Extracted from Environmental Management News 

Dexter Dunphy, visiting Professor at the University of Technology Sydney, has a different Christmas wish list this year. "Dear Santa", he writes, "I know it's odd but this year I'd like you to take back some old toys and remodel them for me".

The growth economy: The growth economy isn't working anymore. This endless growth is like cancer; it scares me and can only end in death for people and the planet.

As you probably know, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and many others in power around the world are insisting that we spend, spend, on anything really, to keep economic growth going. China, India and other Asian countries are giving up their old sustainable ways, going gungho for growth too and adopting our wasteful practices.  

This is depleting the earth's resources and I'm afraid that there won't be anything much left for our grandchildren's future needs. I want a steady state world economy based on material sufficiency, sustainable and fair to future generations.

I'm for consuming only what can be readily replaced and renewed without damaging eco-systems. I think we can all have a quality life where everyone's needs, not greeds, are met. So Santa, can we please start the New Year with a replacement toy - the sustainable society?

The unfettered free-enterprise economy: Over the last few weeks as the financial meltdown proliferates, I've been amazed at the spectacle of a discredited US President George Bush pleading with the world's leaders to retain unfettered free enterprise. How could he not see that the US economy - with massive government subsidies to the most environmentally destructive industries - is anything but an example of free enterprise?

It seems to me that those who talk most loudly about free enterprise mostly mean, "leave us alone to create monopolistic organisations we can run inefficiently because we're subsidised by high prices and government handouts. And, of course, pay us millions even though we're lousy managers and socially irresponsible".

You might have read about Chrysler's Robert Nardelli, GM's Rick Wagoner and Ford's Alan Mulally flying into Washington for the US Congressional hearings into the auto industry - coming in their private jets to ask for a $US25 billion bailout. Mulally spoke for all three when he said he couldn't see anything wrong with continuing on his salary of over $US21 million a year despite being responsible for getting his company into this pickle. Were they the innocent victims of their own stupidity?

I want (a) more government regulation of the large financial and material production companies who have sabotaged the economy and the environment (b) more government support for small entrepreneurial organisations that are spearheading the move to a sustainable economy and (c) a genuine government-private sector coalition to build the new ‘no carbon economy'.

Rhetoric instead of action: As I write to you on Saturday 13 December, the Sydney Morning Herald reports more federal government handouts to boost infrastructure and that "nearly half the $1.2 billion earmarked for rail and road spending will be spent on freight in the Hunter Valley", that is, on an upgrade of the rail networks from there to Newcastle.

These rail networks will ship millions more tonnes of coal to China and India. The subsidy adds to the massive handouts already made to the coal industry to develop coal sequestration - a technology much more expensive than alternative technologies such as solar, wind and ‘hot rocks'.

I fear the Rudd government's emission targets will be well below what European countries have already agreed to - even lower than the minimalist levels the Garnaut report recommended and ineffective in keeping global warming down to two degrees celsius. You must be worried about your reindeers and the polar bears.

We elected the Rudd government on its promises to support action for a more sustainable world; so far its actions belie its rhetoric. President-elect Barack Obama has promised to rebuild the US electricity sector to use renewable energy over ten years.

"We have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country, in all 50 states, to re-power America, to redesign how we use energy, to think about how we are increasing efficiency; to make our economy stronger, make us more safe, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and make us more competitive for decades to come, even as we are saving the planet," he says.

Of course this too is rhetoric - but Obama appears to be planning to take real action when he comes to power while Rudd is locking us deeper into the carbon-based economy.

I'm desperate for constructive action not empty words. So this Christmas, can we join the future and get some real action to replace that old black fuel with energy from clean, renewable sources?

Santa, even though these three toys don't necessarily look broke they really are, so can you please remodel and replace them? Thank you, Dexter.

PS - If you don't exist, as some of my friends claim, I guess we'll have to redesign and rebuild the toys ourselves.

Vantage Point columnist Dexter Dunphy is visiting Professor in the Faculty of Business at the University of Technology, Sydney, specialising in corporate sustainability and organisational change. Contact at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it