Sustainability and all that jazz...

Over the past 20 years we have all been bombarded with words such as responsible, critical, development, quality and, of course, that "s" word, sustainability! This word is like a chameleon, it takes on different colours depending on where and who speaks about it.

If it comes from environmentalists we are told that our world should return to the dawn of time and be a pristine planet where everyone is smiling, rainbows abound and flowers bloom and birds chirp.

On the other hand, if it is a politician who uses this word (very carefully, one has to add, and minding the "s"s and "t"s well!) then we have various scenarios of doom and gloom if these happen to belong to an opposition party and the hope of tomorrow if they are from the government side.

However, we are always told that there is a price we have to pay and that price is our over-exertion of the environment with a consumerist attitude and "throw away" culture!

If it is a building contractor who utters this word then we are told this is "progress" and that they are saving the day by producing more homes and buildings on land that would otherwise have been, well... land!

We try to promise ourselves that tomorrow things will be better because our children will know better. Yet, is this the case?

As I said in the beginning, 20 years ago we started to talk of sustainability... And 20 years on I still see a long road ahead of us to achieve the basic objectives of Kyoto and the numerous conventions and declarations since Rio in 1991.

You only have to take a short walk down your street and you will see things we all do that will affect our sustainability tomorrow.

Forty years ago, before Bruntland and her famous document, Malta and Gozo became independent and the main pillar of our economy was tourism (our old friends from Westminster did a good job in persuading us that we could find no better option after the British forces' departure from the islands!) and we started to work on a study and action plan that was drawn up by a consultancy firm commissioned by the UN, Italconsult.

The authors gave us a step-by-step guide (some might say this was an obvious guide) to achieving tourism growth for the islands and this included planning and developing tourism numbers and economic growth according to the available resources at the time.

For a time it worked but then, in the 1970s, some bright spark thought of competing with Spain and Tunisia and we went from 200,000 to one million visitors in a decade, just like going from zero to 80 mph in a few seconds! The result? Well, that's history!

The objective of all this background information is for us to understand that, really, sustainability is no new subject.

Certainly it does not require strategy upon strategy or policy upon policy to succeed.

All it needs is civic will power, civic discipline, civic awareness and, above all, a recognition of our own collective civic responsibilities.

Should we need to be told by the government or by the authorities not to waste water, electricity and fuel unnecessarily? Should we need to be told that the natural and cultural landscape are our only heritage that will ensure we all live in comfort and peace of mind and that this will be inherited by our children and children's children?

Do we have to take offence if someone asks us to desist from polluting the air with unhealthy carbon fumes or cigarette smoke?

These are just some questions we need to ask ourselves and look for the honest answers if we want to understand what sustainability and all that jazz about balanced lifestyles, carbon offsetting and pollution is really about. It is about acting responsibly and thinking about the consequences of our actions now and in the future.

On the other hand, yes, there is an alternative. But then I do not see much of a future in that, do you?

Mr Zarb is vice president of the European Union of Tourism Officers.