Welcome to the Future
Vision towards a Better Gibraltar
Joanna Jadczak BA (Hons), MA Planning and Sustainability and Carmel Khalilian BArch (Hons) RIBA,
MSc Building and Urban Design in Development
Human activity already exceeds Earth’s long-term
carrying capacity. Fostering of material growth and
associated short-term benefits have proven to take
precedent over long-term goals. The cost of the
status quo continues to rise, whilst the benefits of
sustainable alternatives, which are becoming more
readily available is apparent, yet we persistently justify
our actions, or rather inaction. There will come
time when humanity will be forced to live and develop
sustainably, or else it will not be able to go on
living, a reality that to date has not yet been fully
comprehended.
Practically everyone, from activists and action
groups to CEOs representing companies considered to
be progressive, discuss ‘building a sustainable future’,
yet the very concept of sustainability defined in 1987
by the United Nations (UN) as ‘meeting the needs of
the present without compromising the ability if future
generations to meet their own needs’, far too often
feels like a nebulous subject matter discussed mostly
in vague declarations, whilst efforts to achieve it tend
to be limited to seeking to cause a lesser negative
impact upon our natural environment, rather than a
positive one. How can we be expected to motivate
ourselves and others to pursue a move toward sustainable
living, if we struggle to envision what we are all
moving towards, as many conversations focus upon
sustainability generalities in the global context.
Consequently, in this and the upcoming articles
we will discuss sustainable future in specifics by
following a simple set of principles and applying
them scrupulously, starting by clearly specifying
action(s), an initiative or a scheme and selecting a
clearly defined physical area within Gibraltar that
forms part of our built or natural environment. This
will be accompanied by identifying the sustainable
goal(s) that the action(s), initiative or scheme seek(s)
to achieve. We will define who would benefit
from these efforts locally, specify how and assess
the contribution to achieving the global agenda,
through meeting Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs). We will then demonstrate how sustainability
could look like in practice within the specified
area. Trade-offs will also be identified, as we cannot
ignore the fact that some sustainability measures
might affect the way we live today in a manner that
would not be widely accepted, as they would require
vast sacrifices compromising daily routines to a high
degree. For example, if your appointment in town
takes a 10-minute drive from your home by car and
20-odd minutes by bicycle, would you be prepared
to make that compromise, is it feasible? Similarly,
in respect of economic growth and the environment,
it is the natural environment, after all, that provides
the resources needed to produce goods and services,
absorbing and processing the industry’s unwanted
36 OTWO 11 / JUNE 2020