SALİM KADIBEŞEGİL

We have been trying to learn “sustainability” for the last thirty years. We have been trying to keep the subject of a livable planet with its economic, social and environmental effects on the agenda and to contribute to this subject. We don’t know if we have made any progress or not.

“Sustainable Human Development”, which was the theme of the United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, offered a ray of hope far away, in the middle of nowhere. That may not have been enough to warm our hearts, but it continues to offer “hope” to our kids, their kids and the following generations. Severin Suzuki, who was just 12 years old, talked to the UN delegates at that conference.
She explained what was waiting for us loud and clear. People who had a say in global governance heard the terrifying condition of our planet at a 12-year-old kid’s speech. That speech was made when the carbon emission levels, the main reason for global warming, was not a crucial issue. It should have formed the backbone of the political agenda by then. However, it’s highly questionable whether the applause at the end of the speech had any influence on the decisions and measures that should have been taken.

“Sustainability” was not at the background of the developments which introduced us to the machines that were painstakingly calculated and developed during the Industrial Revolution in 1800s, to the inventions that followed one another, and to electricity, automobiles, washing machines and skyscrapers that we called “quality of life”. It took us a hundred years to see that this situation could lock us in a worn out life like a prison yard surrounded by high walls!

We discovered two charming words among the dust clouds of the Industrial Revolution: Growth and USD income per capita. Those two words formed the beginning of the scenario that prepared the end of humankind like a bone thrown in front of a hound. Before the Industrial Revolution, nobody cared about the growth or income per capita in any country. The amount of the valuable jewellery in the treasure of kings, emperors, shahs or sultans was not audited by some institutions whose names began with “independent”. That’s why, it was a mystery who was wealthier than whom. The prevalence of colonies and the amount of raw material acquired from these colonies could be defined as wealth, but this wealth changed from year to year and passed into other hands during war. Therefore, growth didn’t mean anything other than expanding your land by going to war. Humankind didn’t have an agenda regarding income per capita anyway. However, we see that the agenda regarding growth and income per capita has become a scenario where we steal our kids’ future and where we exchange our quality of life for virtual quality.

“The urge to grow” sits in the dock as a defendant accused of taking millions of families away from their homelands and leading them to an uncertain life. This urge is a recipe for impoverishment.  It is one of the appetisers of the arms industry. It is a menu where underground fossils are served as the main dish. The funny thing is that what we have been witnessing for the last hundred years is a human tragedy turned into lies in cooperation with science.

Even if we leave aside other carelessness, it is obvious that we still cannot realise the facts as we witness the consumption of potable water sources.

greensphereblog.

What will happen in a hundred years?

We can see our mistakes when we look back a hundred years. However, the main question is “Can we see today’s mistakes now?” Or do we have to wait for a hundred years?

It is clear that the conventional politics and governmental policies cannot tackle this issue. Don’t you think that the extent of poverty, the epidemics, the wars, close combats and mass migration caused by poverty and epidemics; capitalism which is playing the extra time and trying to recover from permanent vegetative state by formatting itself, the crisis in trust due to the wrong use of technology by the wrong people and the other problems make everything more difficult to work out rather than reducing the problems of our world which is already unlivable?

If we can take a breath of fresh air in terms of sustainability, don’t we owe this to non-governmental organisations?

Shrewd people who are troubled with sustainability policies have discovered something new! They can overcome academicians, science and regulators with the help of their strong financial resources. For years, they have been using the power of civil society by reading between the lines and finding legal and legislative gaps to validate the same old system among governmental policies. They can get organised in the name of professional organisations for this kind of business. They build organisations called “association” or “foundation”. They want to position themselves as part of civil society. Thus, they tarnish the name of civil society. Therefore, I call the people who protect our common mission “clean society organisations“. Because their only expectation is to be an “ethical player” in a “livable” world!

My only hope for the next hundred years is these “clean society organisations” because their discourse is the common language of every one of us.

www.ejcc.org

They know “what they are doing”.

They do not hesitate to pay off their “debt” to nature.

They can find a common ground in terms of shared values of life.

They do not discriminate on the basis of religion, language, race, age or sex.

They can turn peace, love and tolerance into a part of their lives.

Most importantly, they can manage all of the above.

We are left with two strategic scenarios which will keep our hopes alive:

To be “a teacher” or “a student” when necessary while turning sustainability into our lifestyle.

More importantly, to find solutions about sustainability “on the spot” and “for the goals” of that spot.

 Clean Society Organisations, Lifestyle and On-site Solutions

When the matter of sustainability was put in the business world’s agenda, it was not able to make it to the top of the agenda for a long time since companies could not see concretely how that matter would affect their year-end balance sheets.

In order for the companies to “see” that, people who made politics for the streets had to boycott some brands. However, it was not even as effective as whistling in the wind. When the employees of these companies refused to keep quiet about their companies’ irresponsible use of natural resources and indifference to social expectations of the society that they lived in, “some things started to change as they should”. The employees started to speak out loud about these things not only in the streets but also in their companies. Personal responsibility had to be increased for natural disasters, poverty, people with disabilities, women, epidemics and affronts to humanity which were to be remedied. They volunteered for social work. They demanded that their companies’ executives develop corporate policies about these issues. They even encouraged their companies to cooperate with the “clean society organisations” that they were interested in.

“Personal responsibility” started developing before corporate and social responsibility. We should have started with ourselves! And that’s what happened. We faced the fact that the very essence of the matter lay in personal responsibility while we were talking about consumer rights and investors’ sensitivity. That’s how we turned to clean society organisations.

In other words, employees handled the solutions to the matter of sustainability, which was turned into a lifestyle, together with clean society organisations. Whether we want it or not, this model will become widespread and it will be supported and introduced as an area to be followed by regulators on the basis of laws and regulations.