Characterizing Sustainability

Some concepts cannot be defined in absolute terms, they can however be characterized: Sustainability is one of them, ethics too. Much of my academic, co-curricular, and career endeavors are/were vested in understanding, exploring, and enacting concepts of sustainability. My senior capstone project focused on sustainability as a "fuzzy concept" and "wicked problem" (more accurately to me, a wicked process since satisfying solutions beyond prevention don't always exist) and how we can influence higher education institutions to lead the notion of sustainability to tangible and significant outcomes as individuals and organizations. Beyond understanding its implications from academic literature, theoretical and applied science for sustainability, I interpret sustainability as an existential ethos of three characteristics:

1. Continuity
Realize, create, and maintain conditions under which humans and everything we live with can exist in productive harmony.

2. Comprehensiveness
Strive to comprehensively fulfill needs with consideration for social, economic, and environmental dimensions of life.

3. Creativity
Life, our choices for living it, and the legacy of their consequences are dynamic; foster the integrity, stability, and beauty of the human, biotic, and abiotic community.



The above synthesizes articulations between the US EPA , 1987 WCED Brundtland Commission definitions, the "Sustainability Triad"/"Three Pillars"/"Triple Bottom Line", the "Quadruple Bottom Line", Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic [also read the full essay], and life.

Please know that there's an element of discovery and dialogue to understanding a fuzzy concept like sustainability [1]. Also note that theoretical research suggests that the "triple bottom line" concept is misleading in its label and use for Corporate Sustainability Reporting, but has valid and useful origins in what several scholars call "the sustainability triad"--the interconnecting domains of environment, society, and economy remain important and useful nonetheless. The sources I've listed are a good place to start, but you're welcome to reach me too!

[1] scholars/anyone with access to academic journals, read: Ratner, B. 2004. “’Sustainability’ as a Dialogue of Values: Challenges to the Sociology of Development” Sociological Inquiry, vol. 74, No. 1 50-69


The first and last characteristics of sustainability (Comprehensive, Creative) brought me to suspect that when most people say "we want a more sustainable future" with hope in their voice, they actually seek a different word: Viability.

Aikido and the Land Ethic: Parallels in humane transcendence

Roughly translated, the martial art Aikido stands for "the way of harmonious energy":
Ai=harmony
ki=energy/spirit (AKA Chi/Qui in Chinese)
do= way/"an artful path to discovery" (I like how the site articulated "do")

Foremost, aikido has compelling appeal to me because it's centered on a win-win approach to drastic situations.  Opponents don't (or rather more accurately, shouldn't) exist, a practitioner simply acknowledges the situation, momentum, and redirects it to a more favorable outcome for everyone.  Reading up on the philosophy of the art again, I found the following quote:

"We believe that since we all share a common energy source, that in some important way we are all truly members of the same family, and truly sharing our lives with all of nature. We do not have an attack form in Aikido, because attacking an opponent would be like attacking a family member that you love." (source)

Those familiar with Aldo Leopold or beliefs frequently held among First Nations people might find this concept familiar: we share fundamental similarities and needs, and thus merit respect for one another and across species.  Leopold's essays use common sense to lay out nuanced wisdom, and it strikes a chord with people of very diverse backgrounds.  I know hunters, vegans, conservative and liberal friends who continue to appreciate the writings found in his essays.  Of particular pertinence to the quote found above in Aikido, Leopold's Land Ethic came to mind immediately.


While Leopold undoubtedly held a different paradigm about life and his relationship to the world prior to writing many of the essays found in his "Sand County Almanac", it's interesting to note how his views developed and the development of Aikido as a martial art share a similar story of transcendence.  Read Leopold's "Thinking like a mountain" essay and then read his "Land Ethic" essay to get a chronological sense of Leopold's discoveries.  Then recognize that Aikido emerged out of combative martial arts for samurai--life/death techniques which went from a mentality of winning via attacker/defender to a co-creative ethos revolving around redirecting force for favorable outcomes.


In accessible English, Aldo Leopold expounds on the scientific matter-life-energy processes of ecology and builds up to an ethos that considers how we rely upon and share our existence with other living things.  For those with biological/ecological/environmental science backgrounds, it's a familiar foundation to our education, but it can be a daunting challenge to make clear and accessible for any reader--Leopold describes it well.  From this he advances the idea that we live with the land, not just on it or as owners of land.  Leopold then adds that our notion of ethics ought to extend toward considering those we share the land as neighbors in a community.

This may be the first time I've written about Aikido and the Land Ethic, but it's been in my mind for a long time.  The concept is among one of my core principles for conflict resolution and problem solving, and friends might even recognize threads of it in my musings and research.  All of it frequently examines this kind of collaborative/embracing participatory approach.  More to come...

Raw links to noted sources:


Aikido:
http://www.intermartialarts.com/philosophy/aikido
http://www.seishindo.org/2005/11/17/the-ki-of-aikido-energy-self-and-mind-in-aikido-philosophy/


Thinking like a mountain (two places for the same essay):
http://honorsbiology.wiki.lovett.org/file/view/Thinking+Like+a+Mountain.pdf
http://library.fws.gov/wildread/thinking-like-a-mountain.pdf

Land Ethic abridged: http://www.aldoleopold.org/AldoLeopold/LandEthic.pdf

The full "Land Ethic" essay: http://neohasid.org/pdf/landethic.pdf