We hear a lot about sustainability these days. Governments and organizations all over the world are working towards sustainability. But what  is sustainability? That is one of the questions this site will answer. In this site you will also Learn From the Past. Why is it that our current world is unsustainable, and what can we learn from this? Finally, this website will help you Envision the Future. How can we transition from an unsustainable world to one that is sustainable and resilient?

So what is sustainability? Sustainability can mean different things to different people. In Jennifer Clapp and Peter Dauvergene’s book Paths to a Green World: the Political Economy of the Global Environment, they identify four different world-views with four different views of sustainability.  As can be seen in the concept map below, each of these world-views has different beliefs about what to trust and what not to trust, and therefore different views about what it means to be sustainable (Clapp and Dauvergene, 2011). It is impossible to understand why our current world is unsustainable, or how we can reach a more sustainable world, without first understanding what sustainability is.

Sources

Clapp, Jennifer, and Peter Dauvergne. Paths to a Green World: the Political Economy of the Global Environment. MIT Press, 2011.