From deforestation to the gross overuse of plastic bags, Argentina has its fair share of environmentally unfriendly industries. But over the past few years, the country and Latin America as a whole has developed a growing awareness of all that is green. With this concern comes the need for more information and resources. Esustentable.com aims to provide this information and, in doing so, increases public awareness.
Focused on sustainable development, Esustentable is a forum where relevant articles from different websites are summarised and translated to provide Spanish-speakers with the resources to gather information on sustainable living. The site invites people to participate, learn and ask questions about sustainable development projects and ideas.
So what is sustainable development? The term can be defined as the development of resources that meet human needs of the present while preserving the environment so that these needs can continue to be met in the future. As Esustentable’s mission statement describes: “We are looking for new models of development, models that consider not only ‘economic viability’, but more importantly the balance that is needed between this and its related environmental and socio-cultural impact.”
Anglo-Argentine Martin Suttill and Chilean Stiven Kerestegian, an expert on sustainable design, are the creators of Esustentable. Together, they began to brainstorm the idea of designing a website about sustainability specifically directed at Spanish-speakers.
Martin explains the rationale behind the project, saying: “Humans are the only animals that create waste that is not used by anything else. For so long, products have been designed to be thrown away, and it should be a circular process, recyclable. We have the technology and education to change.”
The pair was further inspired by similar sites like TreeHuggers.com. They were also influenced by William McDonough and his book ‘Cradle to Cradle’, a manifesto calling for the re-shaping of the current industry into a more sustainable and ecologically friendly system.
“The idea was to filter information to Latin American countries to generate interest and consciousness,” said Martin. “We noticed that there was a lack of information about sustainable living for people in Spanish.”
The articles and videos posted on the forum discuss a variety of different topics and projects regarding sustainable development. They range from design and technology projects to articles on culture, alternative energy sources and the environment. Although they try to avoid controversial topics such as climate change, they do support some ongoing causes. Patagonia Sin Represas (Patagonia without dams) is one of these. This is a campaign to stop the Chilean government from building hydroelectric dams that will destroy the landscape in Patagonia.
The site is relatively new, having officially launched in November of last year. However, Martin described how they have had a good response. They have generated a lot of interest within Argentina, Chile, Mexico and the Latin population of the US. On average, the site receives about 50 hits a day, which says a lot for a website that was launched only a few months ago.
They have not yet reached the level of interaction on the site that they would like. Martin explained that he would like to see more people commenting and participating. He is toying with the idea of allowing visitors to write and post their own articles on the site. His aim is to create an online community with the common goal of promoting sustainable development.
As for the future, Martin wants the idea to expand. “At the moment it is a hobby but we want to make it more sustainable,” he said. They would like to team up with other forums to “create a network of blogs to raise awareness”. Additionally, they hope to involve the whole of Latin America and are looking at creating a Portuguese version for Brazilians. They are also considering advertising and sponsorship from companies that are “going green”. This would allow them to employ a fulltime writer and increase the number of posts and activity on the blog.
Martin is, however, realistic about how soon the positive changes he hopes to see can be made.
“We know it is not easy and we don’t expect thing to change overnight, but if we keep providing the information to people then slowly we can do it.”
For more information, please visit www.esustentable.com