What the main attributes of sustainability are, and how to make sustainability happen using more meaningful words.

The Problem

What would a house look like if the main contractor, the carpenter, the windows installer, the plumber, and the mason involved in the construction each had their own idea of how the finished building should look? You guessed correctly: conflict and chaos from the get-go.

Well, most of us do not want to admit this, but that’s exactly what is happening right now in many (most?) organizations, large and small, public and private, including prominent international ones, around what is to be achieved in terms of “sustainability.” 

Both “sustainability” and “sustainable development” have become abstract, generic, catch-all terms to designate chunks of reality that themselves contain a considerable amount of things (also read S2#1: Sustainability is an Abstraction). But there is no agreement on what these ensembles contain, or what all these “things” look or smell like, in real life.

Many sustainability professionals, when having conversations, assume they are talking about the same reality. So, they also assume that they understand each other. But most of the time, they do not. “Double materiality,” “low carbon economy,” “net zero,” “social responsibility,” and the cortege of acronyms (“ESG,” “DEI,” “CSR,” etc.): we go on making concepts even more abstract, by bundling existing abstractions together and naming these new bundles with yet other names, at a yet superior level of abstraction.

My friends, the result of this non-sense is chaos. And chaos in our human systems is here, right now. Humankind is dying of abstraction.

Hopefully, the (worsening) mess we are currently in will have us humans quickly reach “rock bottom,” where the death toll and suffering are so unbearable that more of us will wake up, organize, and lead (what will be left of) the rest of us to shift gears, before it’s too late. 

The Solution: Slow Down, Reflect, Sense, Describe, Move with Precision

We tend to be less conscious of the meaning conveyed by the words we use, especially if we overdeveloped our intellect at the expense of honing our senses and exercising our limbs. Apologies for bringing up some further intellectual jargon here, but I think it may be helpful. Semiotics is the systematic study of sign processes and how full meaning can be conveyed through a sign. In semiotics, a sign has two aspects: the signifier (the word or an image), and the signified (the actual meaning conveyed by the sign). Somewhat like a vehicle or container (signifier), and its content (signified). So, we tend to be more conscious of the signifiers than the signified. “Inclusion,” “freedom,” “justice,” “equality,” and many more big buzz words are “container words.” Alas, in the mouth of our world leaders, these words have become what Greta Thunberg calls “empty words.” Not that they have no meaning. They still do. But the meaning (what these container words contain, the full reality they designate) is unconscious, often even to the person who is talking. When left unspecified and undescribed, the meaning is left to the various listeners’ interpretations and assumptions: a huge variety of different things, often completely wrong. When these listeners are those tasked with implementing what they heard, their deeds can only result in a big mess.

Without consciousness, we have no control over meaning, literally creating chaos with our words.  

In Socratic conversations, we slow down, try to become mindful of the words we use, and seek shared understanding. The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates helped bring the full meaning of words into light in a process of questions and answers. Gradually, one topic at a time, he would help make abstract concepts concrete, by having participants restore their consciousness of the relationship between signifier and signified; between a word and its meaning; between logos and pathos; between mind and matter.  

I do the same in the Socratic conversations I facilitate. I ask questions like “what do you mean exactly by ‘inclusion’?” (“inclusion” is an example here). Then I make sure I understand, with questions like “tell me if I understand correctly. Are you saying __?” (I put it in different, more tangible words). I also ask other questions, such as “can you give us a real-life example?” or “what does that look like exactly?” until all the participants can see and agree on one same piece of reality that can be labeled with the word(s) we are exploring. Something that can be seen, heard, felt.

Empowered with the clarity and confidence of possessing the full meaning of their words, as regards vision, goals, activities, and means, participants leave the room liberated and energized. And they go straight to doing exactly what they need to do to achieve what was agreed.   

For the same reason as presented above, information is not practice. A blog article is not a Socratic conversation. But in an article, we can initiate exploration of some basic definitions from dictionaries or other sources, and examine if and how they work for us. I’ll address “sustainability” in this article. 

Clarifying Sustainability

I will talk about “sustainability” as widely used in our socio-economic and corporate lives: as it appears for example in “sustainability department,” “sustainability strategy,” and “Chief Sustainability Officer.”

After over 40 years of making sustainability happen on the ground, one standard, or one project at a time, and having led big programs that measurably changed human practices worldwide for the better, in several key industries, like the Biodiversity and Agricultural Commodities Program, I can list the following main attributes of “sustainability.”

1. Let me start with some of the things sustainability is NOT. Sustainability is not “the environment” or “environmental matters.” It’s not “climate action.” It’s not the “non-financial aspects” of a company. It’s also not about sacrificing profit, vilifying money, never killing animals, or never eating meat. Well, it’s NOT about an infinity of things, but I wanted to mention just a few of the misunderstandings I most often encounter in the media and social media.
2. We must understand and use the original definition of “sustainable development” by the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations (1987): a development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” If you haven’t yet, please read the Brundtland report. And if you have, I encourage you to read it again. More than 35 years later, you may see the report’s meaning more clearly. And yet, we must clarify its meaning further, as I will attempt to do below.
3. Sustainability applies to human development—not (directly or exclusively) to trees, climate, pandas, or to “energy” as a thing that would be external to humans, etc. The latter are all important, and are involved in our systems, but we humans can only develop (or regress) ourselves. We can only change our own behavior. Everything else occurs by rippling effect. We can only make the best possible assumptions, based on probabilities, of how all these external system components, and the whole system, may react to our own moves. That’s good enough–it’s just how nature works–but we cannot directly change anything except ourselves. So, again, when we say “social, or economic, development,” we mean the development of human beings, individually and collectively.
4. Sustainability is a quality, or a property. It is the quality of something that is maintained over time. What could we possibly attribute this quality to? What can stay the same over time? It cannot be palm oil, coffee, or a company—not even if we limit the time sequence we consider. Everything transforms constantly. The Oxford dictionary defines sustainability as, in certain cases, meaning “the property of being environmentally sustainable; the degree to which a process or enterprise is able to be maintained or continued while avoiding the long-term depletion of natural resources.”  But what is “the environment”? How much “depletion” is acceptable, and to whom? And what is that “process” or “enterprise”?
5. Sustainability refers to a constantly changing human behavior. But is it about changing aimlessly, or in a certain direction? Well, we (hopefully) change to survive and adapt to new circumstances (which we have also contributed to creating), individually and collectively. I propose this draft definition:
   

   In the context of human development, sustainability is the property of a constantly self-actualizing human behavior to stay alive, continue growing to the fullest possible version of self, individually and collectively, to embrace life in both its easy and challenging aspects, while also seeking to protect and expand life on earth overall, for as long as possible. 

6. Sustainability is about meeting all human needs, as the Brundtland report definition says. Because we are only one individual, one company, one species in the whole ecological system, and our survival depends on the rest of the system, behaving sustainably (developing properly) requires that we meet all our needs (in exact quantity and quality), while also helping others do the same. It is an exchange. In an ecosystem, all entities exchange services because each one’s survival depends on the survival of the others and the whole system. We serve each other and the whole. A corporation is here to serve too. So, we must define all those needs (ours, theirs) quite precisely, and be ready to change them regularly, too.

Clarifying a Corporation’s Sustainable Behavior

Equipped with the correct attributes of sustainability, we must clarify what our own specific behavior should consist of. When I work with the senior leadership team of a given corporation on their sustainability strategy, we clarify, to the most minute concrete detail, what it entails for that corporation to “behave sustainably.” We define the corporation’s development goal (what it wants to become as an upgraded entity interacting with others in its own circle of influence), and very specific projects with time-bound, measurable indicators and targets to reach that goal. These projects not only solve existing concrete problems regarding energy, human resources development, waste, sourcing materials, communications, etc., but also help the company acquire constant self-actualization as a habit. That requires possessing excellent management information systems and dashboards, and the ability to manage the interaction between qualitative and quantitative information. Overall, it requires a high degree of consciousness over self, the world, and words. 

Many companies must morph or reinvent themselves, almost becoming a different animal. For example, finding other ways to profit than selling high quantities of low-quality material stuff to numb masses. It may be what masses crave, but it is not what they need. As you can imagine, a corporation must tread this transformation carefully, in constant dialogue with its customers and other stakeholders, with enough empathy, intelligence, and tact. But I can guarantee you that it is possible. Many have done it. Profits may fluctuate, but when indexed on the correct variables, they can only grow overall. We are only changing how profits are made, and how profits are utilized, to keep investing intelligently.  

Very early in the clarification process, corporations will realize that they can only do so much, and need every other entity in their ecosystem to do their part. They also realize quickly that they need the right rules to play this game. They understand that they need to take an active part in changing existing laws and regulations if they want to survive. But this time, they will be seeking collective survival (or die).

Employees may stay or leave, but a company can keep growing and making profits, while helping its staff, customers, and shareholders grow, by staying sensitive to their evolving needs. It then renews and maintains a positive impact on the development of the entire ecosystem it belongs to, which in turn reflects positively on the company, in a virtuous loop. All while needing and using less resources. 

There are many more steps a corporation must take. I am writing a book about the whole process. But I will stop here for this article. I hope it’s enough to instill a desire, in some of you, to dare to question your own words, and to seek the guidance you need as soon as possible, from those who have walked that path before you, and know it well.

Nature Is the Only Standard

Observe how natural systems work. Humans, and companies are part of nature. To stay alive, a company must understand and fully embrace the (few) basic laws of nature itself, as one understands the rules of a game. Chaos is as natural as harmony. Death is natural and unavoidable; it is part of the rules. But we can play the rules so that life keeps winning and expanding overall. Or risk the opposite.

To stay alive and thrive, companies, countries, markets, all humans, and human systems must play nature’s rules intelligently. That is, if we want to keep playing.

What do you think dear reader? Any questions, comments, or further clarification suggestions? How does your company communicate, and behave, to survive the mess we are in? 

 

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