In 1987, when the Brutland Commission said sustainability is “about ensuring that what we do today does not compromise the opportunity and future for our children and grandchildren”, it comdemned us as villains for our actions, or more appropriately, inaction on the issue.
It leaves our society with challenging ethical and moral doubts of the value base upon which the edifice of our lives rest. To go to the point, we are compromising the quality of life for future generations. This goes to the very core of what we have valued during the last two hundred years of industrialisation.
Daily there are a litany of reports on the impact we are having, and hence, the pressing need to change direction. As a civilisation we are like a giant super tanker, trying to navigate through a sea of change. There is a glimmer of hope as feldgling sustainability initiatives are launched globally.
Deeply entrenched reigning paradigms are not changed easily.
Like it or not, ethics are infused seamlessly into everything, and we are still developing the ethic for sustainability.
Be green andtake up being sustainable
The formula for acheiving sustainability, necessitates that sustainable business plus sustainable consumer behaviour will build a sustainable society. Together they must back up the others’ aspirations for sustainability.
Overturning old carbon based technologies requires leadership and vision on what we can do. We need to be creating sustainable business and it will only ever be achieved by understanding how we can derive a sense of well being with less manufactured goods and services. Don’t forget, “They did not build Rome in a day”, and being sustainable is a long term job. You cannot undo one hundred years of carbon based growth in an instant.
The green business fight for sustainability can occur either through a fundamental change in societal values and/or a new ethic for preserving the future for the welfare of others. The enormous power of empathy in a change methodology, could just propel, in quantum leaps, the cause of sustainability.
The business reality
Sustainability has arrived at our feet and tomorrow belongs to sustainable businesses. Sustainability is about humanity accepting the challenge to build a sustainability culture that reaches into every crevice of society.
As our gargantuan “tanker” like economy hauls itself into a sustainable direction there will be more green products, to boot.
For now the battle is not yet won!
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