Words that are being used frequently or ubiquitously tend to lose their true meaning. Their true power and attractiveness. This is a phenomenon which has happened to the term Sustainability. Labelled as a trend or buzzword, Sustainability is having a rough time being understood. Interestingly enough, Sustainability can’t lose its innate value. The problem is not the term, but the individuals or groups who do not correctly understand its true meaning. Might a flexible way of describing Sustainability be the key to solving our world’s challenges?

Why Sustainability might be perceived as outdated or boring

I dug into the article realm “Why is Sustainability outdated or boring?” To be honest the reasoning behind the articles was rather unimpressive. A term which describes the basis of life systems can’t be outdated. Sustainability can’t be outdated. Sustainability is our roadmap to a thriving future.

Why does Sustainability receive such a bad reputation? While researching the negative reasoning I realised that there was a pattern in the arguments: it’s too complex, it’s mostly human-centric and we have to make it work perfectly.

Mostly, I agree that working toward more sustainable systems can be very confusing. For a big chunk of time, humans’ actions and impacts developed very linearly. This led to a long list of problems because we continuously encapsulated ourselves from the natural system. Additionally, we blindly followed a religion which is far from being sustainable: the global, capitalistic economy. 

Adjectives like (too) convoluted and obfuscating are expressing the frustration of people who want to achieve sustainable impacts, but don’t get the supportive information. It adds to the struggle that there are many definitions of Sustainability. The most prevalent one is about securing the needs of current and future generations. 

But why and how? The problem is not the term Sustainability, but the lack of understanding the many true meanings in all their beauty. Unfortunately, we are bombarded every day with what’s going wrong and not what we’re doing right. It’s very discouraging when we are not given the motivational and inspirational ideas to act sustainably. It makes us feel helpless rather than engaged. 

Perfectionism doesn’t work well with Sustainability

Perfectionism became a prevalent obstacle in high-achieving societies. Unfortunately, perfection doesn’t work very well with Sustainability. There is no perfect end state in sustainable development. It’s just a very long and windy road full of junctions and trial and error actions to change the status quo. 

Currently, we are at a point where we have to decide if we want to continue evolving on this road or disappear. With the appropriate actions, life for us and other species will be possible. However, no actions will bring us to a dead end in our journey on Earth.

You see, sustainability can’t be an outdated term because our actions determine the course of humanity. Yes, Sustainability is confusing, but it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Pointing fingers doesn’t help anybody

The term Sustainability has been around for many decades, but people don’t seem to get it. It’s not about their level of intelligence, the problem is the repeating narrative which is discouraging. 

I am also reluctant to act when someone accuses me of bad behaviour and tells me how bad I am. The “pointing finger” narrative doesn’t help anyone: people who already implement Sustainability get annoyed by people who don’t; and people who don’t understand the benefits of Sustainability, don’t like being told what to do. 

When being accused of being the problem, people automatically don’t like being told what to do. No one wins. 

Another recurring perception of Sustainability is that it’s boring. Sustainability is portrayed as this pastel green wave of recyclable and reusable products. Sustainability isn’t about producing sustainable products, it’s about systems of production which need to be sustainable. 

Sustainability might be boring because we make it boring. We don’t embrace endless opportunities and prefer to stick to known and destructive practices. 

Here I want to share some of my pins from Pinterest. I saw that the majority of pins aiming at communicating sustainable practices are green. They don’t really resonate with me because I prefer vibrant colours and inspiration for action instead of advertisements to purchase more “green” products. Sustainability can be any colour. It can be vibrant, it can be fun, it can be glamorous. It can be anything you want it to be, but always for the best of the planet and people.

Reimagine Sustainability Pinterest

Exaggerating that Sustainability sucks is not the answer

One article which made me chuckle was published by the Guardian with the title “Why the word ‘sustainability’ should be banned”. The excerpt showed: The word [Sustainability} has become so corrupted as to not only be meaningless, but to actually obscure the real issues.

Pretty harsh, don’t you think? Considering that Sustainability is simply a word that is being misused by ignorant people. So is the word the problem or the user? It seems to me that bad decision makers like to ignore the problem. Not taking responsibility for your actions is one of the main problems that prohibit us from achieving Sustainability. The article says that corporations make decisions. I disagree: People make decisions and corporations simply describe a group of people. 

It reminds me of a song by Jon Lajoie who raps on YouTube “Guns don’t kill people, I kill people with guns”. Same principle. 

So the word Sustainability itself is not the problem. The problem is the people who make poor decisions, intentionally or unintentionally, which only benefit personal or economic profit and harm people and the planet. 

Maybe instead of banning the word Sustainability, we should ban people from making bad decisions at the cost of others.

What does Sustainability mean?

I don’t want to go into too much detail about the definition of Sustainability here. In this paragraph, I want to give you some food for thought. If you want a more detailed approach to defining Sustainability, have a read through my article: How An Improved Definition Of Sustainability Will Actually Save The World.  

A definition of Sustainability I came up with while putting my thoughts together is:

Sustainability is maintaining a healthy balance of different elements within a system, which is resistant to external shock (like environmental catastrophes, financial instabilities, societal unrest etc.). 

It’s not too difficult to understand, right? If you have any thoughts, let me know!

Political decision-makers seem like they are having a hard time understanding Sustainability. It’s reflected in their inaction and poor decisions despite the many clear indications of humanity’s crises. 

Over many centuries, political agendas were built through racism and oppression. Is this why our political and industrial leaders struggle so much with Sustainability? Because our systems are based on eradicating sustainable practices and exploiting humans as well as the natural world?

What is the trouble if we see Sustainability as the problem and not the solution?

Sustainability is not a trend, but the right trends can lead to Sustainability. We are the ones who have to take action to sustain our life on Earth. Any other species on this planet is living by sustainable, natural principles. Humans are the only species who are disconnected from Earth’s systems. We are too developed to go back to cave life and we don’t have to, but we can act smarter to sustain our livelihoods. We are the ones who should find new and modern ways of connecting with the Earth again.

Instead of finding a globally recognised understanding of Sustainability, we need to shift our focus to solving our challenges most sustainably. Sustainability is context, not definition based. Small actions will bring us forward and inaction will become our boss’ battle.

Can Sustainability be achieved? YES!

Sustainability can be achieved if we stop wasting time in perfectly defining Sustainability (because it doesn’t exist). Instead of continuing to define it, people need to be given the chance to change their reality to improve environmentally, socially and economically. There are enough people who have figured out Sustainability in their life context. It’s about positive impact and there are many ways to achieve this. Easy peasy!

We have everything to understand Sustainability and act upon it. I truly stand behind my statement: 

It’s true because we don’t need much. We only need smart, simple and thoughtful ideas. Sustainability is merely making our world a better place for everyone and everything. Not living at the cost of others and giving nature space to flourish and support our livelihoods.

Apparently, we cannot cherry-pick, but that’s not true. Sustainability can be achieved from so many different angles that everyone has the opportunity to pick the most appealing cherry. I described the diversity of solutions in this article about start-ups: Climate Tech Startups: Nailing It With Diversity For Sustainability.

The majority of us can cherry-pick, but some have more responsibility to carry and their decisions have a wider-reaching impact. Those people in positions with decision-making power have to understand the Sustainability context in which their decisions have a wide- and long-lasting impact. 

Sustainability is badass! It’s the support we depend on

Sustainability is not the issue, people are contributing to the issues. Sustainability is not boring, people make it boring. Sustainability is not preachy, people transmit accusing messages. Sustainability is not expensive, people build systems that are too cheap and don’t consider future costs. Sustainability is not time-consuming because Earth is not running out of time… We are.

Sustainability is badass – we’re saving the world.

Quote by Studio Republic

We are the ones who can make Sustainability exciting, engaging, cheap, trendy, meaningful, helpful, supportive etc. My mission is to use positive language which everyone can relate to. Research your facts and make them relatable to your audience. 

In the end, it’s simply about taking responsibility for our actions. We need you! Everyone! We need Sustainability heroes, change agents, dreamers, or any other role you want. Achieving Sustainability will become a piece of cake with our efforts. 

Start with understanding Sustainability, but on your terms. Your perception of Sustainability will evolve with more research, thought and action. You will naturally connect with people who agree as well as disagree and challenge you. Change the way you talk about it – from crisis scenarios to opportunities for a better world. This is the beauty of Sustainability, constantly evolving to become better. It’s better than perfection because it’s real.

Let’s change from shrugging off our responsibility to Rock’n’Rolling our Sustainability achievements.