The Sustainability Paradox: What Happens When Progress Comes from the 'Wrong' Side?
A Look Into the Outcomes of Progress through Undesirable Means
There was a time when smoking was glamorous. It punctuated dinner parties, filled boardrooms, and featured in every film worth watching. Its dangers were known, but ignored, until suddenly, they weren’t. In what felt like a generational snap, smoking became a public health crisis, a personal failing, a moral issue. For Millennials and Gen Z, sustainability has followed a similar arc. What was once a fringe concern has become the defining ethical stance of our time. Flying is guilt-ridden. Plastic is shameful. Consumption is complicated.
But what happens when the biggest drivers of sustainability aren’t progressive policies or ethical consumers, but political decisions we’d otherwise reject? In a strange twist of fate, economic constraints triggered by populist trade policies, inflationary cycles, and nationalist agendas have done what no climate summit could: slowed consumption. The Business of Fashion recently pointed to how Trump-era tariffs unintentionally throttled fashion’s global supply chain, reducing waste and overproduction. It’s an uncomfortable truth: the most effective climate action might come from chaos rather than consensus.
This isn’t an argument for right-wing governance, rather it’s a reflection on our current state of cultural dissonance. If the solutions we crave arrive from the "wrong" side of the aisle or as side effects of crises, can we still claim them as wins? Or does sustainability only count when it’s intentional, ideological, and Instagrammable?
The Smoking Analogy: How Sustainability Became the New Vice
Throughout the mid-20th century, smoking was positioned as aspirational. Advertisements showed cool, attractive people lighting up at parties, movie stars chain-smoking on screen, doctors in white coats endorsing specific brands. Marlboro turned cowboys into rugged archetypes of masculinity. Smoking wasn’t just accepted, it was status. But as public health data mounted and anti-smoking campaigns gained momentum, the cultural tone shifted. In a few short decades, the cigarette went from stylish accessory to toxic symbol of self-destruction.