Sustainability Paradoxes

Let us reflect on what I call sustainability paradoxes. My contribution is limited to give you just a few examples of such paradoxes and I let the reader explore it further, from a sustainability perspective and those who like, from a systemic perspective, too.

The underlying principle to solve sustainability paradoxes lies in exploring the sources, causing unsustainable and unhealthy lifestyles, in contrary to unsustainable developments that look at short-term reactions and solutions for the diagnosis and treatment of symptoms.

The Education Paradox: providing a sound education is a prerequisite for sustainable behavior and lifestyle. Knowledge transferred needs to be avant-garde, genuine and relevant with regards to sustainability. Unfortunately some university professor bases his lecture on Wikipedia. The lecture itself is unstructured, and consists in introducing perhaps not obsolete, but neither new nor genuine notions, using the definitions again from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is structured in a hierarchical way, so he finds it easy to fill a two hours lecture. Also the said professor refers to the articles, mentioned in Wikipedia. And overall the professor hides his incompetence, weakness and irrelevance using psyche, tactics and authority to reduce and submit the student in the auditorium: “yes, thank you and you make a good point, but actually you do not understand the real subject of my lecture, but I as professor have the authority of really knowing and understanding”, what he has read in Wikipedia the night before. The summit of his incompetence and arrogance is revealed to the students, when he uses examples in support of theory, he fails to remember and mixes up, using the wrong example to support one theory, instead of the other. He continues his lecture in bringing in all types of notions, generating a great chaos of notions, models, graphs, etc, so that at the end, no one really understands, what he is talking about. He then rounds up his lecture with a slide, which we could compare to an ad or poster of a super-market chain, presenting all kinds of brands and products. Thank you professor, all the students leave in frustration, two hours lost in their lives, two hours invested with no return for sustainability.

Not without adding that Wikipedia is a great information source, where we can find support for sustainable lifestyles.

Overall the main paradox is that while the quality of education is degrading rapidly, study fees are increasing sharply.

Climate Change Paradox: global warming, melting Arctic and Antartica, ice-shelfs, glaciers, inundations, mass extinction, rising sea-level, droughts. Despite these facts, we continue to guzzle fossil fuel and to exploit further and deeper sources of fossil fuel, releasing increasing amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, while being aware of the risks and threats to our civilization.

Politics Paradox: politicians are leaders and role-model. Still we have to acknowledge that there are exposed to the games of power all the time. Politics as an institution is characterized through opposing forces. What is needed is good politics through alignment to solve global crises, not in challenging options, solutions and tax resource allocations, but alignment in acknowledging the crises and to look for solutions with positive outcomes together.

Renewable Energy Paradox: to build the infrastructure for renewable energy we need all the legacy coal, oil, gas, hydro and nuclear energy. Rather than using these energy sources for anything else, we really need to focus and prioritize how this energy is used towards sustainability.

Future Generation Paradox: while we understand the notion of sustainability and “sustainable development, as a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Gro Harlem Brundtland, WCED 1987)”, we irrespectively completely deplete Earth’s non-renewable resources. The definition also refers to ethics, moral and equity, intra-generational (todays generations, North-South debate) and intergenerational (future generations) justice. While corporations have adopted an ethics etiquette (prior to the green etiquette) in establishing ethics committees, their independence as well as their efficiency can be put into question, considering the laxity and inertia with which equity and sustainability measures are revealed and implemented.

Consumer Paradox: While some companies have adopted green etiquettes, the western world proceeds with being individualist, materialist and consumerist, business-as-usual, maintaining resource intensive lifestyles, producing for consuming and vice-versa. We are all aware that our biosphere which we consider as a free common and which we can use at no cost, has rapidly decreasing capacity, in particular with growing populations and lifestyles globally. Also non-renewable resources including rainforest that are owned and valued will soon be exhausted, some already this century, some others a century later. The eastern world adopts western lifestyles, again mainly driven by fossil energy resources. Our global footprint is exceeding our planet’s bio- or carrying capacity. The world is locked-in in western social consumption pattern, western social norms and behaviors, causing short-term personal material gain and long-term individual and social crises globally.

Polluted Nations Paradox: isn’t it the consequence of the west, exporting its production into nations with lax environmental law and regulations?

Lost Generation Paradox: while we criticize the young generations and their lifestyles, tobacco and alcohol industries perform unprecedented growth and performance. Can these industries, which per se are not considered sustainable, transform themselves, take responsibility towards sustainable development of our youth and society, helping them to prosper and to give them perspective and optimism for a bright and healthy future? Other industries benefit from lost generations, too, including pharmaceutical companies through the increasing demand and production of anti-depressant, professionals including psychologists, psycho-therapists and also illegal production, trade and trafficking of all sorts of drugs. It is an evolution one could describe from the child’s paradise and dream world into hell and inferno.

Rather than excluding the tobacco and alcohol industry, I would include it in the sustainability process and make them take their responsibilities!

Health Paradox: extractive, chemical and pharmaceutical industries release pollutants and produce contamination of our biosphere producing plenty of sources of health issues and cancer development in human and other beings. It is true that scientific progress, healthier environments and lifestyles for those who can afford, allows us to live longer lives. But like the word implies, chemotherapy makes use of treatment and oncology medication from chemical and pharmaceutical industries in combatting diseases in a reactive mode.

Black Car Paradox: black car, black suit. Black dyes and colors are used to impress people, as a mode to create an atmosphere of fear and authority with the purpose to impress and subordinate people. Black is the color we also associate to burial and the dead. I remember when some people wore a black knob to express that someone has died in his or her family and that the person is mourning. To wear black suits and drive black cars, it also needs comfort, a lot of space and a lot of air conditioning during hot summer days. Those who wear and drive black, could adapt thus really engage and commit to sustainability in bringing more color in their and our lives.

Pedestrian and Bikers Paradox: More people using public transportation increase also the number of pedestrians in the streets. Also the number of bikers on both traditional bikes and e-bikes is increasing. Unfortunately we also witness an increasing number of fatalities on pedestrian crosswalks and from car-struck bikers. When do politicians understand that to promote and support such sustainable behaviors and willing people, more space and safety is needed to promote and protect such sustainable behaviors, and that supporting car and other CO2 emitting and polluting lobbies, even if they fund your party, are not the way to go but rather a dead-end.

Pets and Dogs Paradox: in western society, some dog, food and pharmaceutical “animal health” industry see big business and money in producing and providing special meals and diets for dogs. It seems that in our western world, dogs have become too fat, so there is a huge market for dogs to go on diet. I would also hypothesize that some humans favor dogs rather than entering in a relation with the other sex or other people. In other parts of the world, people actually eat dogs. In your point of view what is more sustainable?

There are many more sustainability paradoxes you can in your lives each day. It is good to think about them, engage with those concerned in a positive and constructive way.

Uncertainty and fear blocks progress in solving these paradoxes. Therefore engaging together in small groups in positive and open dialogue are the right way to go.

In “The Necessary Revolution”, Peter Senge (2008) from MIT Sloan School of Management, Leadership and Sustainability presents approaches and frameworks, illustrated through case studies, on how sustainability in corporations can be achieved. My message to the corporate world is that the sustainability revolution is necessary and needs to be radical. For this people, people in corporations from top to base, need to get out of there defense and open up for dialogue, take and allocate a large amount of their time to work on sustainability, make their processes more sustainable, and when needed radically reinvent their business, products, services. When starting with sustainability projects and enterprise, we should not have our expectations to high. Like Peter Senge states correctly, it is a process of learning in the organization(s), a process in which we learn from trial and error, and with successes, which in the beginning can turn out to be small. What counts is working together in small groups with peers and people from various divisions and units, becoming better and better over time with increasing experience, leading to even greater achievements towards sustainability.

Sustainability projects not only take place in the big corporate world. They need to become part of our everyday life. Sustainability needs to become our lifestyle and become part of every aspects in our life, either in private, family, neighborhood community, public life, at our workplace, in our leisure time and more.

What is most important is that we persist in seeking and engaging in dialogue. You don’t need to be a top executive earning 100 million dollars a year, even if he or she would have more time and resources to actually do so. Whoever you are and whatever your situation is, you really have to persist in seeking and engaging in dialogue. Talk, send emails, skype, tweet, facebook etc. You will get in touch with a lot of people who don’t care, who don’t see a “value” in sustainability and sustainable behaviors, sustainable consumptions and productions. If you are aware of that it will make your life easier and more enjoyable. There are many people who don’t care. There are also a lot of people who do care. The point is that you only need to be persistent, in order to meet the right people, who also decided to follow the path of sustainability. Go with the flow of sustainability, and we will have a great time with friends and making great experiences and meet great people working on great sustainability projects with you and many many other peoples, groups and networks. You might feel alone today, your life might seem difficult with a lot of troubles. Engaging in sustainability networks and projects, your life will look definitely brighter tomorrow.