Sustainability: Can our society endure?
Among the many ways that sustainability has been defined, the simplest and most fundamental is: "the ability to sustain" or, put another way, "the capacity to endure."
Today, it is by no means certain our society has the capacity to endure – at least not in such a way that the nine billion people on Earth, expected by 2050, can achieve a basic quality of life. The planet's ecosystems are deteriorating, and the climate is changing. We are consuming so much and so quickly that we are already living far beyond the earth's capacity to support us. And yet nearly a sixth of our fellow humans go to bed hungry each day: an unnecessary tragedy and a source of social and political unrest. Meanwhile, our globalized world is more interconnected and volatile than ever, making us all more vulnerable.
While sustainability is about the future of our society, for today's industries and businesses, it is also about commercial success. The mandate to transform businesses to respect environmental limits while fulfilling social wants and needs has become an unparalleled platform for strategy, design, manufacturing, and brand innovation, offering massive opportunities to compete and adapt to a rapidly evolving world.
The change we need
To endure, we as a society must transform our markets – how we produce, consume, define and measure value and progress.
This is a big challenge, and not just for business and economics. It is a call for massive social, political, technological, cultural, and behavioral transitions. We will need government to set incentives, targets, and rules for a level playing field. And civil society actors to account for and experiment with new ways of delivering social impact. Each of us must take action in our own lives to reward sustainable business models, and to eat, work, travel, and play more sustainably.
Extracted from: http://www.sustainability.com/sustainability
Among the many ways that sustainability has been defined, the simplest and most fundamental is: "the ability to sustain" or, put another way, "the capacity to endure."
Today, it is by no means certain our society has the capacity to endure – at least not in such a way that the nine billion people on Earth, expected by 2050, can achieve a basic quality of life. The planet's ecosystems are deteriorating, and the climate is changing. We are consuming so much and so quickly that we are already living far beyond the earth's capacity to support us. And yet nearly a sixth of our fellow humans go to bed hungry each day: an unnecessary tragedy and a source of social and political unrest. Meanwhile, our globalized world is more interconnected and volatile than ever, making us all more vulnerable.
While sustainability is about the future of our society, for today's industries and businesses, it is also about commercial success. The mandate to transform businesses to respect environmental limits while fulfilling social wants and needs has become an unparalleled platform for strategy, design, manufacturing, and brand innovation, offering massive opportunities to compete and adapt to a rapidly evolving world.
The change we need
To endure, we as a society must transform our markets – how we produce, consume, define and measure value and progress.
This is a big challenge, and not just for business and economics. It is a call for massive social, political, technological, cultural, and behavioral transitions. We will need government to set incentives, targets, and rules for a level playing field. And civil society actors to account for and experiment with new ways of delivering social impact. Each of us must take action in our own lives to reward sustainable business models, and to eat, work, travel, and play more sustainably.
Extracted from: http://www.sustainability.com/sustainability
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