ESG - Ensuring Sustainable Growth

In my capacity as the head of an ecosystem development and impact investment organisation, when my team and I work on solutions, we take our inspiration from natural ecosystems. Our ultimate vision is to build models and systems that not only build healthy ecosystems where beneficiaries understand the power of collaboration and can self-sustain positive impact and growth.

Upon deeper study it is both inspiring and eye-opening to see that ‘sustainability’ is not a new concept, it may have been defined by the United Nations and impact specialists “as a requirement of our generation to manage the resource base such that the average quality of life that we ensure ourselves can potentially be shared by all future generations. ... Development is sustainable if it involves a non-decreasing average quality of life.” [Geir B. Asheim, "Sustainability," The World Bank, 1994] but it was not invented by them because it is a fundamental building block to how life operates. It is integrated by nature into the DNA of living things, into their growth thesis. When things began to lose balance, I think that is when sustainability caught our attention.

Gro Harlem Brundtland - a Norwegian politician, who served three terms as the 29th prime minister of Norway and as the director-general of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003. In 1987, she chaired the Brundtland Commission which presented the Brundtland Report (titled Our Common Future) on sustainable development. It established the key principles for sustainable development that are widely accepted today.

In her foreword, Dr Gro mentions “The present decade has been marked by a retreat from social concerns. Scientists bring to our attention urgent but complex problems bearing on our very survival: a warming globe, threats to the Earth's ozone layer, deserts consuming agricultural land. We respond by demanding more details, and by assigning the problems to institutions ill-equipped to cope with them. Environmental degradation, first seen as mainly a problem of the rich nations and a side effect of industrial wealth, has become a survival issue for developing nations. It is part of the downward spiral of linked ecological and economic decline in which many of the poorest nations are trapped. Despite official hope expressed on all sides, no trends identifiable today, no programmes or policies, offer any real hope of narrowing the growing gap between rich and poor nations. And as part of our "development", we have amassed weapons and arsenals capable of diverting the paths that evolution has followed for millions of years and of creating a planet our ancestors would not recognize[1] .”

Thirty-six years later her concerns echo louder, and the challenge at hand has exacerbated exponentially. Why were we unable to alter the course of things even when the obvious was staring us in the face? Perhaps because we want growth but we refuse to understand sustainability.

I wanted to understand the root better so I delved a little deeper into the etymology of the word. The journey of the word "sustainability" began in 1713 with the publication of a German forestry handbook, which introduced the term "Nachhaltigkeit," meaning "sustained yield." This referred to the practice of harvesting just enough trees to allow the forest to regenerate in future years. Over time, this concept expanded to include the protection of other natural resources, such as animals and fish, ensuring their continued existence for future generations.

The term "sustainability" was not widely used until 1972 when a leading magazine published a series of articles titled "Blueprint for Survival." The series, written by over 30 scientists, recommended a change in lifestyle and the implementation of population controls, better natural resource management, and the establishment of "no-growth" economies to prevent societal breakdown. This marked the transformation of the meaning of sustainability from a narrow focus on forestry to a broader concept encompassing the responsible use of all natural resources for the benefit of future generations.[2] It was comical to see how thought leaders then were accused of “reflecting many of the "half-baked anxieties about what is called the environmental crisis" and go on to suggest that "the forces which have made civilized societies more humane" will overcome our problems (Nature, 235, 63; 1972).”[3]

What was even more interesting when I investigated the synopsis of the Blueprint for Survival and the thoughts of the authors reflected that sustainable resource management, holistic and ecologically integrated worldviews, and a high degree of social cohesion, physical health, psychological well-being and spiritual fulfilment of the members of a society or community were important for sustainable growth. I was overjoyed and grateful at the same time. The vision for SEED is to create inclusive economic prosperity, but we understand for one dimension to prosper other capacities of prosperity must be supported i.e., environmental, physical, social, mental, vocational, intellectual and spiritual, and prosperity to be sustainable, all capacities of prosperity must be considered.

I have therefore come to these understandings. Sustainability at the nexus of spirituality, biology and physics, and all the sciences that I know and understand is the intrinsic conscientiousness of these things:

1.?????We consume only what we need and therefore must take only what we really need. When we hoard or consume in excess, we create an imbalance that has everlasting ripple effects -this is the root of inequity and inequality.

2.?????In Animal Farm when the pigs take control of the farm and become the rulers, they use their power to enrich themselves and exploit the other animals. This leads to a situation where some animals have much more resources and power than others, which is unsustainable in the long term. When a small group of people control the majority of resources, inevitably, they are likely to prioritize their interests over the well-being of the planet or the people. This is a systemic flaw and anti-sustainability

3.?????The law of conservation of matter is often applied to the concept of material and energy flows in the ecosystem. Just as matter cannot be created or destroyed, the materials and energy in the ecosystem are also conserved and transformed from one form to another. When we disrupt the natural flow so we can have more, we may possess more now but we will have nothing in the long run

4.?????We will have what we need when we need it - this is deep-rooted in faith in the law of conservation but it often sits isolated in a corner in the world of capitalism where the placard on the wall reads ‘grab it before someone else does.’ we were NOT MEANT TO have it all. That ambition is dangerous and jeopardizes the cycle.?

5.?????In a healthy ecosystem, the food chain is a self-sustaining system in which waste from one species becomes food for another – the glory of our species is that we discover our place in the puzzle, that is how sustainable growth happens as the bigger picture is revealed.

6.?????Life is a process of transformation BUT we cannot skip stages. A very crass example would be the difference between a broiler chicken and a farm chicken, what is meant to grow in 120 days is force-fed, and injected to grow to full size in 30 days.

7.?????Life is a process of transformation and it ultimately transforms into the fruit of our actions – to think we are beyond collateral damage is a delusion. We cannot outrun the natural shape of life i.e., full circle.

8.?????Living in the present consciously, ethically, and with a deep sense of accountability is a requisite for sustainability

9.?????It is important to recognize that growth sans the fundamentals of sustainability dies a quick death.

10.??Greed is an anomaly, that is not how nature operates. This is why we will see natural ecosystems balancing themselves out. But this anomaly exists in our systems so we even in the 21st century are trying to create supportive ecosystems.

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I think one of the best thoughts I have come to so far on sustainability is what a speaker from the floor said at the WCED Public Hearing on 26-29 Oct 1985 in Sao Paulo, and perhaps in this one statement lies the key to of how we need to unpackage our jargons and definitions and take another look at what sustainability means for our planet, its people, our businesses, and our communities.

?“You talk very little about life, you talk too much about survival. It is very important to remember that when the possibilities for life are over, the possibilities for survival start there are people in Brazil, especially in the Amazon region, who still live, and these peoples that still live don't want to reach down to the level of survival.[4] ”

[1] https://www.are.admin.ch/dam/are/en/dokumente/nachhaltige_entwicklung/dokumente/bericht/our_common_futurebrundtlandreport1987.pdf.download.pdf/our_common_futurebrundtlandreport1987.pdf

[2] https://www.randrmagonline.com/articles/88041-sustainability-history-of-the-word-and-its-meaning-today

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/235179b0.pdf

[4] https://www.are.admin.ch/dam/are/en/dokumente/nachhaltige_entwicklung/dokumente/bericht/our_common_futurebrundtlandreport1987.pdf.download.pdf/our_common_futurebrundtlandreport1987.pdf