Sustainable

© Alexander Sviridov | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2021 

We are speechless and do not know how to overcome it in order to make reality comprehensible, to adequately describe the seriousness of the situation.
George Marshall. Book: Don't Even Think About It - Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change. 2014

An entire society is stuck between the feeling of impending catastrophe and the inability to admit this feeling.
Quote from: Joanna Macy, Eco-philosopher, Activist and System Scientist.

The highly industrialised modern world has pretty much reached the end of its wisdom - be it the tangible climatic changes, the creeping increase in ecological destruction, the conflict between rich and poor, the collapsing social and healthcare systems, the empty state coffers, the seemingly unmanageable increase in unemployment, the rapid growth in mental an allergic illnesses.

We are increasingly experiencing first-hand, on our own wallets, on our own quality of life, that we are at a turning point.
According to and translated from: Geseko von Lüpke. Book: Politik des Herzens. Nachhaltige Konzepte für das 21. Jahrhundert. Gespräche mit den Weisen unserer Zeit. 2015

Wallpaper © ittipon | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018

The past decades have brought unprecedented prosperity to many people. However, our planet and a huge number of people are paying a high price for this.

This is the historic novelty of the current situation: As we run ever closer to the edge of the environmental envelope – the conditions within which our species can thrive – the development of the rich world systematically undercuts the conditions for survival of billions of people in the climate danger zone.

They are not so much exploited or bypassed as victimised by the climatic effects of economic growth taking place elsewhere. This violent and indirect entanglement is new in its quality and scale.
Adam Tooze. The climate emergency really is a new type of crisis – consider the 'triple inequality' at the heart of it. The Guardian 23.11.2023

The pressure of the global middle and upper classes on our planet's vital ecological systems has now become so strong that a climatic and ecological destabilization of the Earth has begun. This destabilization endangers the ecological foundations of life, which include a stable climate, a functioning biosphere, sufficient availability of clean water, healthy soil and clean air. 

We need a discussion about sufficiency as a «Strategy of the Enough» - the hitherto neglected dimension of future policy.

Sufficiency as a «Strategy of the Enough» - A Necessary Debate. German Advisory Council on the Environment. 2024. PDF

Wallpaper © Mr.Nikon | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2024

The question arises: What philosophy of life is behind the insatiability of us wealthy people who live so stubbornly and so dispassionately and morosely at the expense of others and the environment?
Translated from: Gabriela Simon: Mehr Genuss! Mehr Faulheit! Mehr Schlendrian! Die Zeit Nr. 42/1992

Living off the fossil fuel deposits of the carboniferous era for more than two centuries gave us a false sense of an open-ended and unlimited future where everything was possible and with little price to pay. 

We called this era the «Age of Progress». Climate change is now the bill come due. 
Jeremy Rifkin, economist and journalist. Book: The Green New Deal. Why the Fossil Fuel Civilisation Will Collapse by 2028, and the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth. 2019

© studiostoks | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2023

Our way of life and our economy are causing major environmental impacts and are increasingly endangering our livelihood and living together on Earth. 

Even in the Global Risk Report 2022 of the World Economic Forum WEF, five of the six biggest global risks are ecological - climate crisis, loss of biodiversity, water scarcity, environmental pollution, natural disasters - and the sixth is weapons of mass destruction.

© Andrey_Kuzmin | Shutterstock, [US] 2023

No coming catastrophe has ever been studied as thoroughly as global warming. And none has ever been so thoroughly ignored. 

The first World Climate Conference was held in Geneva back in 1979. World Climate Conferences have been held annually since 1995 and nonetheless global greenhouse gas emissions are still increasing every year.

At the 2021 climate summit in Glasgow, the states agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels. The aim was to limit global warming below 2°C.

However, studies on the effectiveness of the existing nationally determined contributions to reduce their emissions have now revealed: if they were implemented to this extent, global emissions in 2030 would not be lower, but around 9 % higher than in 2010.
According to United Nations – Climate Change. New Analysis of National Climate Plans: Insufficient Progress Made, COP28 Must Set Stage for Immediate Action. 14 November 2023

For the young people who show up in the statistics as concerned or extremely concerned, the reports about the climate crisis are not nearly as depressing as the fact that these reports are ignored.
Translated from: Daniel Graf. Ja, Zukunftslust, verdammt! REPUBLIK 14.02.2023

In a major international survey in 2021, 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 around the world were asked about their attitudes to climate change:

More than half of young people believe that humanity is doomed due to climate change. 

More than a third of young people are reluctant to have children because of climate change. 

Climate anxiety and distress correlate with perceived inadequate government response and associated feelings of betrayal.
Caroline Hickman et al. 2021: The Lancet Planetary Health. Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey.

© klublu | Shutterstock, [US] 2023

The inequality in wealth, resource use, CO2 emissions, etc. between countries and also within societies is enormous.

The imbalances in the global division of labour lead to an outrageous level of dishonesty in the climate debate: the countries of the global South are held responsible for the overexploitation of their natural resources, even though the benefits largely accrue to the global North, which also makes the extractions possible in the first place with its technology and financial capital.
Beckert Jens. Book: How We Sold Our Future. The Failure to Fight Climate Change. 2025

The richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, with dire consequences for vulnerable communities and global efforts to tackle the climate emergency.  

A report shows that in 2019 Africa, which is home to about one in six of the world population, was responsible for just 4% of emissions. 
According to Jonathan Watts. Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%, report says. The Guardian, 20.11.2023. Data based on the report of Oxfam International. Climate Equality: A planet for the 99%. PDF.

It is understandable why emission-reduction policies that ignore these vast inequalities are unlikely to gain widespread support and may meet with strong opposition.
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. From inequality to sustainability. Earth4all. 20222. PDF

Without decisive action to drastically reduce socio-economic inequalities, there is no solution to the environmental and climate crisis.
Piketty Thomas. Book: Brief history of equality. 2022

The goals for a sustainable development are set [UN 2030 Agenda with 17 goals]. However, we currently do not know the conditions under which humanity can implement the measures to achieve these sustainability goals globally.
Christian Berg. Book: Sustainable Action. Overcoming the Barriers. 2020

Sustainability is on everyone's lips, in politics, business and in private life. Everyone has an idea of what the term means and sets different priorities. The term is therefore in danger of meaning «everything and nothing».
Translated from: Agentur für Forschung. 2019. Wahrnehmung von "Nachhaltigkeit" - Bericht zur qualitativen Studie. Mannheim, 05. September 2019

Greenwashing:
A research project funded by the European Union (2023) revealed that more than half of the environmental claims made regarding products and services - 53% to be exact - are either ambiguous, deceptive, or unfounded, with 40% of claims lacking evidence altogehter.
Alexandra Walker and Hélène Guadin. Paint it Green: Strategies for Detecting and Combatting Greenwashing in ESG Ratings. Sustainability Institute. 2024

The 2030 Agenda progress report shows at the mid-term that just 12 percent of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) targets are on track. Progress on 50 percent is weak and insufficient. Worst of all, we have stalled or gone into reverse on more than 30 percent of the SDGs.
Antonio Guterres. Secretary-General's remarks to launch the Special Edition of the Sustainable Development Progress Report. 25. April 2023

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As long as man was small in numbers and limited in technology, he could realistically regard the Earth as an infinite reservoir, an infinite source of inputs and an infinite cesspool for outputs. Today we can no longer make this assumption.
K.E. Boulding May. Earth as a Space Ship. Washington State University Committee on Space Sciences. 1965

Today's belief and thinking patterns all come from the time of a world almost empty of people and are not suitable for today's world full of people.

Today, actually since the mid of the twentieth century, humanity lives in a full world. A hundred years ago there were around 1,700, by 1950 around 2,500 and today around 8,000 million people live on our planet.

The limits are tangible, palpable in almost everything people do. And yet the world continues to pursue a policy of growth, as if we were still living in the empty world of that time, when the abundance of natural resources on Earth seemed endless.
According to Weizsäcker v. Ernst Ulrich and Anders Wijkman.Book: Come on! - Capitalism, Short-Terminism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet. 2017

Our institutions and governance have been designed for a world characterised by relative stability and progress, but they have not been designed to steer our society in times of rapid change, when widely held assumptions, such as the pursuit for growth, are turning against us.

We need policymakers to take bold and ambitious action that embraces the urgency and interplay of overlapping crises while ensuring a truly just and inclusive transition.
Katy Wiese, Senior Policy Officer at the EEB. In: Andreas Budiman. The tricky path to financing our way out of the climate crisis. Meta from European Environmental Bureau EEB. April 5, 2023.

We are looking for a grand narrative that will overcome the present gloom. But we forget that many a grand narrative from the past has led to disaster.

For the moment, we have to accept that there is not yet a good answer to the great challenges of our time, perhaps there cannot even be one.

We do not know whether and how major disruptions caused by climate change can be avoided; for the time being, we can only experiment with small interim solutions.
Translated from: Jürgen Wiebicke. Book: Erste Hilfe für Demokratie-Retter. 2024

© andriano.cz | Shutterstock, [US] 2019

All of us seem to be sleepwalking towards disaster with almost zero change in our consumption habits or lifestyle. Companies are walking back from their commitments, cheered loudly by their shareholders as they do so. Climate summits are falling short. 

The tragic thing is that we have so many ideas, solutions, technologies and even the resources to address climate change substantially. What we lack is the leadership and collective will to implement them at scale and with speed.
Ravi Venkatesan. Social Entrepreneur and Writer. Post on LinkedIn. 30.12.2024 

In the fight against climate change, the dilemma here is obvious.

On the one hand, consumption in an economy dependent on fossil fuels increases CO2 emissions and also causes other environmental damage, such as biodiversity loss. The more people consume, the greater the impact on the environment.

On the other hand, the social system is based - economically, politically, and culturally - precisely on this consumption and its continued growth.
Beckert Jens. Book: How We Sold Our Future. The Failure to Fight Climate Change. 2025

Modern societies have more detailed knowledge than ever before about the state of and changes in the environment and about the causes, consequences, connections and interactions of these changes.

However, their political will and their political ability to stop and possibly reverse these changes has not grown as a result of this knowledge, but has perhaps even shrunk.
Translated from: Ingolfur Blühdorn. Book: Die Gesellschaft der Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit. Skizze einer umweltsoziologischen Gegenwartsdiagnose. In: Nachhaltige Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit. 2020. Seiten 83-160 

When climate change moved from a comfortable future issue in the 1990s to an issue that we had to do something about now, that is when the political polarisation began.

It's when science implies societal action that people beginn to reject science in order to avoid the need for action.
Amanda Buckiewicz. Prominent climate scientist argues it's time to ditch the 'myth of neutralitiy'. CBC News posted Jan 17. 2025

© Danilo_Designer | Shutterstock, [US] 2024

That leaves the justified question:

Do we really want to achieve the climate protection goals or are we content with climate protection goals?

What we are experiencing now with climate change has already catastrophic effects. But that is nothing compared to what awaits us if we simply carry on like this.

It's an experiment with an uncertain outcome. It can be compared to driving at top speed on the motorway in dense fog. 
Translated from: Climate researcher Mojib Latif. In: Ulrike Hagen. «Alles Bisherige übertroffen»: Klimaforschende über aktuelle Entwicklungen beim Wetter. Frankfurter Rundschau. 03.11.2023

Even today, we are presumably much better at understanding the social consequences of climate change than the social conditions for limiting it.
Christian Berg. Book: Sustainable Action. Overcoming the Barriers. 2020

The rights of future generations are just as weak in today's political decisions as the rights of people in the Global South or the rights of nature.

None of the signatory states to the Paris Climate Agreement have yet fulfilled their commitments. Externalising the costs of our lifestyle is still too easy for political actors to face up to the responsibility of restructuring and doing without.
Translated from: Josef Mackert. Newsletter WBGU Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen. 22.10.2024

For more than 6,000 years, the human race has learned to live within a relatively narrow band of environmental and climatic fluctuations. The mean annual temperature over that period has been around 13ºC.

Currently, around 1% of the Earth's land surface - mainly in the hottest parts of the Sahara - has an average annual temperature of 29ºC.

By 2070, almost a fifth of the Earth's land surface could reach these temperatures, and this could affect around 30% of the forecasted world population.
Chi Xu etal. 2020. Future of the human climate niche. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Vol. 117 | No. 21.

2022 was the warmest year in Switzerland since measurements began in 1864.
Source: MeteoSchweiz 2023: Klimabulletin Jahr 2022. Zürich

Website ShowYourStripes. Institute for Environmental Analytics. University of Reading

In 2024, 37.4 billion tonnes of CO₂ will be emitted from fossil fuels.
Source: Global Carbon Project. November 2024

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A continuation of current policies would result in a 100% chance of exceeding 1.5°C, a 97% chance of exceeding 2°C and a 37% chance of exceeding 3°C by 2100.
CarbonBrief. UNEP: New climate pledges need 'quantum leap' in ambition to deliver Paris goals. 24. 10.2024

The Global North's share of Global Warming to date is over 60 %, China's share is around 15 % and the share of all other countries together is around 24 %.
Source: Global Carbon Project 2023

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Fossil fuels currently generate around 80% of the primary energy consumed worldwide.
Source: International Energy Agency's World Energy Outlook 2023.

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In stark contrast to the trickle of climate finance, fossil fuel subsidies have surged in recent years. In 2022, total spending on subsidies for oil, natural gas and coal reached a record $7 trillion [according to IMF]. That's $2 trillion more than in 2020. 
Chelsea Harvey and Zia Weise. The state of the planet in 10 numbers. Politico.eu. November 20, 2023

Resilient Ecosystems

© Frank Wortmann + © arpitcoolboy + © Sandra-Dombrovsky + © Aleks14 | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2019/2023

There is no prospect of achieving climate targets without protecting ecosystems at the same time. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions alone is not sufficient.

Major efforts are now needed to protect the natural carbon reservoirs such as forests, soils, wetlands and oceans, in order to simultaneously mitigate the rapidly advancing loss of biodiversity. 

Some 50 percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions are absorbed by natural ecosystems on land and in the sea. Soils are, after the oceans, the second largest natural carbon sink. 

Wetlands cover just 3-4% of Earth's surface but store twice as much carbon as forests. Yet are among the least understood and monitored ecosystems.
Source: Global Peatland Hotspot Atlas. 2024.

Since the pre-industrial era, it is estimated that more than 80 % of the world's wetlands have been lost due to changes in land use and drainage, and most of the remaining wetlands have been degraded.
WBGU. German Advisory Council on Global Change. Water in heated world. Summary. 2024. PDF

© Marti Bug Catcher | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2021

Climate change is also taking place in the oceans in particular. They cover more than 70 per cent of the planet's surface, are getting warmer and sea levels are rising. To date, they have absorbed around a quarter of global CO2 emissions.

The lack of appropriate wastewater treatment and the release of pollutants from the manufacturing industry, agriculture, tourism, fisheries and shipping continue to put pressure on the ocean, with a negative impact on food security, food safety and marine biodiversity.

The ocean plays a crucial role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the livelihoods of billions of people. We urgently need to change how we interact with it.
The Second World Ocean Assessment. United Nations. 2021.

The Climate Decade

© Alexander Mak | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2021

We are in the «climate decade». A period where our collective actions will determine the kind of world our children and grandchildren will inherit.

We think of climate change as slow, but it is unnervingly fast. We think of the technological change necessary to avert it as fast-arriving, but unfortunately it is deceptively slow, especially judged by just how soon we need it.
David Wallace-Wells. Book: The Uninhabitable Earth. Life after Warming. 2019

The goal of halving global emissions by 2030 represents the absolute minimum we must achieve if we are to have at least a 50 per cent chance of safeguarding humanity from the worst impacts.
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac. Book: The Future We Choose - Surviving the Climate Crisis. 2020

AI - generated image | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2024

The primary challenge is to stop the flow of money to oil, coal and gas and to establish a clear path towards de-carbonization.

The «sustainability» of finance can be gauged by how far and how fast it shifts us away from the fossil fuel economy, rather than simply allowing the financial sector to develop new «green» markets alongside a core business that continues to bankroll climate change.
Oscar Reyes. Change Finance - Not the Climate. 2020

The climate crisis is not interested in the promise to be climate-neutral in 2050: It doesn't matter when humanity stops burning coal, oil and gas, and thus blowing greenhouse gases like CO2 into the atmosphere. It depends on how much we burn in the meantime.
Translated from: Maria Stich. 18 Fakten über die Klimakrise, die jede:r wissen sollte. Perspective Daily. 27. März 2023

Wallpapers © Pavel K, © Fostici + © oticki | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2020/23

The rapidly declining biodiversity on land and in the sea is a serious risk to the food security of mankind.

When we have defeated nature, we will find ourselves on the losing side.
Translated quote from: Konrad Lorenz, biologist and Nobel Prize winner. 1903 - 1989

In 2022, 2.4 billion people, comprising relatively more women and people living in rural areas, did not have access to nutritious, safe and sufficient food all year round.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023 - in brief. FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. PDF.

While fossil records show that extinctions of species happen naturally, current extinction rates are estimated to be 100 to 1000 times higher today than what is considered natural.
Elizabeth Claire Alberts. Global biodiversity is in crisis, but how bad is it? It's complicated. Mongabay Series. 11. April 2022

Wallpapers AI generated image + © Momo0607 + © Frank Wortmann | Shutterstock, Inc. [US]

Biodiversity means «biological variety» or «variety of life». Biodiversity can be described on three levels: the diversity of genes, the diversity of species and the diversity of habitats. These three levels of biodiversity are closely and dynamically interlinked.

Biodiversity is not only in itself worth preserving, but also provides indispensable services for society and the economy, so-called ecosystem services. The diversity of these services is immense: Among other things, biodiversity provides food, influences the climate, maintains water and air quality, is a component of soil formation and, last but not least, offers people space for recreation.
Translated from: Beate Kittl. 2024. Fragen und Antworten zur Biodiversität in der Schweiz. WSL Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt für Wald, Schnee und Landschaft

In 2022, 188 countries agreed at the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference with a ground-breaking final declaration to protect at least 30 per cent of the world's land, sea and inland waters by 2030.

© salcovern | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2023 

Land use change linked to massive expansion of globalized, highly commercialized industrial agriculture is the main overarching driver of declining agrobiodiversity.

Globally, the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations] estimates that 75 % of crop diversity was lost in the 20th century. Historically about 7,000 plant species were cultivated for food, today only about 80 plant species make major contributions to food supplies at the global level.

In fact, half of all plant-based calories come from only three species - rice, maize, and wheat. And 93 % of global meat supplies come from just four animal species - pigs, poultry, cattle, and buffalo.

Looking ahead, restoring agrobiodiversity - the richness of what we cultivate, breed, consume, and conserve in the wild - is crucial to ensure resilient food systems against the backdrop of climate change.
Swiss academies factsheets Vol.15 No.1. 2020. Variety is the source of life: Agrobiodiversity benefits, challenges, and needs. PDF

The production of meat and dairy products already takes up 70 - 80 per cent of global agricultural land*), although it only covers 18 per cent of humanity's calorie requirements and 37 per cent of its protein needs.
Poore et al., Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science 360, 987-992 (2018)
*) Cultivation of animal feed and grazing land for animals

Of all the mammals on Earth, 60 % are livestock and 36 % humans, only 4% are wild mammals.
Source: Yinon M. Bar-On etal. 2018. The biomass distribution on Earth. PNAS Vol. 115 | No. 25

Global wildlife populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians have declined by an average of 73 % since 1970. This corresponds to an average annual decline in observed population sizes of 2.6 per cent.
Source: WWF. 2024 Living Planet Report. Executive Summary. PDF

Biodiversity is experiencing a dramatic, human-induced mass extinction worldwide. This also greatly reduces the capacity of ecosystems to contribute to climate regulation and food security.

Only if there is a fundamental change in the way we manage land can we reach the targets of climate-change mitigation, avert the dramatic loss of biodiversity and make the global food system sustainable. 
WBGU German Advisory Council on Global Change. 2020. Rethinking Land in the Anthropocene: from Separation to Integration. PDF

© Kichigin | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2023 

Driven by climate change, marine biodiversity is undergoing a phase of rapid change that has proven to be even faster than changes observed in terrestrial ecosystems.
Hodapp D. etal. 2023. Climate change disrupts core habitats of marine species. Global Change Biology, 00, 1–14.

The oceans are home to an estimated one million animal and plant species. The phytoplankton in the oceans produce as much oxygen as all land plants combined.
Translated from: Greenpeace Schweiz. 2023. Wer atmet braucht das Meer.

Wallpapers © Aleutie + © Anson0618 | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2019/2024

In seeking to curb climate change and biodiversity loss, the following steps are important:

Transformative change to a sustainable economic system. The economic development of countries and companies must also be measured by their management of natural resources.

No subsidies harmful to the climate and biodiversity. Countries around the world spend much more on environmentally harmful subsidies than on measures to protect the climate and biodiversity.

Radical reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Only rapid decarbonisation can curb climate change. Agricultural GHG emissions from land-use change are also to be minimised.

Overcoming land-use conflicts. The use of land for buildings, transport, food production, climate protection and biodiversity conservation needs to be coordinated.

Environmental regulations for the financial sector. The financial sector has a major influence on economic activities which are harmful to biodiversity and the climate.

Reduced consumption of meat and dairy products. Natural ecosystems must no longer be converted to plantations, arable land or livestock farms. The agricultural, forestry and fishing sectors must sustainably manage those areas already in use. This also requires changes in dietary habits.

More funding for conservation. To achieve conservation goals, countries around the world need to invest many times the amount that is currently expended. 
Ismail SA et al. (2021) Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss jointly. Swiss Academies Factsheet 16 (3). PDF

© Lightspring | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2024

Along with climate change and biodiversity loss, the pollution of air, water and soil is one of the major environmental crises of our time.

When ecological boundaries are exceeded, this also has significant health impacts. Despite recent heat waves, droughts, heavy rainfall events and the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers and society still do not take this connection seriously enough.

The multiple environmental crises require profound change. Policymakers and society need to rethink approaches to these issues and recognise how strongly human health and the environment are interconnected. 
SRU German Advisory Council on the Environment. For a Systematic Integration of Environment and Health. Summary 2023. PDF

Ambient air pollution, chemical pollution, and soil pollution - the forms of pollution produced by industry, mining, electricity generation, mechanised agriculture, and petroleum-powered vehicles - are all on the rise.

In the most severely affected countries, pollution-related disease is responsible for more than one death in four.

Like climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, desertification, and depletion of the world's fresh water supply, pollution endangers the stability of the Earth's support systems and threatens the continuing survival of human societies.

Pollution is now a substantial problem that endangers the health of billions, degrades the Earth's ecosystems, undermines the economic security of nations, and is responsible for an enormous global burden of disease, disability, and premature death.
Philip J. Landrigan etal. The Lancet Commission on pollution and health. www.thelancet.com Vol. 391 February 3, 2018

Water quality will continue to decline in the future if the discharge of inadequately treated wastewater – currently about 80 % of the world's wastewater – and with it pathogens, persistent chemicals, nutrients and solid waste continues.
WBGU. German Advisory Council on Global Change. Water in heated world. Summary. 2024. PDF

According to a new study, it is estimated that over four billion people worldwide do not have an adequate supply of drinking water. That is more than half of the world's population.
Esther E. Greenwood etal. Mapping safe drinking water use in low- and middle-income countries. Science 15. Aug 2024. Vol 385, Issue 6710 pp. 784 - 790

© Rroselavy | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2024

Because the increasing environmental and health problems often have common roots, synergies can be found in approaches to solving them. We are at a crossroads. 
Planetary Health: What we need to talk about. German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). 2021. PDF

Climate change, biodiversity loss and global pollution must be halted in order to maintain the health of people and the planet.

Important, hitherto neglected starting points include stopping the exploration of fossil energy sources and strengthening the biosphere on land, in freshwater and in the sea - also to prevent zoonotic pandemics.

Health and environmental risks from emissions and the dumping of persistent wastes and chemicals in the air, soil and water should be prevented with a controlled circular economy and emissions regulations. 
German Advisory Council on Global Change WBGU. Factsheet No. 8, 2023. Healthy Living. PDF

The great fallacy of the environmental debate in recent decades has been the hope that an ecological turnaround can essentially be implemented with some technological innovation programme within the existing economic order.

However, the continuing impressive growth in prosperity has not been able to slow down climate pollution, resource consumption or the loss of biodiversity - on the contrary, all these pressures have increased massively.
Translated from: Uwe Schneidewind. Book: Die Grosse Transformation - Eine Einführung in die Kunst gesellschaftlichen Wandels. 2018

That the transition to sustainability can be achieved through innovation and technology alone is a hypothesis for which there is insufficient evidence - on the contrary, there are many arguments against it.
Sufficiency as a «Strategy of the Enough». German Advisory Council on the Environment. 2024. PDF

Technological innovation is absolutely important. It is vital, in fact. We're going to need all the innovations and efficiency improvements we can get to drastically reduce the resource and carbon intensity of our economy.

But the problem we face doesn't have to do with technology. The problem has to do with growth. Over and over again, we see that the growth imperative wipes out all the gains our best technology delivers.
Jason Hickel. Book: Less is more. How degrowth will save the world. 2020

Wallpapers © Lightspring + © Piyaset | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2019/23

Today, Europe continues to consume more resources and contribute more to environmental degradation than many other world regions. We do not only have to do more; we also have to do things differently.

We now need completely different answers to environmental and climate issues than those of the past 40 years.
The European Environment - State and Outlook 2020. European Environment Agency. 2019

Because problems can never be solved with the same way of thinking that created them.
Quote from: Albert Einstein. 1946 - in light of the new threat of atomic weapons.

The longer one tries to apply the solution strategies that fit yesterday's problems to today's problems, the bigger they become, the problems.
Translated from: Harald Welzer. Book: Zeiten Ende – Politik ohne Leitbild, Gesellschaft in Gefahr. 2023

Ai generated image  | Microsoft Copilot 2025

It is quite simply a fact that the current ways of life and economic activity have a comprehensive and deep impact on various ecosystems. Future generations therefore face drastic and irreversible disadvantages.

To date, climate, environmental and sustainability policy has far from succeeded in achieving a sufficiently strong reduction in ecological burdens.
Translated from: Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung (IÖW): Gesellschaftliches Wohlergehen innerhalb planetaren Grenzen, Texte 89/2018

The climate crisis is actually a climate policy crisis, as we are sliding - insignificantly slowed down - towards a climate catastrophe as a result of inadequate action.
Translated from: Prof. Andreas Fischlin. Farewell lecture from 2 December 2024. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.

© JrCasas | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2019

The experience of decades of climate warming shows that political intervention in the market has never been sufficient, and indeed was never even genuinely intended to stop climate change.

This is why we also speak of the climate crisis as the greatest state failure of all time, one which has calmly and quietly run its course notwithstanding all the provisions of environmental law.
Beckert Jens. Book: How We Sold Our Future. The Failure to Fight Climate Change. 2025

We need a policy shift that does not treat sustainability as a possible by-product of an economic growth agenda, but aims directly at sustainable consumption, production and investment.
Translated from: Maja Göpel. Book: Unsere Welt neu denken - Eine Einladung 2020

© Geza Farkas | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018

Digitalization and sustainability are often referred to as two megatrends that are shaping the economy and society. However, the two phenomena are very different:

Digitalization is massively changing reality and influencing almost every aspect of our lives, while sustainability is a normative goal that has not yet become a reality in most areas.
Maike Gossen and Otmar Lell. Sustainable consumption in the digital age. A plea for a systemic policy approach to turn risks into opportunities. GAIA 32/S1 (2023): 71 – 76

The combination of digital progress and capitalist ideology in a fully monetarised society obviously leads to a concentration of power among a few, mostly private, actors.
Translated from: Jonas Lüscher, Writer - Interview in the newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, 06.01.2018

We will end up with «digital by default» unless we choose «digital by design». We shouldn't view technology through the lenses of Big Tech where the role of algorithms is to replace humans. 

We should start by valuing the outcomes that we want technology to help achieve such as reducing carbon and improving the returns to labour.
Mark Carney. Book: Value(s) - Building a Better World for All. 2021

© Moor Studio | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2023

Overall, digitalization processes today tend to act as «fire accelerants», exacerbating existing non-sustainable trends such as the overuse of natural resources and growing social inequality in many countries.

On the one hand, it must be plainly stated that the digitalization of business and everyday life has so far been marginally oriented towards sustainability aspects. 

On the other hand, digitalization offers an enormous range of possibilities for supporting the Great Transformation towards sustainability.
WBGU German Advisory Council on Global Change. Towards our Common Digital Future. 2019. PDF

The three main objectives of ecological sustainability are decarbonisation, dematerialisation and renaturalisation. In theory at least, the growth of digital services can be compatible with the goals of ecological sustainability. But today's reality is far-removed from that ideal.

The consumption of energy and material is actually increasing as digitalisation expands. This situation will not change unless the majority of affected companies adopt the three ecological objectives as binding principles.
Ortwin Renn, et al. The opportunities and risks of digitalisation for sustainable development: a systemic perspective. GAIA 30/1(2021): 23-28

The energy consumption of digital infrastructure is increasing, because the intensity of use is growing faster than efficiency. It is true that microchips have become more energy-efficient by a factor of at least one billion over the last five decades.

This means that you can now calculate a billion times more for a kilowatt hour of electricity than fifty years ago. There is no other technical field in which energy efficiency is increasing so rapidly. But utilisation is growing even faster, which is why overall consumption is increasing sharply.
Translated from: Mathias Plüss. Interview mit Prof. Lorenz Hilty. Fussabdruck der Digitalisierung. Newsletter Planet Plüss. Tages-Anzeiger. 02.06.2024

© Alexander Limbach | Shutterstock, [US] 2024 

The relation between digitalization and environmental sustainability is ambiguous. On the whole, the form of digitalization we have witnessed in the past decades has not solved any of the pressing environmental issues of our time: Despite innovative small-scale initiatives, it can be noted that in none of the key sectors – transport, energy, agriculture, housing, consumer goods – did the introduction of digital tools so far spur transformation towards sustainable alternatives. 
T. Santarius etal. Digitalization and Sustainability: A Call for a Digital Green Deal. Environmental Science and Policy 147 (2023) 11–14

The enormous design opportunities of digitalisation as a formative force of the 21st century must be placed at the service of sustainable development as the most pressing design task of the 21st century.
Translated from: Wuppertal Institut. Digitalisierung gestalten - Transformation zur Nachhaltigkeit ermöglichen: Studie im Rahmen des Projekts «Shaping the Digital Transformation». 2021

Wallpaper © smatch | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018  

It's a dilemma: it does not work without growth, there is no completely green growth, and normal growth inevitably leads to ecological disaster.
Translated from: Ulrike Herrmann. Book: Goodbye, Kapitalismus: So kann der Übergang zu einer neuen Wirtschaftsordnung gelingen. 2022

Three per cent growth means doubling the size of the global economy every twenty-three years. This might be OK if GDP*) were just plucked out of thin air. But it's not. It is coupled to energy and resource use. 
Jason Hickel. Book: Less is More. How degrowth will save the world. 2020
*) GDP stands for gross domestic product and represents the total monetary value of all final goods and services produced and sold within a country during a period of time.

© Ueli Hafner 2022

Continued growth isn't a fairy tale, it's a necessity. But not just any growth.

The power of the market needs to be directed to achieving what society wants. That requires measures of income and welfare that reflect our values. 

We need a world where we are no longer guided solely by measures like gross domestic product GDP. 
Mark Carney. Book: Value(s) - Building a Better World for All. 2021

We urgently need a clear vision, a bold policy, and a truly robust strategy  to find the way out of the growth dilemma.

The growth dilemma is barely taken into account by the normal policy-makers and is mentioned only marginally in public debate.
Tim Jackson. Book: Prosperity without Growth - Foundations for the economy of tomorrow. 2016 

Wallpaper © Anderl | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018

The conventional response to the growth dilemma is the call to decouple economic growth from resource consumption by means of more efficient production processes.

However, more efficient production means an increase in productivity, and this results in additional growth with corresponding resource consumption.

In the capitalist economy, all efficiency gains are in principle translated into additional economic activity. This reinvestment of efficiency gains is the basic economic principle unterlying growth and profits. 
Beckert Jens. Book: How We Sold Our Future. The Failure to Fight Climate Change. 2025

So far, global environment and climate policies have at best achieved relative decoupling*) between GDP and resource use respectively greenhouse gas emissions.
Helmut Haberl et al 2020. A systematic review of the evidence on decoupling of GDP, resource use and GHG emissions, part II: synthesizing the insights. Environ. Res. Lett. 15 065003. PDF

*) A relative decoupling of resource consumption and economic growth means that although resource consumption increases less strongly in a more sustainable but still growing economy, it still increases.
In the case of an absolute decoupling, resource consumption would no longer increase despite a growing economy.

It is a cause for great concern about the prevailing focus of policy makers on green growth, this focus being based on the flawed assumption that sufficient decoupling can be achieved through increased efficiency without limiting economic production and consumption.
Parrique T. etal. 2019. European Environmental Bureau. Decoupling debunked: Evidence and arguments against green growth as a sole strategy for sustainability. PDF

Wallpaper © Anderl | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018

However, if you look at CO2 emissions in isolation, i.e. disregarding resource consumption and harmful environmental impacts such as biodiversity loss, it is found that an absolute decoupling between growth and CO2 emissions is taking place regionally, but not globally:

In fact, over the past decade, some rich countries have reduced their CO2 emissions while increasing their gross domestic product GDP and hence achieved an absolute decoupling. But, at the achieved rates, these countries would on average take more than 220 years to reduce their emissions by 95%.
Jefim Vogel and Jason Hickel. Is green growth happening? An empirical analysis of achieved versus Paris-compliant CO2 – GDP decoupling in high-income countries 2023

The analysis of data from 1,500 regions over the past 30 years showed that 30 percent have managed to lower their carbon emissions while continuing to thrive economically. The authors caution that the current pace of decoupling is insufficient to meet the global climate target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Green growth: 30 percent of regions worldwide achieve economic growth while reducing carbon emissions. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. October 2024

Circularity is important in advancing a sustainable and just development agenda. Ensuring economic and social development without exceeding our planetary boundaries is the challenge of the 21st century.

By reducing the need for primary materials and the associated greenhouse gas emissions linked to the extraction and processing of those resources, circular economy actions can make an important contribution to climate action.
The cicular economy in motion. European Investment Bank. 2024

Increasing resource use is the main driver of the triple plantery crisis.

A projected 60 per cent growth in resource use by 2060 could derail efforts to achieve not only global climate, biodiversity, and pollution targets but also economic prosperity and human well-being.

Reducing the resource intensity of food, mobility, housing and energy systems is the best and only way of achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the climate goals, and ultimately a just and liveable planet for all.
United Nations Environment Programme. Global Resources Outlook 2024 Summary. Bend the Trend. PDF

Resource extraction and processing are responsible for 90% of global biodiversity loss, 50% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and over 30% of air-pollution-related health impacts.
Piotr Barczak. How a circular economy can cure globale resource overconsumption. Meta from European Environmental Bureau. July 16, 2024.

The gap between efficient production and efficient collection and recycling of materials is gigantic. Despite efforts to move towards a circular economy, the proportion of recycled materials in the total consumption of all materials has decreased in recent years.

The share of secondary materials*) consumed by the global economy has decreased from 9.1% in 2018 to 7.2% in 2023, a 21% drop over the course of five years.
The Circularity Gap Report 2024 - Executive summary. Circal Economy Foundation. PDF

*) Secondary materials originate from collected, disposed materials and differ from primary materials extracted from nature.

© Waldemarus | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018

There will be no one simple solution for decoupling prosperity and the destruction of nature, but if we don't manage it, we will have to adapt to the new conditions. And they'll be tough.
Translated from: Interview with Harald Lesch. Digitale Welten riechen nicht. GeoPlus 29.09. 2021

The environmental challenges we face are massive. If we don't tackle them, the consequences will be devastating and cruelly unequal. We must act. It must be large-scale. And so much quicker than we have done before.
Hannah Ritchie. Book: Not the End of the World. Surprising facts, dangerous myths and hopeful solutions for our future on planet Earth. 2024

We are now faced with the Herculean task of satisfying the basic needs of what will soon be 9 to 10 billion people while at the same time respecting the Earth's ecological limits.

In this context, it is important to remember the great inequality, for example:

80 percent of the world's population has never boarded an aircraft and only 1 per cent of the world's population is responsible for half of all flight emissions.

Stefan Gössling, Andreas Humpe. 2020. The global scale, distribution and growth of aviation: Implication for climate change.

The richest 10 per cent produce almost half of the world's climate-damaging emissions. A third of these 10 per cent live in emerging countries.
Translated from: Interview with Irmi Seidl. 9.9.2022

The average annual CO2 emissions produced by people on this planet are the same amount that Swiss people produce during their vacations alone.
Stephan Gössling - Co-author of the study: Sun, YY. et al. Drivers of global tourism carbon emissions. Nat Commun 15, 10384 (2024).

The 20 per cent mainly includes people in rich countries, but also wealthy people worldwide.
Various sources: There are no exact data on this.

© underworld | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2019

The incentives in today's economic system are still one-sidedly promoting the exploitation of nature and man.

The development of the economic system is no longer determined by the question: What is good for Man? but by the question: What is good for the growth of the system?
Erich Fromm. Book: To Have or to Be? 1976

A realistic assumption is that only very far-reaching changes in the economy, and even in human civilisation, can enforce a reasonably tolerable future for our planet.
Translated from: Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker. Book: So reicht das nicht! Was wir in der Klimakrise jetzt wirklich brauchen. 2022

It is an epochal contradiction that the idea of sustainability and the hectic quarterly thinking emerged almost simultaneously in corporations: The conviction that politics and business should be laid out very long-term, and the compulsion to report higher profits from quarter to quarter.
Translated from: Roger de Weck. Book: Nach der Krise - Gibt es einen andern Kapitalismus? 2009

© Prazis Images| Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2023

The world's leaders are correctly fixated on economic growth as the answer to virtually all problems, but they're pushing with all their might in the wrong direction.

Hence, we end up with global economic policy that was crafted to alleviate poverty but many decades later has morphed into a poverty trap, economically enslaving whole nations, destabilizing democracies, and «crowdfunding» environmental catastrophe.

We have watched the purpose of our economy morph from valuing our future to discounting it entirely.
Dixson-Declève S. et.al. Earth for All. A Survival Guide for Humanity. Summary. 2022. PDF

To detach Nature from economic reasoning is to imply that we consider ourselves to be external to Nature.

We may have increasingly queried the absence of Nature from official conceptions of economic possibilities, but the worry has been left for Sundays. On week-days, our thinking has remained as usual.

The fault is not in economics; it lies in the way we have chosen to practise it.
Partha Dasgupta. The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review. Abridged Version. 2021. PDF

The malaise in corners of finance can be remedied only by a combination of regulatory measures and true cultural change.

Market standards were poorly understood, often ignored and always lacked teeth. Too many participants neither felt responsible for the system nor recognised the full impact of their actions.

Bad behavior went unchecked, proliferated and eventually became the norm.
Mark Carney. Book: Value(s) - Building a Better World for All. 2021

© mipan | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2020    

The current economic organisation, which is based on uncontrolled capital movements without social and ecological targets, is often enough tantamount to a kind of neo-colonialism in favour of the richest. Politically and ecologically, the development is untenable.
Piketty Thomas. Book: Brief history of equality. 2022

Leading economists are proposing an economic turnaround:

Politicians should say goodbye to neoliberalism and take more care of the people. Decades of poorly managed globalisation, over-reliance on market self-regulation and austerity have eroded governments' ability to respond effectively to the current crises.

To avert greater damage to humanity and the planet, we urgently need to address the causes of people's discontent.
Translated from: Forum New Economy. Appell international führender Ökonomen für eine Agenda gegen Populismus. Pressemitteilung vom 29. Mai 2024

Liberal democracies are today confronted with a wave of popular distrust in their ability to serve the majority of their citizens and solve the multiple crises that threaten our future.

We are living through a critical period. Markets on their own will neither stop climate change nor lead to a less unequal distribution of wealth. Trickle-down has failed.

What is needed is a new political consensus addressing the deep drivers of people's distrust instead of merely focusing on the symptoms, or falling into the trap of populists who pretend to have simple answers.
The Berlin Summit Declaration - Winning back the people. Forum New Economy. May 2024. PDF

© Janossy Gergely + Saigh Anees | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2023

The great promise of unlimited progress - the promise of domination of nature, of material abundance, of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, and of unimpeded personal freedom - has sustained the hopes and faith of the generations since the beginning of the industrial age.
Erich Fromm. Book: To Have or to Be? 1976

Economic growth based on exploitation - the business model of the rich West for 400 years - has reached its limits. The exploitability of people and the ecosystems leads to migration in millions and catastrophic environmental impacts.
Translated from: Philipp Blom. Book: Was auf dem Spiel steht. 2017

It is the conditions of any future economy that need to be redeveloped: For all the great achievements that we can look back on have only been at the price of not taking into account either the natural conditions or the living situations of people in other parts of the world.
Translated from: Harald Welzer. Book: Alles könnte anders sein - Eine Gesellschaftsutopie für freie Menschen. 2019

The ecological problems will increase and so will the social and economic upheavals. We need to ask ourselves what kind of economic system will serve the people and also maintain the ecological foundations. Today's does not. 
Translated from: Interview with the economist Irmi Seidl. Der ökologische Umbau wird die Arbeitswelt verändern. Tages-Anzeiger. 15.02.2020

© Gustavo Frazao | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2019

The question is not how? The question is when do we decide to do business more sustainably? 

The world is changing – environmentally, socially, economically. The only uncertainties are the pace and direction of that change, and whether societies will find pathways to long-term sustainability and prosperity or instead settle for increasing volatility and accelerating decline.

Transitions are very rarely smooth, and the sustainability transformation is perhaps the most difficult that global societies have faced. Seemingly contradictory truths and deep uncertainties must be factored into short-, medium-, and long-term plans.

Like previous transitions – the ongoing digital transformation is a good example – significant value is at risk, and enormous value can be created.
Jacco Kroon etal. 2024. Report: Catching the wave - Seizing the opportunities of sustainability transformation. Executive Summary. ERM Sustainability Institute and World Business Council for Sustainable Development. PDF

We are not on a sustainable path. Within the lifetime of one single generation the world population, global CO2 emissions, resource and energy consumption increased at an unprecedented rate.

Data source: Christian Berg. 2020. Online presentation of the new report to the Club of Rome – Sustainable Action. Overcoming the Barriers.

Sustainable development is hardly conceivable without

• moving away from the predominantly linear economy towards a consistent circular economy,
• simultaneously cutting back on over-consumption,
• rapidly reducing CO2 emissions and
• a fundamental change in the way we manage land.
  

Definition of Sustainability

Sustainability is a development that satisfies the needs of the present without risking that future generations will not be able to meet their own needs.
Brundtland Report - Our Common Future. World Commission on the Environment and Development, 1987

Sustainability is a principle according to which no more can be consumed, than can respectively be regrown, regenerated, and provided again in the future. 
Translated from: Duden German Dictionary

Sustainability means - concisely formulated - good life for about ten billion people within the ecological boundaries on our planet. 
Translated from: Uwe Schneidewind. Book: Die Grosse Transformation - Eine Einführung in die Kunst gesellschaftlichen Wandels. 2018

Sustainability is a guiding concept to secure and foster humane living conditions for all people worldwide, in the present and future, and to facilitate restoring and preserving the environmental foundations to enable this. 
Mark Lawrence. 2023. How can I live sustainably. RIFS Research Institute for Sustainability. Helmholtz Centre Potsdam.

As simple as these definitions are, it is difficult to achieve a unified, shared understanding of sustainability. 

Transformation means that we determine what we want to keep and preserve - and at the same time what we want to part from.
Translated from: Stefan Brunnhuber. Book: Die Kunst der Transformation – Wie wir uns anpassen und die Welt verändern. 2023

These goals answer all three design questions for good policymaking in the 21st century: What are our needs? What are the circumstances? Which resources are key?
In detail, they are:

1. Overcome poverty

2. End hunger and ensure healthy nutrition

3. Improve health and well-being

4. Guarantee quality education

5. Guarantee gender equality

6. Guarantee clean water and sanitation

7. Provide affordable and clean energy

8. Decent work and sustainable economic growth

9. Sustainably renew industry, innovation and infrastructure

10. Reduce inequality between and within countries

11. Develop sustainable cities and communities

12. Sustainable consumption and production

13. Climate protection measures

14. Preserve life under water

15. Sustain life on land

16. Peace, justice and strong institutions

17. Partnerships to achieve the goals 
    Translated from: Maja Göpel. Book: Werte – Ein Kompass für die Zukunft. 2025

In order to achieve the UN 2030 Agenda's Goals, we need to fundamentally change the way we do business and consume.

Although digitalization is hardly mentioned in the 2030 Agenda, it will greatly influence its implementation.
WBGU German Advisory Counsil on Global Change. Digitalization: What we need to talk about. 2018. PDF

Recent studies on the interactions between the Sustainable Development Goals identify the conservation of biodiversity as one of the most potent levers to achieve sustainability.
Swiss Academy of Sciences. Achieving the SDGs with Biodiversity. 2021. PDF

The UN warned that without an improved performance by the G20, which makes up two-thirds of the world's population and is responsible for 75 per cent of global CO2 emissions, the Agenda will fail.

A primary point of criticism is consumption behaviour on the part of rich industrialised countries.

If the estimates forecasting a rise in global population to 9.7 billion by 2050 are correct, humanity and the planet will face immense challenges. Asia's rise will certainly lead to greater energy demand, consumption, and production. 

This is not a call for a backward-looking «ecological agenda», but instead for overdue reforms regarding economic modernisation, climate protection, and innovation.
Sabina Wölkner. 2030 Agenda: The courage to achieve sustainability. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. International Reports 3/2019. PDF

Wallpaper © ra2studio | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018

Anyone who really wants to change something cannot get around thinking about the dogma of «ALWAYS MORE».

In the race for «more», we lose sight of the fact that «better» is a completely different objective.
Translated from: Maja Göpel. Book: Werte. Ein Kompass für die Zukunft. 2025

No intelligent person still believes that the existing economic system and the level of consumption of the present can be continued for another one or two generations, a thought that would have been self-evident in 1900 or 1950. This makes it clear: we are at the end of something.
Translated from: Blom Philipp. Book: Das grose Welttheater. Von der Macht der Vorstellungskraft in Zeiten des Umbruchs. 2020

As restrictions on consumption are not actually being pursued owing to their unwanted consequences, business and politics are focusing instead on a strategy of promises, and consumers on symbolic surrogate actions.

The order of the day is for example: fewer cars, fewer cruises, and smaller homes. But this will not happen. Since economic growth and consumerism are built into the DNA of the system, a politically prescribed contraction of the economy is simply not feasible.
Beckert Jens. Book: How We Sold Our Future. The Failure to Fight Climate Change. 2025

The idea that consumption should be limited according to the needs of a planet shared in common by eight billion is, for many, especially in privileged nations, unthinkable as an individual orientation and forgettable as a political program.
Anna Katsman. Planetary Commons. The New Institute. 25.05.2024

It is understandable that the idea of having to renounce some of the wealth you have gained causes anxiety. It helps to realise that a fulfilled life cannot be measured by the number of cruises taken or the size of your wardrobe.

Renunciation is often associated with loss, which leaves a gap forever. But where there are gaps, there is also space for something new.
Translated from: Silvia Liebrich. Wir müssen lernen zu verzichten. Süddeutsche Zeitung. 30. Juli 2022.

We do not have to renounce happiness, well-being and justice, but excessiveness, abundance, stress and consumption decadence.
Translated from: Stefan Brunnhuber. Book: Die Kunst der Transformation. Wie wir uns anpassen und die Welt verändern. 2023

In rich countries, renunciation means actually nothing more and nothing less than refraining from ruining the planet and in return preserving the basis of life in the future. That's a big word, of course. Couldn't it be a little bit smaller? Unfortunately not.
Translated from: Maja Göpel. Book: Unsere Welt neu denken. Eine Einladung. 2002

Wallpapers © JIL Photo + © F-Focus by Mati Kose | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2021

Human development has ushered in an era of converging crises: climate change, ecological destruction, disease, pollution, and socioeconomic inequality.

Propelled by imperialism, extractive capitalism, and a surging population, we are speeding past Earth's material limits, destroying critical ecosystems, and triggering irreversible changes in biophysical systems that underpin the Holocene*) climatic stability which fostered human civilization.

A critical paradigm shift must occur that replaces exploitative, wealth-oriented capitalism with an economic model that prioritizes sustainability, resilience, and justice. 
Charles Fletcher etal. Earth at risk: An urgent call to end the age of destruction and forge a just and sustainable future. PNAS Nexus, Volume 3, Issue 4, April 2024

*) The Holocene is a period in the Earth's history that began around 12,000 years ago and continues to the current day. Global temperature fluctuations during this period averaged only around 1° C.

It is very urgent. System collapse is a real danger. We face tremendous challenges due to rapid population growth, the overuse of resources and associated pollution, the loss of biodiversity, global warming and overall we are experiencing a gradual loss of our basis of existence.
Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and Anders Wijkman. Book: Come on! - Capitalism, Short-Terminism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet. 2017

© Alexandros Michailidis | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2024

Our planet has capacity limits for air pollution, biodiversity, the extent of climate change, and other factors. These are boundaries that must be respected if we are to preserve the basis for human life. We have already crossed six out of nine planetary boundaries.
Thomas Krautwig, Anja Krieger. 2022. How we observe planetary boundaries. Helmholtz Climate Initiative.

Licenced under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Credit: Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. Based on Richardson et al. 2023, Steffen et al. 2015, and Rockström et al. 2009

Given the existential threat of climate change, severe weather events, rising sea levels, loss of biodiversity, resource depletion and increasing economic inequality, we are reminded of the importance of developing a sustainable economy that balances economic issues with social and environmental responsibility.
Swiss National Science Foundation. National Research Programme 73: Transition to a Sustainable Economy. 2023

© Monkey Business Images | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018

The burdens - from mounting government debts, underfunded pensions, inadequate health and social care to environmental calamity - that we are pushing on to the next generation are unfair, inequitable and irresponsible.
Mark Carney. Book: Value(s) - Building a Better World for All. 2021

Why does the endless number of widely known problem diagnoses, strategy proposals and calls for action have so little effect in practice and the socio-ecological transformation simply doesn't take place? 
Translated from: Ingolfur Blühdorn. Haben wir es gewollt? Book: Nachhaltige Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit. 2020. Pages 31-45

Since the Enlightment, and massively more so over the past fifty years, traditional ways of life with their associated restrictive norms have been increasingly called into question and replaced by unbounded individualist lifestyles.

Liberation from obligations and the convenience that comes with the new freedom are felt to be entitlements and contribute to our ignoring the ecological consequences of our way of life. This is especially the case since excess is the ultimate principle behind economic activity under capitalist modernity.

Unbounded individualism sells the future for the next quarterly figures, the next election result, or today's passing pleasure.
Jens Beckert - Director Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies Cologne. Book: How We Sold Our Future. The Failure to Fight Climate Change. 2025

In other words: the economy can't and won't let go of its pursuit of profit. Politicians do not want to mess things up with the economy and be re-elected. Citizens do not want to give up their individual freedom and the prosperity they have acquired.
Translated from: Thomas Brandenburg. Rezension: Das Wissensbuch des Jahres? Verkaufte Zukunft. hpd Humanistischer Pressedienst. 21. Oktober 2024

Wallpaper © Ranglen | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2018

Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C above pre-industrial levels is essential for avoiding increasingly severe and widespread climate change impacts.

Doing so requires cutting greenhouse gas emissions 42% by 2030 and 56% by 2035, relative to 2023.
Current policies alone will achieve less than a 1% reduction by 2030 and 2035.  
Sophie Boehm etal. 2024. By the Numbers: The Climate Action We Need This Decade. World Resource Institute.

Any further delay in forward-looking global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a narrow and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change. Climate Change 2022 – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Unlike financial crises or pandemics, the damage done to the climate is irreversible. What we fail to do now cannot be made up for later.

© Tom Toro | CartoonStock 2024

How will we explain this to the next generation if we don't do everything now, quickly and with determination, to preserve the basis of life on Earth and instead just carry on as before?

© chekart | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2022

Wallpapers © miniolka and © G-Stock Studio | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2023/2020

Every change that happens in societies and organizations needs individuals who initiate it.

Climate anxiety and despair are not only caused by horror scenarios, but above all by political inaction, empty optimism and false comfort.

Hope, perhaps even something like a desire for the future, does not arise theoretically, not by talking and concepts alone. And certainly not by waiting for the world's powerful to agree on a masterplan. It comes from lived joint action.

As future is what is achieved in the present, it is also true: Our plans for the future shape the actions we take now.

We need a future narrative with the working title «The fight against the climate catastrophe and me».
Translated from source: Daniel Graf. Ja, Zukunftslust, verdammt! REPUBLIK 14.02.2023 

The world now needs courageous people. Courage in the climate crisis means: saying what is. And also: saying what could be.

Courage grows above all where there are many of us. Where we look very closely in search of hope and see who is already doing something, where something has already been moving, where small bright spots join together to form rays.
Translated from: Luisa Neubauer, Climate activist. Book: Was wäre, wenn wir mutig wären?. 2025

It is actually breathtaking how many opportunities we have to create a better world or preserve a good world.

Never in the history of mankind have we had so many powerful tools at our disposal. We cannot afford not to use these tools for the betterment of eight billion people.
Translated from: Joachim Laukenmann and Martin Läubli. Klimaforscher Hans Joachim Schellnhuber*) über Lösung der Klimakrise. Tages-Anzeiger 31.12.2024. *) Founding director and long-standing head of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research PIK

If you are living today, you are in a truly unique position to achieve something that was unthinkable for our ancestors: to deliver a sustainable future.

What makes us different from ancestors is that economic and technological changes mean we have options. We can make responsible choices that move us forward. But we can also stick with the status quo. A sustainable future is not guaranteed - if we want it, we need to create it. Being the first generation is an opportunity, but it's not inevitable.
Hannah Ritchie. Book: Not the End of the World. Surprising facts, dangerous myths and hopeful solutions for our future on planet Earth. 2024

The first encouragement is to be grateful for living in a time that challenges us so much to change and awakens that sensual instinct in us to sustain life.

The second piece of advice is: Don't be afraid of the future that lies in darkness, don't be afraid of uncertainty, stress, loss, because all that is part of a drastic change. Everything new first matures in the dark. And we cannot wait for ready-made plans to take the next step.

The third tip is to roll up your sleeves. Get involved politically, get an overview, ask questions about purpose and meaning. Anyone can do that. Don't sit back, don't get discouraged or paralysed. There is so much to learn and do at this time. 

Fourthly, I would say: have courage of vision. We must allow positive visions of the future to blossom within us. For nothing new will come into the world through us that has not previously taken shape in our consciousness.
Translated from: Geseko v. Lüpke. Book: Politik des Herzens. Nachhaltige Konzepte für das 21. Jahrhundert. 2015. p. 93 - 105: Im Gespräch mit der Ökologin Joanna Macy.

© Sergey Nivens | Shutterstock, Inc. [US] 2023

Many small people in many small places, taking many small steps, can change the world's face. 
Stefan Zweig, Austrian writer 1881 - 1942