Now more than ever, urban residents have the desire to live greener, more sustainable lives and are making efforts to achieve that future. However, in their new book, The Sustainability Class: How to Take Back Our Future from Lifestyle Environmentalists, authors Vijay Kolinjivadi and Aaron Vansintjan make the argument that that environmental sustainability has been co-opted by the urban elite, leading cities to become unsustainable and inaccessible to the working class. The Sustainability Class shows us that sustainability can only be achieved when it is made to be for everyone.

 

In the interview below, authors Vijay Kolinjivadi and Aaron Vansintjan speak on the process of researching and writing The Sustainability Class, their own relationships to sustainability, and what we can do to participate in ecological solutions. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What inspired you to write this book and when did the project begin?

 

This book was inspired by an increasing contradiction we have been noticing between lifestyles that promote green living and how they dispossess people of their lands, gentrify urban neighborhoods, and encourage extremely wasteful activity.

 

In Montreal, where we live, a new university campus in a migrant neighborhood of Montreal was being advertised as green, with bike lanes, trees planted, and LEED-certified buildings, while also contributing to, and doing nothing about, an astronomical rise in rents, leading to evictions. We felt something about this picture was wrong. 

 

One of us (Vijay) wrote an article for Al Jazeera in 2019, entitled: “Why a hipster vegan green tech lifestyle is not sustainable.” This generated a lot of interest. People shared concerns with green developments leading whole neighborhoods being branded for real-estate speculation. Following that article, Vijay was approached by Roísín Davis of Haymarket Books, who suggested Vijay write a book about this phenomenon. Vijay then teamed up with Aaron (a longtime friend, scholar of green gentrification, and fellow peer in the discipline of ecological economics). Roísín supported us pitching a book to publishers. We began writing the book for The New Press in 2022. We were advised by Roísín and others to consider looking into the lifestyle and green tech culture in California as a starting point, especially in Los Angeles. Thus we began our journey of “looking for ecology” in the heart of Los Angeles.  

 

 

How did you find each other as co-authors and what was the process like for writing the book together?

 

Aaron and I were graduates of an ecological economics lab led by Professor Nicolas Kosoy at McGill—a mentor who taught us both never to be afraid to speak truth to power. Aaron had already been very actively involved in journalism and the student movement against tuition hikes, as well as in degrowth scholarship. He had also started an online magazine about environmental justice, Uneven Earth, which Vijay also became an editor for. Our friendship, common interests, outlook rooted in a social and political lens around ecology and economics, and our interest in writing outside of academia for broader audiences made it a natural fit. 

 

We wrote the book in a truly collaborative way: We would share thoughts, ideas, news stories, artwork, and reflections on a social media channel, together with another friend, the journalist and photographer Neal Rockwell, who joined us in Los Angeles. These led to a kind of brainstorming on how to organize the book and what emphasis to place. Our writing of the book involved breaking down chapters into bite-size themes or talking points, which one of us would draft, and the other would complement or take on new directions. While occasionally one of us would push back on the others’ reflections, in most cases, we were very much on the same page. 

 

 

Can you give us a brief description of what the sustainability class is and why you felt it was important to write about?

 

The sustainability class, in a nutshell, is the people who might be middle- or upper-middle-class, working (often in urban areas) within the creative or professional and managerial sectors, and who have a desire to address contemporary environmental problems, from climate change to biodiversity loss. We understand the sustainability class as prioritizing technological solutions and economic growth as the key to addressing ecological and climate breakdown; focusing inwardly on lifestyle through wellness, well-being, and self-care through “lighter footprint” consumptive choices, and having faith in existing political institutions to administer or manage environmental crises (for example, the UN or NGOs like The Nature Conservancy). What brings these values together is that class is rarely part of the picture: sustainability is bought into, innovated, or managed, but never led by working-class people—who, by definition, lead much more sustainable lives than the sustainability class. 

 

We call the ideology of the sustainability class the PIE, an acronym for “purity”, “innovation,” and “efficiency”—in which proximity to an unspoiled, pristine, and depopulated “nature” is paired with technological fantasies such as carbon-neutral megacities in the desert, and “innovating” our way out of any and every obstacle. We refer to the vision of a PIE in the sky, because the “sky” is often some other place far away or in some other time—where the impacts of resource extraction and waste can take place with complete disregard to people in the Global South, or in marginalized communities in wealthy countries as well. It is also a kind of inward escape that evacuates politics or a desire to confront unfair and uneven power relations. This is because they stand to benefit from existing power relations through their class position. 

 

We think it is important to write about the sustainability class because attention to class is too often ignored when discussing environmental issues. This is today creating an increasing divide between the desire to engage with the seriousness of climate and ecological collapse, and the everyday challenges of making ends meet. In short, the sustainability class (of academics, tech startups, NGOs, and government technocrats, among others) has been prefiguring the future for wealthy and entitled people, at the expense of a vast majority of humanity. Even so, that same class may not itself take part in that exclusive, eco-apartheid future, as incomes collapse, and the middle class sees its privileges and security decline in the coming era of stagnating growth, economic disruption, and war.

 

 

How did you come to identify yourselves as members of the sustainability class?

 

We identify ourselves as members of the sustainability class by our class position first and foremost. We both come from families that helped us out financially in various ways, such as through supporting our tuition at university. This made it easier to study and become educated without having to work to pay for it. We both share aesthetic preferences around cycling, being fit, eating well, recycling, and so on. We both live in a city in the settler nation of Canada (a “developed” country) whose quality of life is based on the exploitation and deliberate dehumanization of many others. These include low-income workers, temporary migrant workers, land- and forest-based communities across the world subjected to Canadian extractive enterprises, and Indigenous Nations whose territory and knowledges have been subjected to brutal erasure.

 

We both have careers in the NGO and academic sector, which makes us part of the creative and professional managerial class. One of us (Vijay) is a consultant for an environmental NGO that reports on global environmental and climate policy—thus, joining the circuit of who we term “green administrators”—those who whose labor is employed to advance the machinery of status-quo “sustainable development.”  We both reside in “hip” parts of Montreal, bike to work, and travel quite a bit. In short, we are the sustainability class.  

 

By recognizing ourselves as part of the sustainability class we want to encourage people to be more vulnerable about how their class, assets, and income put them at the forefront of climate and ecological breakdown, irrespective of the various ways they may virtue signal their consumption choices. By owning up to class privilege and building bridges across class, we can be less alienated and mobilize our resources in ways that strengthen the fight for a liveable planet. We don’t need to get stuck in either buying our way to redemption or renouncing the contributions we can make ourselves—but we do need to step outside of our class position to build coalitions and support networks. 

 

 

There seems to be a lot of greenwashing when it comes to information on the topic of sustainability, climate change and potential solutions—how did you decide which sources to trust?

 

A simple answer is that we are suspicious about anyone trying to sell us something—whether that is a product, a service, or even an idea. These are inherently exclusive: If being part of the solution means buying into it, then what about all those people who can’t afford to? We look for climate change strategies that don’t divide ordinary people—whether these are workers or neighbors. We are wary of strategies that require purchasing power, blind faith in technological innovation, or virtue signaling to performatively show something off to others as a way to separate an in-crowd from an outsider. We are more inclined to trust strategies that begin with relationships between people and the land, historical and contemporary, that build solidarity across all kinds of difference. This, we argue, is fundamental to what acting ecologically really means. 

 

We also based our analysis on the latest climate science and research in the environmental and social impacts of the global political economy. We looked for research that serves the interests of the people rather than corporate and state donors, who have specific commercial interests—such as those peddling false green solutions or industry lobby groups. 

 

 

Can you talk a bit about the creative investigative research that you did for the book? 

 

To write this book, we were engaging in a few different kinds of investigative and creative research. First, we were constantly tracking and analyzing the latest findings from climate change and ecological science, news articles on green and sustainability projects around the world, and investigative journalism by others on these projects that often showed they were nothing but shams. We would do some deep digging into some projects, their finances, funders, and proponents—for example NEOM in Saudi Arabia, luxury green resorts, carbon offsetting projects, and so on. 

 

At the same time, our process was really aesthetic and visual. We were always sharing photos and images that captured the aesthetics of the sustainability class. Whenever we saw it in a restaurant, airport, conference center, when we saw an advertisement or product, we would take a photo of that and share it with each other. It was a lot of laughs. We tried to distill that vibe into the cover of the book, which we felt summarized the whole experience. 

 

Then, we did a lot of empirical, on-the-ground field work, in places like Los Angeles, Auroville (India), and in Montreal. These involved interviews and extended adventures, often hilarious as well, as we would provide live commentary on the ridiculousness of what we were experiencing. Then we also spoke to informants who gave us firsthand knowledge of places like Ecopark in Vietnam, or the Stop Cop City mobilization in Atlanta, Georgia. 

 

 

The book does a great job of striking a balance between empathy and cold truths. How did you find a narrative voice that would keep the reader engaged?

 

We did not want to compromise on the sharpness of the message, while also recognizing that we are also part of the very problem we are challenging as members of the sustainability class ourselves. One key tool for that was humor. We painted a picture of the sustainability class lifestyle that is deep down absurd, but also, we think, very recognizable. We tried to balance being snarky and giving people the benefit of the doubt, knowing that most people are well-meaning and honestly trying to change things for the better. We know we are responsible for it too, sitting with our lattes in a café with hanging plants writing the book, so it is easier to be empathetic to our readers. 

 

In short, our voice tried to connect with the reader with humor, questioning, and curiosity—rather than authoritarian knowing, or scathing critique. While we did not let up on holding the sustainability class accountable, we also didn’t see the point of berating them for their “mistakes” either. We need to call each other in to do things differently. 

 

 

Do you think this book will be a wake-up call for people or more likely to shine a light on what they already know but haven’t figured out how to act on?

 

We hope the present moment is a wake-up call to readers, who we hope to shift away from elitist or exclusive solutions. We want to help people realize that the strategies of the sustainability class are not only unsuccessful, but that they are actually making things worse. With Trump 2.0 and a crackdown on dissent, as big tech billionaires attempt to authoritatively push their “solutions” onto people, we hope to see more stepping out of their comfort zone—and most importantly outside their class privilege—and working towards building solidarity. 

 

It would be great to see this book contribute to shaking up liberal and progressive green consumerism and technology savior fantasies and instead into joining collective struggles for justice. The obsessions with proximity to wilderness and green lifestyles and innovation only make the rich richer, or create exclusive forms of purification that ultimately alienate us. 

 

Combating this false performance of ecology means building solidarity—relationships with real people. It means joining existing grassroots efforts to support tenants, taking over municipal governments to divest from fossil fuels and stop the funding of a surveillance and police state, and building public and affordable basic services (housing, energy, food, and transport) within antiwar internationalism. We want to see readers understanding ecology as being about taking essential public services out of the hands of billionaires and into the hands of the workers, farmers, and communities around the world. 

 

 

Did it feel daunting to present ecological solutions to save the planet? How do we get people interested in reading books like this and taking action across the political divide?

 

To paraphrase the late anthropologist David Graeber, this economic system is an ideological and cultural creation that can just as easily be undone as it was created. Ecological solutions are always possible. There is no “good” or “bad” ecology, only an ecology that we can help foster and set in motion. Coming up with ecological solutions doesn’t have to be daunting. It is in theory quite simple. We need to build up the social movements and break down the social fragmentations that prevent life from thriving, and exploit those who take care of it. 

 

We used humor as a strategy for ourselves, too. Humor is a way to process the absurdity of the present. We hope that it is contagious. We played with the aspect of vibes around the book cover to hopefully draw in readers to a world beyond pervasive self-branding—a world where real connection between each other and our world might still exist. We hope to build off frustrations around empty liberal speak, vapid commercialization of aesthetics and vibes, to dig deeper at the real questions. But we also want people to mobilize to avoid a dark future of tech surveillance, authoritarian fascists, and a green apartheid that throws a good chunk of humanity in harm’s way in the face of ecological collapse. 

 

Meeting people where they are, speaking to the actual concerns of working people, and stepping outside of social media bubbles, content creators, Silicon Valley types, and elite wellness rhetoric will allow a different, much more consistent and relevant, set of ecological solutions to emerge. Bringing class into the picture is a crucial way to get from here to there.

 

 

Were there topics that felt too challenging to incorporate into the book?

 

We did not talk about the importance of gendered labor and caretaking enough. We didn’t want the book to be about everything—and while we touched on anti-imperialism as key to tackling unequal ecological exchange, there were many geopolitical aspects that we did not touch on. These, we felt, would take our readers beyond the core messages around classist consumption and PIE-in-the-sky solutions that green administrators and ecomodernists keep throwing at us. 

We also couldn’t offer political strategy, blueprints, policies, or advice to political parties. We tried to keep to the solutions to what people can do in their neighborhood. Workplace organizing, and the role of organized labor, is a whole other part of the picture, which we didn’t discuss enough. Including these would warrant a book on their own. But there are already many books out there about these topics, we listed some in the afterword.  

 

 

Which writers or books would you count among your influences in this genre?

 

There are quite a few books and authors that inspired us to think about ecology, ranging from the late urban historian and political writer Mike Davis to anthropologists Arturo Escobar and David Graeber, Indigenous writers like Robin Wall Kimmerer and Kyle Powys Whyte, and Indian ecologist and historian Ramachandra Guha.

 

 

Can you say what you’re working on now?

 

Both of us just got new jobs in the university-NGO complex, so we’re quite busy settling in to being full-time green administrators. Vijay has been involved in Palestine solidarity organizing and teaching classes about the solidarity economy. Aaron is working on a project that shows the power of the commons in an era of climate disruption and declining growth, with our friend and collaborator Neal Rockwell. He is also constantly trying to carve out time to work on his science fiction, which seems increasingly futile as reality becomes stranger than fiction.