Best 140 quotes in «sustainability quotes» category

Sustainability has become a religion in architecture - not that there's anything wrong with it - but I think it has to work both ways. Everyone thinks architecture has to be subservient to sustainability, but what if we thought in the other direction, like, what can sustainability do to make architecture more exciting?

Philanthropy without scale and sustainability is like any other bad business that will simply wither and die on the vine.

... placing economic activity in the context of the whole earth requires attention to the question of scale. Bigger is obviously not better, so the optimum scale of human economy in relation to the total economy becomes basically a question of sustainability. When the effects of the economy on the environment undercut the possibility of its own continuance, the scale is too large.

Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable and what is unjust is not.

Sustainability is the key to our survival on this planet and will also determine success on all levels.

Sustainability is a set of conditions and trends in a given system that can continue indefinitely

The specific danger is us; we are rampant; this earth is our only friend; we are destroying it increment by increment at a horrific rate. We must understand that we can't buy it back.

The funny thing about sustainability is you gotta sustain it.

To the extent that hiring in high-wage, developed economies continues to lag, the sustainability of any impetus to private consumption can be drawn into serious question.

We will instead have to measure our economy by the health of the ecosystems and human communities where we do our work.

You didn't have to be a huge rock star; you just had to do well enough to continue doing what you wanted to do. It wasn't about hitting the jackpot, it was about sustainability.

The thing that I champion is sustainability. My terror is that suddenly we see it as a luxury, not an essential. That's a danger.

A prosperous and sustainable future can only be secured through greater equality and collaboration.

A photograph of a disposable diaper floating in the arctic miles away from human habitat fueled my daily determination to save at least one disposable diaper from being used and created. One cloth diaper after another, days accumulated into years and now our next child is using the cloth diapers we bought for our firstborn.

Sustainability: It's the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do, it's the profitable thing to do.

A sacred way of life connects us to the people and places around us. That means that a sacred economy must be in large part a local economy, in which we have multidimensional, personal relationships with the land and people who meet our needs, and whose needs are met in turn.

Ban privileges. The rules of the game should be the same to all players, regardless of their size, location, or any other criteria

...a woman smart and persistent enough that even a PhD in psychology hasn't clouded her insight into how people think and act.

As the 'circular' approach to sustainability begins to gather ground, we humans are finding ourselves within the circle, not without.

Caterpillars chew their way through ecosystems leaving a path of destruction as they get fatter and fatter. When they finally fall asleep and a chrysalis forms around them, tiny new imaginal cells, as biologists call them, begin to take form within their bodies. The caterpillar’s immune system fights these new cells as though they were foreign intruders, and only when they crop up in greater numbers and link themselves together are they strong enough to survive. Then the caterpillar’s immune system fails and its body dissolves into a nutritive soup which the new cells recycle into their developing butterfly. The caterpillar is a necessary stage but becomes unsustainable once its job is done. There is no point in being angry with it and there is no need to worry about defeating it. The task is to focus on building the butterfly, the success of which depends on powerful positive and creative efforts in all aspects of society and alliances built among those engaged in them.

Business is the most important institution on the planet for furthering human flourishing.

Can we actually suppose that we are wasting, polluting, and making ugly this beautiful land for the sake of patriotism and the love of God? Perhaps some of us would like to think so, but in fact this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations. (from 'Compromise, Hell!' published in the November/December 2004 issue of ORION magazine)

Creativity is the only energy that should never be saved.

Creating the kind of connections between people that lead to collective civic action, political expression, community dialogue, shared cultural experiences.

Each minute wasted with a shark is a missed opportunity to enjoy being with a Dolphin

Deep inside, we still have a longing to be reconnected with the nature that shaped our imagination

..despite myriad differences in beliefs and value systems, people have the capacity to acknowledge that the one constant across the board is the Earth. Her health is our health. Her life is our life.

Engage the whole community with a common purpose to build an innovative and sustainable enterprise.

Exhaust from the arrogance Breathe At what cost Oxygen from trees Mother's vein She bleeds Drink from the river Plastic and fees Politics and media Streaming what to believe It's your story not his Be the author of what you read Content is within Not what you see

Global corporations have the human capital, the financial resources, the technology, the international footprint, the power of markets and the profit motivation to build a better world. NGOs will be essential partners...Governments will be essential partners...By engaging together through an iterative process, we will achieve "A Better World.

Gardening and making your own soap and home-birthing your babies are fine, but these are inherently limited actions. If we want to see genuine food safety, if we want to see sustainable products, if we want to see a better women's health system, and if we want these things for everyone, not just the privileged few with the time and education to DIY it, then we need large social changes.

Go and be fish again.

Feeling at home anywhere on earth, and a foreigner even in the country where I was born, I consider myself an earthling, a citizen of the world. I love nature dearly and all creatures that contribute to make it what it is. I see the beauty in all expressions of life, and I see how blind so many of us still are. Our planet is remarkably abundant and there's more than enough for us all. It is greed and shortsightedness that create the illusion of scarcity. I have lived through tremendous adventures and survived only because other people risked their lives for me. Realising how interconnected and interdependent we all are, I am neither shy or embarrassed when it is time for me lean on another to ask for help. And when I have the opportunity to help another, I view it as my duty and privilege.

Global warming will not end by Earth finding a shade under the trees but under our hands joined together

. . . .how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world--and what is to become of it. To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life afford quite as much satisfaction.

Having the right priorities in a wrong world will humble you with a journey that only love can sustain.

I don't need three cars and a great big fucking house [for two people]. But I do and I want it. This is the issue. [The Future of the Planet: Life, Growth and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies. SFI Community Lecture, August 29, 2017]

I am not an optimist; I am afraid that I won't live long enough to escape my bondage to the machines.

I'd be stunned, shocked, and amazed if there were a human being on the planet in 2030.

I don't need three cars and a great big fucking house [for two people]. But I do and I want it. This is the issue.

I finally understood that I couldn’t avoid working to provide for myself, but that can also be a wonderful thing, a beautiful thing.

If we saw how everything was made, from start to finish, most companies would go out of business.

If we are going to start calling industrial corn sustainable, then we might as well say that petroleum is a renewable resource if you're willing to wait long enough.

If we could treat every natural resource as a gift rather than a commodity, we would be on the path to sustainability. The difference is that a gift does not belong to us but to the universe. It comes into our lives from a source that is unknown and ultimately unknowable; eventually , it returns to its source.

If you are already solving your problem with the equipment you have - a pencil, say- why solve it with something more expensive and more damaging? If you don't have a problem, why pay for a solution? If you love the freedom and elegance of simple toons, why encumber yourself with something complicated? And yet, if we are ever again going to have a world fit and pleasant for little children, we are surely going to have to draw the line where it is not easily drawn. We are going to have to learn to give up things that we have learned (in only a few years, after all) to 'need'.

I'm not out there suggesting that we should ban every plastic product. But there are some whose environmental costs exceed their utility, and the [plastic] bag is one of them.

I live in one of the best places, bar none, to appreciate the wild natural environment. I also live in one of the most politically difficult places to work on its behalf: Alaska.

[...]imagine for a moment if we once again knew, strictly as a matter of course, these few unremarkable things: What it is we're eating. Where it came from. How it found its way to our table. And what, in a true accounting, it really cost. We could then talk about some other things at dinner. For we would no longer need any reminding that however we choose to feed ourselves, we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we're eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world.

I'm not one of those academics that don't do shit but reads about it. The difference is, I do shit. I have a proof of concept and it works.

I’m not interested in sustaining a planet on life support. My goal is to use agriculture to regenerate the planet.