Chinese home and guerrilla gardening: The importance of preventing the loss of already existing sustainability

He suggests that doing so will open the door to less formalized approaches that require greater attention to actually existing sustainability rather than privileging innovation. Among other things, this reduces the policy-share burden placed upon promises and plans sketched out in an idealized future and pays credit to everyday behaviours and routines at present.

Drawing on studies of urban gardening in China, he highlights the sustainability gains that are motivated not by learned intentionality but rather associated with already existing, informal practices and everyday behaviours that happen to bring sustainability benefits. He furthermore redirects attention to the implications of possible sustainability losses caused by the diminishing or disappearance of these sustainability-compliant existing behaviours. This risk is vividly documented by the authorities’ efforts to make informal food self-provisioning practices in Chinese urban environments difficult.

It is important to recognise that the losses in terms of sustainability outcomes due to the disappearance of these behaviours may significantly outweigh the gains brought about by sustainability innovations favoured by the authorities.