Sustainability: survival
To give me an idea about his new job at The Natural Step, Canada, my brother sent me a link to a presentation given by Dr Karl-Henrik Robèrt (founder of The Natural Step, Sweden): Sustainability: The Leadership Challenge.
Dr. Robèrt is a good speaker (unfortunately the chap who introduces him isn't... you might want to skip the first 5 minutes of that video if you decide to watch it). He obviously knows his subject, and he's passionate, clever, and entertaining.
The key thing I've taken away from his presentation is that sustainability is not about tree-hugging idealism, it's about survival. Following the general idea of limits to growth, The Natural Step use a funnel to show how the availability of resources will decline over time as we consume them (and population grows). That was already a familiar concept to me; but it's the imagery Robèrt uses that now sticks in my mind - unsustainable organizations will crash into the sides of that funnel. They just won't survive.
Dr. Robèrt is a good speaker (unfortunately the chap who introduces him isn't... you might want to skip the first 5 minutes of that video if you decide to watch it). He obviously knows his subject, and he's passionate, clever, and entertaining.
The key thing I've taken away from his presentation is that sustainability is not about tree-hugging idealism, it's about survival. Following the general idea of limits to growth, The Natural Step use a funnel to show how the availability of resources will decline over time as we consume them (and population grows). That was already a familiar concept to me; but it's the imagery Robèrt uses that now sticks in my mind - unsustainable organizations will crash into the sides of that funnel. They just won't survive.