The current model of development is socially unfair and environmentally unsustainable, as exclude a large portion of the world’s population, increase the economic disparities, puts pressure on workers’ rights and conditions, and is environmentally depredator.

There is no possibility to eradicate poverty in the world and to reach social justice by thinking of extending the current productive model that has brought welfare to the developed countries. It is simply environmentally unsustainable. There is a need to move towards Sustainable Development to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

This means the world must and will change. It also means that our production and consumption models shall undergo a deep transformation. Understanding these changes and its consequences for workers and their communities is one of the major challenges the Trade Union movement needs to address. Therefore, we, workers and Trade Unions, should organise and strategise a debate and decide our courses of action.

We at Sustainlabour are firmly convinced that a sustainable and fair development needs the extension of labour rights and environmental protection. The creation of decent and environmentally responsible jobs is the only way to guarantee the livelihoods of the millions of workers that live today in this planet.

Workers and their Trade Unions can play a fundamental role in the path to a Sustainable World, a more central and active role than the one they have played so far. Integrating the environmental dimension in the trade union agendas is a real challenge but also a necessity to be faced by Trade Unions.

The current energy model dependent on fossil fuels is not sustainable. It is not sustainable, neither, to engage in widespread use of the thousands of toxic chemicals that poison our rivers, our soil, our atmosphere and our bodies and those of other living beings. Millions and millions of tonnes of toxic substances in workplaces cause illness and death: 440,000 workers die every year because of these substances, and millions of women workers suffer reproductive problems because of exposure to mutagenic or teratogenic chemicals, or chemicals that give rise to endocrine disorders (ILO 2005). The chemistry we are familiar with will sooner or later have to be replaced by a different one that is more compatible with life, i.e. green or sustainable chemistry.

Nor is our current agri-food model sustainable: it continues to destroy forest areas and to erode fertile land to dangerous levels; it is polluting soil and water with chemical fertilizers and pesticides; it is drastically reducing biodiversity and fishery resources. The current model has not only failed to relieve hunger in the world, but it leads to an ever less efficient diet, giving rise to serious health problems due to overweight and obesity in developed countries and in the urban populations of developing countries.

The solution to hunger on the one hand and obesity on the other is a different agri-food model that is socially and environmentally more responsible, based on a different diet but also on large-scale development of integrated and ecological agriculture that guarantees food security and sovereignty.

A different energy model? A different agri-food model? A different chemistry? The dimensions of these changes are colossal. For better or worse, the effects of the transformations these changes will require on employment and the means of livelihood of workers and their families will be enormous.

It is necessary to develop a new and sustainable model of production and consumption. In this process, the sectors with greater environmental impacts - which are unsustainable, will be displaced by other emerging ones, with smaller environmental impacts. It is fundamental to introduce policies for a just employment transition to ensure that workers negatively affected by restructuring will have safe and decent employment alternatives. Decent work and secure jobs are essential for people to have a sustainable livelihood.

Strengthening our understanding of the links between the environment, labour and poverty is a permanent and crucial challenge for all trade unionists, and is of central importance to the future of the labour movement.