Sustainability Fundamentals

To better understand sustainability and why it matters, we first need to take a look at the challenges we currently face. Whilst climate change is at the forefront of the conversation, this lesson will explore how sustainability can also tackle social inequality and a range of other social, economic and environmental challenges.

We’ve all heard the term ‘sustainability' thrown around before. It was a scientific buzzword in its early days, and has now evolved into being used as a more commonplace adjective to describe a kind of development and future to aspire to – or a way to describe goods and services produced in a responsible manner, with a low impact.

While there is a lot at stake and the challenges ahead of us are complex and constantly changing, it is important to remember that there are also a number of opportunities ahead of us. To identify where these opportunities lie, we must first look at some of the challenges to achieving sustainable outcomes.

There has been a lot of research conducted showing the approaches used to communicate sustainability challenges and the initiatives that can help to make a difference, which has not been effective at achieving any meaningful kind of behaviour change. It’s been proven that communicating information alone is not enough and that the way information is communicated makes a significant difference.

You may have heard of the United Nations (SDGs) before and wondered what they are. When discussing sustainability it is important to recognise the importance of the SDGs.

There are many different forms of sustainability that encompass different actions and responsibilities – which also provide different opportunities for individuals and communities to engage with.

Measuring your impact is an important first step to identifying ways you can make a difference. This can be done using an ecological or carbon footprint calculator, which looks at some key impact categories and then estimates your footprint based on your responses.

Taking steps towards sustainable practices can be challenging. Joost Bakker explains how we all can implement a circular mindset to take action for a positive future.