Deconstructing Sustainability

By Kathryn Sheridan

If sustainability had worked, we wouldn’t need it. We would be living in a different world. A kinder, more compassionate world where we take care of ourselves, each other and the world around us, rather than extract and exploit people and the planet. It would be a world where we see ourselves as part of the ecosystem rather than being dominant over it and over each other.

Like religious people trying to unpack and deconstruct their relationship with the church, I have found myself in a similar place with sustainability these last few years. Reconciling myself to having passed the sustainability baton on to the next generation. Looking deeply into what needs to be done and how we might do it, I’ve been pursuing my own path of learning and training to be able to support others in their struggles around being human on a burning planet. While I believe we started out with good intentions, sustainability and particularly corporate sustainability has become more about maintaining business as usual rather than making radical change. It’s implied in the name, where to sustain something is to keep it for the long-term, essentially to keep it as it is. In practice, sustainability has been business’ way to change very little, very slowly, and this has been supported by policymakers. While it may seem odd to be partly rejecting sustainability after 23 years in environmental journalism and sustainability communications, it’s not because I believe we should give up completely, nor is it about jumping on the next greenwashing bandwagon to distract us from what we haven’t done yet. It’s time we disconnect the false sense of success we derive from consumption and dominance and connect to something more real. I believe it’s time we go inwards and do the work to heal our relationship with ourselves, each other and the world around us. If enough people and communities can find stable ground internally, we can slow or stop the grabbing and grasping for material things. We will no longer need to shore up our sense of self through consumption and we can start to understand how intrinsically connected we are to each other and the Earth.

"It’s time we disconnect the false sense of success we derive from consumption and dominance and connect to something more real"

The fact is that we are not separate from nature, we are part of nature, whether you see this from an ecopsychological or ecospiritual lens as I do, or from a purely pragmatic “business” lens, we depend on the natural world for our very survival. Business-as-usual is no longer a viable option here, not if we want to continue to live on this planet. Our disconnection has not only led to the environmental crisis, but business-as-usual continues to profit from communities and people who are deemed to be “less than” or “other”. We have carried out and continue to carry out atrocities against each other and as long as we continue to harm ourselves, we will continue to harm others. Clearly plenty of change is needed,  the type of systemic change on such a scale that small incremental policy changes cannot create. If we are not willing to restructure our economy and change our lifestyles to make that large-scale change, we might be better spending our time and budgets preparing for collapse because where we’re heading leaves us  no way to sustain human and biological life on this planet. While it is possible to greet that reality with acceptance and peace, I’m not there yet. It is a delusion to think that we can continue living like this and miraculously “fix” the climate and environmental destruction. So why is it so hard to see clearly what’s happening and take action to reverse it in our own lives and in the world? In practice, it’s very difficult for us to comprehend collapse on the scale we are living through today. If you benefit from the current system and its inbuilt inequities, as so many of us do, the idea of turning everything on its head is overwhelming. It feels almost impossible to change our lifestyles enough to have an impact, and so we push our fears for the future aside to concentrate on more imminent threats like money, work, family, exhaustion and burnout, as we try to keep up with the pace of modern life.

This is where the personal work comes in. Our current trajectory doesn’t end anywhere good, not for us and not for the planet. We need to look at the human side of sustainability where we have to stop trying to fix “out there” and focus inwards. Not at the exclusion of doing the work we want to do in the world but to take care of our inner work so we can keep showing up and being effective. As a coach and mentor, I have seen many environmental campaigners and activists going into burnout and suffering from loss of meaning because they push themselves so hard. They may feel that the situation “out there” is so urgent that there is no time to rest or take care of themselves. That taking care of themselves is selfish when they need to keep pushing and sacrificing. This is a false narrative because if we do not take care of ourselves, we simply won’t be able to sustain our activism and our work in the world. I also believe that if we do not take care of ourselves, we won’t make it as a civilisation. We will continue to destroy our planet and go to war and exploit our fellow humans and other living organisms we share this world with. We will continue to discriminate and persecute, and so I believe we need to slow down, quieten down, work on resolving our personal and collective history and trauma to gain more self-awareness and understanding. Coming from a relatively privileged position, I know that I could lead a simpler life, consume less, and generally need less to be satisfied. I still have work to do on my own healing journey.

Everywhere we look, people are struggling to survive and to make ends meet. We need to help everyone have a decent level of safety and comfort and create bonds in our communities to lift everyone up together. In this way too, we will find more peace and security in our lives. Through connecting with nature and slowing down, we can come closer to the Earth. I’m not talking about spiritual bypassing where we sit under a tree to avoid dealing with the very real issues we face in our lives and in the world. I’m inviting us to experience an interconnected relationship between healthy people and a healthy planet. It is possible and without this, there is no future and no sustainability for the human race. When we delight in awe and beauty and connect to our wildness, it no longer feels like a sacrifice or a struggle to strengthen our relationship with the world around us but a vibrant, nourishing relationship where we protect what we love.

"When we delight in awe and beauty and connect to our wildness, it no longer feels like a sacrifice or a struggle to strengthen our relationship with the world around us but a vibrant, nourishing relationship where we protect what we love"