Oh, what a difference a few months makes …
Everything that was so important even a few weeks ago —
like, how to convince people to stop flying so
often,
how to break our over-reliance on
plastic,
how to stop
deforestation,
how to wean us off fast
fashion
— all of that feels like it’s on the back burner for the moment.
For an academic rationale of what’s going on, we could trot out good ol’
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
Image credit: Thought Co.
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In moments of crisis, we return our focus to the base layer of the famed pyramid
and seek to secure a safe home, enough food for our families and basic physical
health.
When the world as we’ve known it feels like it’s collapsing around us, that
seems a sensible option, yes?
Except that we don’t live in a two-dimensional world, progressing steadily in a
linear fashion up Maslow’s pyramid toward self-actualisation. We are nuanced and
complex creatures, capable of holding multiple and often-competing goals in mind
at the same time.
So, we can be worried about job security and the state of marine plastic
pollution. We can have anxiety about the lack of loo roll, as well as the
dwindling supply of fossil fuels. We can fret over our elderly parents in the
immediate future, as well as the state of the world we’re leaving our children.
We can still care about sustainability as we seek to meet our immediate physical
needs.
Our Chief Creative Officer, Julian
Borra, sums up the current
feeling nicely: “We have all been smashed into the immediate now.”
Instead of the global playground we’ve become used to, our lives are now
confined to our homes. Instead of doing business with colleagues and customers
or hanging out with our mates down at the pub, we are working from home and
having virtual cocktail hours. Air travel has ceased, the roads are almost as
empty as the supermarket shelves and free-market capitalism is being severely
tested.
But perhaps it’s time to redefine sustainability for a post-Coronavirus world —
to focus on how we can sustain ourselves, our families, our local communities
and the wider society in a world that is rapidly changing.
We can use this as a chance to hit the RESET button and really think about how
we want to emerge from this crisis. To return to the people and relationships we
love. To reconnect with a sense of community. To achieve a more balanced life.
To work toward a healthy life in every aspect.
We get to choose what the world will look like when we open our doors in
three…six…twelve months’ time. Will we choose Human 101 or Human 3.0?
Human 101 is a return to the closed tribalism of an ‘us vs them’ mentality. It’s
fearful, selfish, prioritising immediate needs and extracting maximum value in
the short-term.
Human 3.0 is open, intimate and empathetic. Collaborative and hopeful. Focused
on the future and ensuring there is enough to go around.
It’s our choice.
Assuming we opt for Human 3.0, what does the next iteration of sustainability
look like? We think there are three integral parts:
The individual
It’s time to clarify what sustains us, what gives our individual lives meaning.
It is natural during a crisis that we turn to hearth and home, to the people we
love.
But we also turn to beauty, nature, music, art, conversation, creativity. To
wine and good food. To prayer or meditation. We look after our health and
wellbeing — physical, mental and spiritual.
These are the things we should hold onto moving forward. They are what we should
prioritise and protect.
The community
At the moment,
COVID-19
has reduced our community to our four walls and immediate streets, giving us a
chance to get to know those closest in proximity to us. This experience is
teaching us about empathy and connection, about asking for and giving help, and
about sharing resources and a laugh.
It’s a new operating model for citizenship and one that we can scale out to our
cities, nations and global communities as the threat from the virus passes.
The natural world
Despite the decrease in air pollution over China, the clearing of the waters
in Venice’s canals and other examples of nature bouncing back as human
activities pause, the problems the planet faces still exist and they are still
urgent.
But we can choose to resume our lives with renewable
energy
instead of fossil fuel, continue long-distance meetings via Zoom or Google
Hangouts, switch to a plant-based
diet
for the health of ourselves and the planet, and maintain a life of less
consumption.
We can also focus on
biomimetics
— human innovations based on nature’s long evolutionary success story that can
help us solve some of the most pressing problems of our generation.
What’s needed is a shift in mindset; and perhaps, in terminology.
Where the term “sustainability” can conjure images of protecting and conserving
and guarding against loss — whether that’s ice caps or the rainforests or the
nutritional value of our soils — what is needed now is actively creating value
by restoring ecosystems and building up society and cultural norms. It is what
Lorraine Smith calls a “regenerative
economy.”
Instead of “do no harm,” it’s more like ‘leave it better than you found it.”
A sister to a circular
economy that
seeks to design out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use
and regenerating natural systems, a regenerative economy has three important
elements:
This is the new normal we should be choosing.
So, what does this means for business, brands, organisations and movements?
At a time when
‘sell-sell-sell’
is seen as crass insensitivity, brands need to redefine their value and
demonstrate how they can help individuals, communities and the natural world
find meaning and thrive.
It’s time to dig deep into the why behind your business and use that to
empower people in the new regenerative economy — to truly leave the world a
better place.
In a recent
speech
that Smith gave at a circular economy conference in Brazil, she shared a
quote from her friend, Fabricio Muriana, that really resonated with me.
“Although the future might look pretty bad, we still have a lot of present …”
We none of us know how the future will play out. But we can be sure that this is
our moment to act — to choose a way of life that leaves the world around us
better, stronger and more capable of renewal.
To stand together as one community and greet the new dawn with hope.
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Julie Reid is a writer exploring climate solutions, the regenerative economy and how to be a 21st-century global citizen. She is the head of content at planetSHINE.
Published Apr 17, 2020 8am EDT / 5am PDT / 1pm BST / 2pm CEST