Today, our world is on an unsustainable track. The global population is currently consuming over 2.5 times the amount of resources required for just one single planet Earth. This puts in question the sustainability of our living conditions and livelihoods under stress from climate change, water scarcity, pollution, and waste accumulation. To ensure the survival of the present and future generations, we must reduce our ecological and carbon footprints significantly.
We must act now to eliminate poverty and bring about more social inclusion, to enhance educational and health levels, to mitigate the pace and effects of climate change and environmental as well as ecological degradation, and to prevent the loss of biodiversity. All pose threats for every country and every person in developed and developing countries alike. To achieve long-term sustainability, we must strive for a green economy, and come up with solutions to address limitations to resource footprints.
All this will require coherent policies, structural changes, new solutions, innovations across the board and creativity in all fields. For the paradigm of sustainability, the role of creativity is of growing significance. Creativity and sustainability are two important features for mankind, with creativity considered as a self-actualizing process, fulfilling human basic needs.
Sustainability refers to the maintainability of development itself; or to the ways in which certain practices or policies may be conducive to a better and stable quality of life; or to the viability of a project or institution, in particular, its financial soundness. There is also environmental sustainability and the trope of cultural sustainability, inspired by traditional cultures and their practices. But there is no fixed path to achieve sustainability.
For a sustainable world, the transition from a linear to a circular economy is a necessary precondition. A circular economy aims at decoupling economic growth from the use of natural resources and ecosystems by using those resources more effectively and efficiently and through the introduction of recycling infrastructure. The circular economy is a driver of innovation in the areas of material-, component- and product reuse, as well as new business models.
The international community has increasingly highlighted the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. To that end, in 2015, world leaders adopted at the United Nations General Assembly the Agenda 2030 with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a broad-based set of 169 quantified and measurable targets aimed at transforming the world. This new agenda set out the core elements of sustainable lifestyles for all. However, thus far no country has yet achieved patterns of consumption and production that could sustain global prosperity. Sustainable development* calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable and resilient future for people and the planet. Since then, a new academic discipline known as “sustainability science” has emerged, which is focused on examining the interactions between humanity and the environment in an eco-civilizational approach.
Agenda 2030 is based on systems-thinking and emphasizes that the SDGs are indivisible. A major challenge for governments today is to ensure that goals are not addressed in isolation and effects are not measured against single indicators alone.
