Realigning Sustainability in the Post-pandemic World - Towards a Sustainable Planet

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads into more regions, the national priorities are moving towards supporting the stretched health systems, hard-hit small business owners, and the labour force working in various sectors. National governments are working overtime to ensure the availability of basic necessities such as food, water and sanitation to their population. Redistributive actions, hence, have become the focus. With the general belief that the pandemic will continue for some time, though hopefully in a minor capacity, what will sustainability look like in the post-COVID-19 world? In this article, Anjula Gurtoo and Rahul Patil attempt to ignite the discussion on sustainable future to understand the various shapes sustainability can take in the new future.

- Anjula Gurtoo and Rahul Patil

The nature of the world after the current coronavirus pandemic crisis remains to be fully understood. As the situation evolves rapidly, the predictions about economic, environmental, and social impact become highly dynamic.

COVID-19 Influencing the Current Sustainability Pillars

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered economic degrowth leading to a reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But obviously, we did not want to reduce the footprints via such a heavily cascading economic systemic failure. Surely, these reductions in emissions are temporary and will regain in some form once systems try to get back to their own normal. However, that normal will be different from the pre-pandemic normal and, furthermore, the current degrowth does not reflect positive development for sustainability. The leading defenders of degrowth-based sustainability transition do not advocate for the same as well, as this nature of degrowth expresses itself through extreme societal sufferings and hardships.

The production-consumption patterns, expectedly, are heavily disordered as well, evident through the lowering of crude oil prices due to a significant decrease in demand worldwide. We witness reduced production of crude oil through a tentative agreement between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia and other countries recently.