From board­rooms to liv­ing rooms, the top­ic of sus­tain­abil­i­ty is draw­ing greater atten­tion. We must con­tin­ue to pri­or­i­tize ways of liv­ing that enable life to thrive.

“Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is the high­est and most sought-after tech­nol­o­gy.” — Pat McCabe, Woman Stands Shining

It doesn’t make any sense to trash our plan­et. Our plan­et is where we live. We don’t throw away plas­tic in our bath­tubs, so why do so in our oceans? Humans have learned to cre­ate amaz­ing inven­tions, but at what cost? Just because we are able to do some­thing doesn’t mean it is tru­ly in our best interest.

The cost of extract­ing fos­sil fuels out of the Earth is only exac­er­bat­ed by the cost of pol­lu­tion that occurs from burn­ing those mate­ri­als. This is not smart tech­nol­o­gy. And yet, most sup­ply chains have been dou­bling down on this approach to ener­gy gen­er­a­tion and its sub­se­quent eco­log­i­cal dam­age. The legal con­tracts that allow com­pa­nies to exploit and pol­lute the plan­et seem to assume we have a back­up plan­et at our dis­pos­al. But we know this is not the case. There is one plan­et on which we’re liv­ing, and we need to act accord­ing­ly. Luck­i­ly, over the last ten years we have seen that the dis­cus­sion around envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion has begun to gain momen­tum and shift attitudes.

Around the world there’s a greater and greater focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty in our busi­ness ini­tia­tives and our lifestyle choic­es. But, to achieve com­plete sus­tain­abil­i­ty, we need to rethink our rela­tion­ships with­in the vast array of life on Earth. In many ways, pur­su­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty has less to do with cre­at­ing new process­es than it does with learn­ing from ancient practices.

Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties have mas­ter­ful­ly show­cased what it means to har­mo­nious­ly live in the same place for thou­sands of years. This capac­i­ty to be of a place is an incred­i­bly mean­ing­ful expres­sion of sus­tain­abil­i­ty. There is much to learn about the wis­dom of sus­tain­abil­i­ty by speak­ing and strength­en­ing rela­tion­ships with indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties through­out the world.

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty can be inter­pret­ed as learn­ing to evolve in a way that allows for con­tin­ued evo­lu­tion. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty means lever­ag­ing the pow­er of the infi­nite. In this way, pur­su­ing and prac­tic­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty will also bring us into a clos­er rela­tion­ship with our spir­i­tu­al poten­tial. There is unlim­it­ed val­ue in tak­ing a sus­tain­able path forward.