption. Countries like Costa Rica or Bhutan show that good standards of living are possible with a lower ecological footprint. They are not perfect models, but indicative.
“I buy green”
The sustainable consumption market is worth billions. Biodegradable bottles, cruelty-free cosmetics, “eco” clothing, electric cars. All this is laudable but there is an insidious mechanism: buying “good” makes us feel good, and ends up legitimizing other purchases. This phenomenon – moral licensing – is a concrete obstacle to reducing consumption. The most inconvenient lever remains reduction. Don’t buy differently, but buy less. An idea that comes into conflict with business models, advertising and social identity built on purchases.
We have forgotten where food comes from
Many people who live in Italian cities — in a country with a strong agricultural tradition — do not know when peaches ripen or where the bread grain they consume comes from. This distance from ecosystems reduces the ability to perceive the environmental cost of our choices. Rebuilding a relationship with territories, seasons and short supply chains implies awareness. Farmers’ markets, buying groups and seasonal knowledge change perceptions. And perception guides behavior.
Technology is not a magic wand
CO₂ capture, geoengineering, advanced nuclear power, cultured meat: the technological future is often presented as a way out without giving up. It’s an understandable narrative. Innovation has helped us solve huge problems. But in the ecological crisis this trust risks becoming an alibi. Carbon capture exists, but on a small scale, with high costs and consumption. Technology is necessary, but it does not replace reduction.
The alibi market
The compensation market has grown in recent years. Companies and consumers can “neutralize” CO₂ by purchasing credits linked to reforestation or renewable energy. On paper it makes sense, but in practice it shows obvious limitations. A 2023 investigation of Verra-certified credits found that most did not correspond to actual reductions. Forests not at risk, inflated calculations, uncertain results. In many cases, a creative accounting of the atmosphere. The risk is to transform the climate crisis into a financial game: it emits, it compensates, it declares neutrality. But CO₂ remains. And a tree planted today guarantees nothing in twenty years.
The habit of disaster
Floods, droughts, record temperatures: once exceptional events are becoming normal. And normalization is as dangerous as change. Psychology is about shifting baseline syndrome: every generation considers the world in which they grow up to be normal. 40 degree summers become the norm. An impoverished Adriatic becomes the “natural” Adriatic. The reference shifts, and with it the perception of the crisis. The problem is not just climate change, but getting used to it. The answer is not alarmism, but memory: documenting the territories, maintaining comparison with the past to understand where we are going.
None of these issues have a simple solution. There is no app to download or solution product. We need something slower: changing how we define progress, convenience, growth, and our role in ecosystems. A change that affects politics and economies, but which always starts from the way we think.
