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Jonathon Porritt is an environmental big-wig. A former teacher and head of the UK Green Party, he's now founder director of Forum for the Future, chair of the Sustainable Development Commission and author of Capitalism as if the World Matters.
He's certainly man of the moment. The Forum's just published its list of the greenest cities in the UK and the SDC's recently been pushing for more tidal power in the UK. We caught up with him for a drink before he cycled off (pictured above) to give a public chat about sustainable living.
SmartPlanet: Bradford came in at number one in your Sustainable Cities Index. Was that a surprise to you?
Jonathon Porritt: It was actually. I honestly didn't think Bradford would come out top, I really didn't. And I don't think Bradford did either. But WWF recently brought out another green cities index [which ranked Plymouth and Newport top], and a lot of these things depend on the methodology and how you weight things.
SP: And what did Bradford score so highly on?
JP: Well, it has a very strong emphasis on green spaces, protecting them and maintaining its parks. Although it's not necessarily known for social cohesion, actually it's got really good empowerment and participation, such as community groups and volunteering.
SP: Brighton did very well, and your report suggests affluence is one reason for its sustainability. By that logic, is the secret to saving the planet making the UK richer?
JP: [laughs] That's why it's a good thing Bradford came first, because in many respects it doesn't fit that model. One has to be really cautious about this; there's always been a theory, for example in demographics, that the best way to decrease average fertility is to increase affluence in a country to the point where people will choose to have fewer children. There's a lot of evidence that demonstrates the richer a nation gets, the faster the decline in average fertility. But there are many exceptions, with countries that have decreased fertility without the rise in affluence, such as Bangladesh.
SP: Sure, but in the UK, is it the case that greener living is something only the middle classes can afford and have the time to think about -- or do the middle classes just getter richer as they consume more?
JP: Well, yes, you can think of it like the latter. I've always resisted this notion that environmentalism is a sad elitist middle class phenomenon of Guardian-reading muesli-eating twats. Better-off people can always buy their way out of degraded environments. The people who suffer most from degraded environments are not middle class people -- it's those who are born into or end up in them that are stuck with them. I spent the first 10 years of my life working as a teacher in White City; I saw first-hand the horror of growing up in a part of a big city where nobody gave a tuppeney fuck about the environment. Nobody. And those degraded estates, there was no love for the place, no quality of life. For me, that's what got me into 'environmentalism' -- not protecting endangered species or rainforest, or whatever it was. Yes, I'm worried about those things. But it's about people.
SP: Mayor Ken Livingstone is making a lot of green noises in London. Do you think it's likely the capital will appear in the top 5 list of your green cities next year?
JP: I do. I'm immensely impressed by Ken's leadership; it's of a different quality to anything going on nationally. It's setting a pattern for other city leaders, saying don't come out with all this rhetoric about making world-class cities unless you're going to commit to doing the sustainable bit seriously. He's very in your face, saying it's not about little green fashions, but sustainability is what constitutes success in the future.
SP: Do you still subscribe to your book's key message that we have to effect change -- on climate change -- within the system of capitalism rather than changing the system first?
JP: Yes, I do. I say that for two reasons. One, we don't have time to change the system anyway. And two, there is no will to change the system. I mean, to a certain extent there are a lot of people realising how dysfunctional the system is, but that doesn't lead to a lot of people asking to change it. They want to reform it a bit, but they don't want to get rid of it.
SP: What do you have to say about China and the US?
JP: If things don't change in China and the US, things won't change fast enough. That's the reality. In China, the thing that makes me most hopeful is they're living the environmental and human problems now. America's a totally different story. In polls of people at state level and at some of the US's biggest companies, the signs are encouraging. It's less of a disaster than people think.
SP: How much can the UK affect those two countries?
JP: A bit. The reason I rebut entirely this argument 'what's the point of doing anything?' is simple. The reason for doing it is China isn't going to listen to us unless we can do it.
SP: Previously, on green shopping you've said 'consumer power… is a good starting point but won't get us where we need to be'. Is that still how you feel?
JP: It is. There are so many constraints on the kind of consumer-led revolution that we need. There are huge levels of confusion. Try and work out what the embedded level of carbon is in products -- it's bloody confusing.
SP: But in an apolitical society like the UK, surely it's a good way of reaching people?
JP: Well it certainly is, and I never underestimate that, but I don't think it's the ultimate driver. Government's going to have to drive this.
SP: So as a citizen I should join NGOs, campaign, write letters and so forth rather than just relying on buying green?
JP: That's the long and the short.
SP: We're only just getting there on the message 'shop better'. How do you sell 'shop less' to people?
JP: The only way we can sell the 'shop less' message is 'consume less, live better' around key parameters such as reducing indebtedness. Debt is a miserable burden on millions of people in our society now. The amount of human and social pain that comes with it is terrible. And then you have all the associated depression and mental illness that comes with it. So you come to realise that you may think you're buying your way out of misery, but actually you're just digging yourself deeper. It's all about living a more balanced life. You can't browbeat people into a sense of guilt about consumption because they're just going to say 'fuck off, hang on a minute, we've spent years as a society to overcome scarcity and walk into a shop and buy a cornucopia of products from all over the world and take a cheap flight to Malaga and now you're saying that's all off the agenda?' That's not going to work.
SP: How energy efficient is your home?
JP: We're in a terrace, which is great, but the people before us converted the attic space, so we can't insulate the attic because the top room is the roof. We get a lot of heat leakage there but overall we're quite good. We have an incredibly efficient boiler, draught stripping is the biggest thing in our house because we've got big windows and, as a family, we've got used to turning the thermostat down and putting on a jumper. I know that sounds really bad, people are going to think 'he's weird'. I don't have a car but I do fly a lot and got into trouble on my blog by acknowledging how many flights I took last year. But they're work flights. My work takes me to lots of different countries and that's not necessarily good, but that's the deal. I'm not trying to pretend I live a paragon's life. My friend George Monbiot says: "That's all bollocks Jonathan, if you were serious you'd give it all up."
SP: Which of the UK's political parties do you think has the best green vision?
JP: The Lib Dems have the best ideas in my opinion, and in terms of policies they've done more homework. But for a long time now they've not had the leadership around it -- Charlie Kennedy for all his charisma as a party leader was crap at anything to do with sustainability. Ming was slightly better. But it's not enough to have good policies, you have to have a better presence, a more compelling exciting message. Otherwise Cameron will quite easily outmanoeuvre the Lib Dems.
SP: So the Tories have the greenest vision?
JP: I never answer this question [which is the best party] because of my job as an advisor to the government.
SP: What's next for you?
JP: I'm interested in two things. One, the spiritual side of sustainability, and the other is going back to a more activist role. I went to a celebration of Anita Roddick's life last week, who was an astonishing woman. For me she was always a great role model; I used to watch her effect on people and it was just magic, so I'd like to get back to activism.
You can follow Jonathon's new ventures on his blog. A revised edition of Captialism as if the World Matters is on sale now, published by Earthscan.
31 October 2007 09:56am
Interesting that Jonathan thinks the liberals have a better green vision than the green party. If the green's aren't the best at being green, what's the point of them?
31 October 2007 11:19am
For someone who professes to be green, Porritt is actually quite blue - how many swears were in that interview? I won't repeat any of them as your spam filter doesn't seem to like it.
01 November 2007 11:00am
And interestingly you could view his politics as very red - one quote I had to leave out was about how we won't get anywhere on environmentalism if we don't sort out wealth distribution.
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