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Sustainability

..and co-sustainment

(see long-termism, sympoiesis and other keywords)
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A Historic Term

  • Some learners may need to re-language the term sustainability when it is self-contradictory. 
  • Consuming means using up, yet the UN still uses the oxymoron sustainable consumption (Wang, et al, 2019) 
  • Entrepreneurs commonly use the term 'sustainable business' to mean business as usual
  • The term 'sustainability' can be traced back to the politics of the late 1980's (c.f. Meadows, et al. 2004)
  • Historically, it is difficult to separate it from the rise of globalisation. 
  • The (1987) Brundtland Report popularised the notion of 'Sustainable Development'.
  • Economic development for the poorer nations needed to be squared with Capitalism's vision of endless growth. 
  • (...oh yes, and with a concern for the environment.) 
  • After a while we began to use the term sustainable in its own right...as though it was clear and simple.

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One White Bit 'Sustaining' may mean upholding OR prolonging OR integrating

Sustainability v. co-sustainment

  • Arguably, most things are interdependent and non-linear.
  • It may therefore be dangerous to think of 'sustainability' as a simple idea. 
  • When we try to explain something using a basic logic of cause and effect, we may soon find it limited.
  • We may realise that it is better to analyse many different things in relation to one another. 
  • Wood (2002) proposed the term co-sustainment and Wahl (2016) advocated regenerative cultures.
  • We are inclined to forget that there are temporal and non-temporal meanings for the verb 'to sustain'. 
  • Arguably, we usually assume that sustainability refers to the making permanent of our existing lifestyle and status quo (see Fry, 2008)
  • Yet even this instrumentalist, or technological mode of thinking is insufficient to explain how things work. 
  • Often the direction of causation is unclear. What we assume to be cause and effect are usually co-creative. 
  • Whereas the syntax of sustainability is linear and causal, ecology itself is emergent and manifold. 
  • The verb to 'sustain' is transitive, and implies that there is clear distinction between subject and predicate.
  • What difference is there between 'something that sustains', and 'something that is sustained'?

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What sustains what - and for how long?

One White Bit For example:
  • What is it that sustains our lifestyle?
  • what is it that sustains food, shelter, and health?
  • what is it that sustains our technology?
  • what is it that sustains our capital?
  • what is it that sustains our society?
  • what is it that sustains our culture?
  • what is it that sustains our belief system?
  • what is it that sustains the environment?
  • what is it that sustains Nature…?
  • what is it that sustains God?

Do we sustain Nature?

  • We need to consider what sustains what, and for how long. 
  • Do we sustain technology or does technology sustain us? 
  • Where is the source of economic exchange? 
  • Isn’t money a self-organising system? 
  • At a deeper level, aren't we implying that 'green' industries can sustain Nature…? 
  • (Surely, Nature sustains us?). 

Should sustainability be sustained?

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  • Not everything can be sustained. 
  • Nor would we expect to sustain time, for example. 
  • Birth and death are intrinsically part of a process of flow. 
  • We may want to sustain our supply of fresh food, but the freshness itself cannot be sustained. 

Some publications

  • Brundtland, G.H., 1987. Our common future—Call for action. Environmental conservation, 14(4), pp.291-294.
  • Fry, T., (2008), Design Futuring, Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice, Berg Publishers: Oxford
  • Jackson, Tim 2009. Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. Sustainable Development Commission.
  • Lovelock, J. 1979, Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
  • Margulis, L. 1998, Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution, Basic Books, New York.
  • Meadows, D., Randers, J. and Meadows, D., 2004. Limits to growth: The 30-year update. Chelsea Green Publishing
  • Wahl, D. C., 2016, Designing Regenerative Cultures Axminster, UK: Triarchy Press, 2016
  • Wang, C., Ghadimi, P., Lim, M.K. and Tseng, M.L., 2019. A literature review of sustainable consumption and production: A comparative analysis in developed and developing economies. Journal of cleaner production, 206, pp.741-754.
  • Wood, J. 2007, Design for Micro-utopias; thinking beyond the possible, Ashgate: UK.
  • Wood, J., 2002, "Un-Managing the Butterfly; Co-Sustainment and the Grammar of Self", paper published in the International Review of Sociology - Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2002, Routledge, Taylor & Francis, ISSN 0390-6701 pp. 295 – 307
  • Wood, J. (editor), 2022, Metadesigning Designing in the Anthropocene, Routledge