Sustainability at the Department of Commerce

The mission of the US Department of Commerce is "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce" of the United States. A national sustainability strategy would especially need to take into account the impacts on environment, human health and community well-being of current trade policies and practices as well as production processes and products. What is the relationship between commerce and economic security, and where do these fit within a national sustainability strategy?

A touchy subject indeed for politicians! Here we encounter the debate on the trade-offs between human needs and marketing objectives, between profitability and social responsibility, and between short-term gains and long-term sustainability and well-being.

What are the prospects for sustainability within the Commerce Department?

Background

The Commerce Department claims it is the first federal agency to establish an office dedicated to sustainable development. This is the Office of Sustainable Development and Intergovernmental Affairs, within the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA). The purpose of this office is "to promote sustainable development solutions to advance NOAA's Strategic Goals, environmental stewardship and environmental assessment and prediction." However, in 2009 there is no current staff listed on their website.

Sustainability at NOAA

In NOAA's Strategic Plan for 2009-2014, there is hardly any mention of "sustainability" or "sustainable development," even though the the Plan describe's NOAA's mission "to understand and predict changes in Earth's environment and conserve and manage coastal and marine resources to meet our nation's economic, social and environmental needs." Where does sustainability fit within NOAA's "functional model" for its strategic program planning? We also note that "sustainability" is not listed among the agency's core values of "People, Integrity, Excellence, Teamwork, and Ingenuity Science, Service, and Stewardship."

Nevertheless, sustainability appears as an operating concept in different branches of NOAA programs and activities. NOAA's Coastal Services Center examines the concept of sustainability as part of its "irreversibility, sustainability and safe minimum standard" (SMS), a tool addressing coastal restoration planning's "need to approach and understand the relative complexity of ecosystems". Here they point out how "restoring ecosystems is one of many ways to invest in the sustainability of the services provided by natural capital."

Sustainable fisheries

The Office of Sustainable Fisheries stands out as one effort to apply the concept and principles of sustainability to a major crisis area for biodiversity and economic security due to overfishing and other unsustainable practices. One question  is

Sustainable manufacturing

On the other hand, within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) we find enthusiastic promotion of "sustainable and lifecycle information-based manufacturing":

The United States needs to prepare for a future where products are 100% recyclable, manufacturing itself has a zero net impact on the environment, and complete disassembly and disposal of a product at its end of life is routine. To document and monitor these changes, US industry will require key resources and methods that will enable it to measure sustainability along several dimensions (such as carbon foot print, energy accounting and recyclability of materials) allowing accurate assessment of status and progress.

One of the goals for the Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) is to develop the necessary science for measuring the sustainability of infrastructure materials. As they point out

National and international
economic growth cannot continue into the next century unless industries,
especially high volume trades like the construction industry, dramatically
reduce the amounts of natural resources and energy they consume and the waste
that they produce. To remain globally competitive while embracing
sustainability, the U.S. construction industry needs to reexamine and redefine
its practices: chemicals, materials, manufacturing methods, products, and waste
disposal...

Without technically sound, thoroughly evaluated measurement science and data, the input available for making sustainability decisions is too crude and unreliable. This deficiency was highlighted at a recent meeting hosted by the U.S. Department of Commerce where industry expressed the "need for the establishment of internationally comparable metrics to measure the cost-effectiveness of sustainable manufacturing practices."