Why Sustainable is not Enough

Think about it. Sustainable is getting by-enough to continue to living. It means defining, targeting and ensuring a minimum. Drop below that minimum and we die–either slowly or in spectacularly apocalyptic fashion.

Then there’s the oxymoronic issue of sustainable development. Development, as currently practiced, is a linear process based on targets for growth. The paradigm shaping this practice is competitive, linear and sees growth as something that can continue indefinitely. “Development”, in the sense defined above, is unsustainable. Nothing lives forever. That includes Redwoods, the American automobile industry and George Burns.

Sustainable development also implies doing the minimum in the development process to maintain conditions favorable to development. If you’re mining minerals in a third world country you don’t need to make your workers wealthy, you need to keep them minimally healthy and maintaining community and ecological health is well off the radar. You just need to keep them working or find more workers needy enough to take their places. Doing so sustains the development process. Donating profits to UNICEF or some other NPO/NGO to be “socially responsible” makes little difference.

So, sustainability, asks us to do the minimum. Certainly many of us could get by with much less. We really could lower the bar on “enough” without engendering any suffering for our selves and our families. And, from what I see, I think we should. However, can we not also do more, much more, to generate value, create an abundant wellness, a world (inner and outer) in which we can all flourish?

Wouldn’t it be more interesting, engaging and exciting to focus on creating value for all constituents in the value web?

What would that look like? What would you be doing? Where should you start, NOW?

 

Tags: csr, sustainability, sustainable development