Sustainability in Angespeak: What Really Matters to You?

Can we be real with each other for a few minutes? I know you’re busy with work, family, hobbies, and keeping your head above water. I am too, so we’re probably more alike than not. Finances can overwhelm me, people sometimes frustrate me, and politics often madden me. I want to live a long, happy, and healthy life. I want to have equal access to the same opportunities everyone else has, and I want the same for everyone I care about.

We are hearing more about “sustainability,” and we are supposed to be excited about it. But why should I care? Call me selfish, but if I have to change what I’m doing or if I have to do more, I want to know why. What’s in it for me? How does it affect me? Because if it doesn’t directly affect me, I don’t have much time for it.

Is sustainability just another bureaucratic buzzword to add to the myriad others that mean nothing to the average Joe? Methodologies, implementation, mitigation, deliverables—the list can go on.

How often do you hear people outside of the work world use the words that are part of our common office language? If you stop in your morning coffeehouse, and you notice the café is being remodeled and has new equipment, do the workers tell you, “We’re implementing new methodologies to mitigate costumer delay so we can more rapidly provide our deliverables”? No. They’ll likely tell you, “We bought new equipment so our customers don’t have to wait so long in line.” You care, because it makes your life better. At your third-grader’s parent-teacher conference, does Ms. Jones tell you, “We really need to mitigate Johnny’s challenges. Let’s implement methodologies to increase his deliverables”? If she does, have Johnny transferred to another teacher—immediately. Instead, she’s going to say, “Let’s work together to help Johnny get his homework turned it.” You’re happy because she’s trying to make your kid’s school life better.

When I first heard “sustainability,” it went in one ear and out the other. It meant nothing to me, but once I delved into it a little more, it turns out that I do care about it. It does affect me, and if I take it outside of its bureaucratic box, it’s just as simple as talking to the folks at the coffeehouse or Johnny’s teacher.

So what does sustainability mean to me? It means striving for the highest quality of life not only for myself, but for everyone else, and everything else—and not just now, but for my baby, and all the babies that will come after him.

Sustainability means that if my status in life changes—if I suddenly become poor or unemployed—I have equal access to jobs and safe, reliable public transportation to look for work or get the help I need to get back on my feet. Sustainability is not only finding a job, but knowing that job won’t compromise the quality of life for people now or in the future. It means that if my physical abilities change and I am in a wheelchair, I will be able to safely travel most anywhere people on foot can travel. It means that my baby, my future grandbabies, and my future grandbabies’ babies will know how fresh, clean water tastes, and what a blue sky looks like. Polar bears will not be something they see only in a museum’s exhibit of stuffed extinct animals. Sustainability is taking care of what I have now so that I can hold on to it for as long as possible.

Sustainability is also the way I spend my money. If I am looking to buy a car or new TV, I want to find the best product I can find that will last the longest, with the least amount of repairs and for the lowest price. But I’m also going to think about how much insurance, gas, or electricity will cost. And if I want to make sure my future generations inherit the kind of world I want them to inherit, I’ll need to consider what that new purchase will do to our environment.

If I’m used to feeding a family of four, and my brother losses his job and he and his family have to move in with me, we have to learn how to fit everyone in my house and feed seven people on the same budget that I’m used to feeding four. That too, is sustainability. It’s working with what we have. It’s fitting everyone into the existing space we have without building in my neighbor’s yard, and working with the money we have.

Sustainability is not just being in the moment; it’s stopping to think about the future and the domino effect my decisions have on everything my choices touch. It’s thinking about the many ways everything is connected and how they affect the environment, my equal access to what I want and need, and my access to jobs so I can make the money I need to live the life I deserve.

Sustainability is a complex simplicity. It is many tiny pieces that touch each other. It is a huge umbrella under which everyone and everything falls. It’s what we all want, and on some level, it’s what many of us are already working toward. It’s maintaining what we have, but it’s also working toward something better. It’s the three interconnected E’s: Environment, Equity, and Economy. We need to make sure people have access to social equity and economic prosperity, and we need to protect our environment as well.

During the work day, it’s easy to imagine being somewhere else, doing the things we enjoy, but what we do at work does affect our personal lives. We’re not just earning a paycheck. We’re helping to keep us connected to the people we want to see and places we want to go. We’re sustaining our quality of life and working to improve it.

When I look at sustainability as investing in my own life and future generations’ lives, sustainability is no longer a bureaucratic buzzword to complicate my workday. It’s a way of life, and it’s working toward what really matters to me.

I challenge you to think about what really matters to you, how it fits into sustainability, how you’re making it happen.