“You can’t have Sustainability without X.” You probably can…
“You can’t have Sustainability without a whole new economic model.”
“You can’t have Sustainability without mindfulness.”
“You can’t have Sustainability without self care.”
“You can’t have Sustainability without a reconnection to the natural world.”
“You can’t have Sustainability without a global agreement.”
I hear and read such statements of apparent fact all the time and my bullshit detector goes off immediately. Because, first of all they are simply wrong – maybe some of these X’s would help, but none are a 100% prerequisite to Sustainability. And secondly, often the speaker is a purveyor of, say, mindfulness training, looking for a new audience – it’s a bit selfish to put their own self-interest in the way of millions of other people’s.
But most importantly of all, such restrictive statements either distract from the Sustainability agenda, create barriers that we don’t need, or, in many cases, muddy the waters. If we want to bring the general public on board for a sustainable world, we need simple, clear, can-do messages. So let’s think about our audiences rather than ourselves.
Rant over.