G20 Foundation Publications Turkey 2015 | Page 113

CLIMATE CHANGE & SUSTAINABILITY 113
• Capacity to evaluate the sustainability of the options that is on offer.
It is quite often supported that a number of small things we can do as
citizens or consumers have the potential to influence sustainability. We
have all heard messages like “take a shower instead of a bath” (and what
about the millions of people without access to water?) and “consume
organic food instead of agriculture produces grown by industrial methods”
(and what about the millions without access to basic food?). Even if we
assume that a big number of individuals has the necessary options,
access and capacity to make sustainable choices, can se assume that all
such individual acts will result on a collective and big impact?
The answer to this question depends on the conditions upon which these
choices are made and the way the results of these decisions are projected
in the overall socio-economic system. To be able to add all the good
results of individual choices to big collective impact we must make