Learning from the sustainable age
The pandemic has accelerated change and many companies are noting that ten years of transformation has been crammed into ten months. A few years ago the idea of sustainability was being discussed and seen as an important issue. The Paris Agreement and the UNSDGs had brought the issue of sustainability to the front and center of the business mind.
We are now in the sustainable age where the goal of business is, put simply, to be sustainable. Weak supply chains and sick populations do not support sustainable businesses. Businesses that cannot adapt to new regulatory environments are not sustainable. Businesses that are clueless about social and cultural change are not sustainable. To be sustainable means to be integrated into a global economic system that is sustainable. That means sustainable from both a climate change and a human perspective. Issues of gender and race are cultural expressions of sustainability: the Industrial Age powered colonialism and slavery. Industrial culture powered mass media that erased the diversity of humanity in favor of the polarized masses favored by marketers. Those days are gone. The sustainable age is an age of equal access and shared responsibility, to each other and to the environment that sustains us. In the sustainable age luxury is not about status it is about experience, appreciation, provenance and excellence. Everyday goods do not have to feel cheap and common, they need to be designed for everyday use and offer value and quality.
Everything you do, everything you say and everything you imagine has to be sustainable.