What is Sustainable Development

February 25, 2020 by Daniela Leave a comment

I remember so distinctly standing in the middle of the “bullpen” shortly after our annual sales meeting and thinking the company’s new “growth targets” were ridiculous. Their targeted 15% annual growth in a mature market was unrealistic. It dawned on me then that, on a larger scale, the idea of growth year over year over year to infinity was impossible. We live in a finite world. Why couldn’t businesses be structured in a way that was sustainable instead of running on some illusory perpetual growth model? What would a sustainable model look like and how could it be applied?

In his February, 2019 post at IDEAS For Us Akari Giraldo takes on the issue of sustainable growth. He notes that ” One of the longest ongoing debates in the world of economic trade, politics, and human growth involves the evolution of sustainable development.”

In 2005, the World Summit on Social Development identified the three cores areas of sustainable development, called The Three Pillars of Sustainability. The pillars are economic development, environmental development, and social development, also informally known as profit, planet, and people. These three cores vary in basis, but, are similar in collective goal and place each other into consideration.

Author: Daniela

I will forever be grateful that I was introduced to the utility and beauty of hand crafted products early in life - from the symbolic motifs sewn into the coarse linen fabric of Croatian traditional wear to the colorful Kilim carpets that decorated the parquet floors in my grandmother's living room. I treasure the memories of my grandfather teaching me how to protect myself against the "evil eye," the smell of the flower stalls in the open air market where my grandmother bought produce early every morning for the day’s meals and the summers spent at my great grandmother's where the village wags would come to gossip over thick, black Turkish coffee in her cool stone kitchen. Someone noted that "For all of us that want to move forward, there are a very few that want to keep the old methods of production, traditions and crafts alive." I am a fellow traveler with those who value the old traditions and folk wisdom. I believe the knowledge they possess can contribute significantly to our efforts to build a more sustainable world - one that values the individual over the corporation, conservation over growth and happiness over wealth.