Hijacking Sustainability

by Adrian Parr

How the sustainability movement has been from ecobranding by Wal-Mart to the “greening” of the American military. The idea of “sustainability” has gone mainstream. Thanks to Prius-driving movie stars, it's even hip. What began as a grassroots movement to promote responsible development has become a bullet point in corporate ecobranding strategies. In Hijacking Sustainability , Adrian Parr describes how this has how the goals of an environmental movement came to be mediated by corporate interests, government, and the military. Parr argues that the more popular sustainable development becomes, the more commodified it becomes; the more mainstream culture embraces the sustainability movement's concern over global warming and poverty, the more “sustainability culture” advances the profit-maximizing values of corporate capitalism. And the more issues of sustainability are aligned with those of national security, the more military values are conflated with the goals of sustainable development. Parr looks closely at five examples of the hijacking of corporate image-greening; Hollywood activism; gated communities; the greening of the White House; and the incongruous efforts to achieve a “sustainable” army. Parr then examines key challenges to sustainability—waste disposal, disaster relief and environmental refugees, slum development, and poverty. Sustainability, Parr says, offers an alternative narrative of the collective good—an idea now compromised and endangered by corporate, military, and government interests.

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 16, 2009

About the author

Adrian Parr Zaretsky, PhD, is an internationally recognized environmental, political, and cultural thinker and advocate, author, and filmmaker. She is the dean of the College of Design at the University of Oregon abd Senior Fellow at the Design Futures Council. Prior to joining the UO, she served as the dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Arlington, and as the director of the Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati.

Adrian is a transdisciplinary scholar working at the intersection of architecture criticism, aesthetics, political theory, and environmental studies. She’s authored nine books, the latest three of which focused on environmental politics and sustainability culture, and she has served as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) water chair for eight years.

Reviews

[Eliot · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far so could. Slightly convoluted, but good material to chew on.

[Kyle]

Took one of her classes and was pretty impressed by her thought. Hoping to get to this soon.

[Ibtisam helen]

I'll keep an eye out for this one. Thanks for the recommendation, Justin!