Sustainability & Social Justice

Jo Kidd, John O'Brien and David Towell are working together on this project.

Sustainability means treating the Earth as if we intend to stay. It is about living within our environmental limits now and meeting the needs of existing and future generations. By living sustainably we are clearly saying that we want to leave the best possible inheritance to our children. That means a planet that is safe and peaceful. Sustainability is about how we can balance economic, social and environmental factors to create a better world for everyone. 

Sustainability has three main strands:

1. Social - ensuring a strong, healthy and just society for existing and future communities
2. Economic - where environmental and social costs fall on those who cause them, and resources are distributed fairly and efficiently
3. Environmental - respecting and protecting the limits of the planet's environment, resources and biodiversity.

We won’t be able to live in harmony with our planet unless we find better ways of living in harmony with each other. We need to find ways in which to meet these environmental, economic and social objectives together. The main aim of our project is to encourage, support, learn from and share examples of ways of doing this from around the world.

A 2018/19 priority in this work is focused on implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 11 Make Cities and Human Settlements Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable. In short Cities for All. In this slogan, we intend that 'All means all'. We are especially concerned to ensure that city development fully includes disabled people so that they are welcomes as equal citizens. Our Facebook page offers a simple vehicle for sharing ideas and experiences on these themes. 

Jo is leading one such initiative, The Abbot’s Mill Project in Canterbury and there will be regular updates on the Abbot’s Mill Project Journey. For example, recently they celebrated International Mother Earth Day. We're collecting and publishing other short innovation stories in the Library under the category Sustainability. See for example, the reports headed Botanica Life Foundation (Bulgaria), Eco Shed (England), Networking for Social Change (Colombia) and The Adelante Foundation in Honduras.

Click here to view all resources on Sustainability.

How can you get involved?

We'd love to hear from you about the things that you're doing which demonstrate ways of ‘living the future now’. We're especially interested in initiatives in the following areas:

• Ideas - talking about why we must find ways of combining environmental, economic and social aims.
• Reviews - including reviews of books, articles and leading texts in the field.
• How - looking at the processes through which we can come together to achieve radical change.
• Examples - from all over the world.

If you would like to join in please email: David Towell and Jo Kidd.