Best 140 quotes in «sustainability quotes» category

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

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'.

Il nous faudra répondre à notre véritable vocation, qui n'est pas de produire et de consommer jusqu'à la fin de nos vies, mais d'aimer, d'admirer et de prendre soin de la vie sous toutes ses formes.

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 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.

Incremental Innovation is bringing the new into the old, to sustain the old within the new.

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

Increasingly we are acknowledging that people (and their technologies) are just as much part of our 'ecologies' as are nature and the physical features of our planet.

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.

In order to create a sustainable world, we need to: 1) Educate people. 2) Educate people. 3) Educate people. For every person left uneducated about the system of this sphere, the nature will make us all pay for it. Sustainability can only start in the mind.

In fact, the brain is the best and most efficient organisational structure known in nature. Each element – each neuron – has the same constituency, but its level of influence varies dynamically according to the function of a specific movement. Every neuron is equally important in the fulfilment of their common mission of governing our lives

In trying to make sense of this pessimism, Ridley, like Kahneman, sees a combination of cognitive biases and evolutionary psychology as the core of the problem. He fingers loss aversion—a tendency for people to regret a loss more than a similar gain—as the bias with the most impact on abundance. Loss aversion is often what keeps people stuck in ruts.

I see entrepreneurship, like many other activities, as a type of mission. A mission by which we can provide better life chances and quality for both our current and future generations.

I think all people want freedom, but they've got this idea inserted into their head about money.

I think there has always been a strong crossover between the household- and community-level design in permaculture. From the beginnings of permaculture in the 1970s, there was a close connection to the 'back to the land' movement and the counterculture. Within that broad movement, international communities and ecovillages were major themes.

It is common understanding that communication is at the heart of any organisation. So, why have organisational models not evolved accordingly?

Living democracy grows like a tree, from the bottom up.

I was struck by the fact that for Joel abjuring agrochemicals and pharmaceuticals is not so much a goal of his farming, as it so often is in organic agriculture, as it is an indication that his farm is functioning well. “In nature health is the default,” he pointed out. “Most of the time pests and disease are just nature’s way of telling the farmer he’s doing something wrong.

Make no mistake. The greatest destroyer of ecology. The greatest source of waste, depletion and pollution. The greatest purveyor of violence, war, crime, poverty, animal abuse and inhumanity. The greatest generator of personal and social neurosis, mental disorders, depression, anxiety. Not to mention the greatest source of social paralysis, stopping us from moving into new methodologies for personal health, global sustainability and progress on this planet, is not some corrupt government or legislation. Not some rogue corporation or banking cartel. Not some flaw of human nature and not some secret cabal that controls the world. It is the socioeconomic system itself at its very foundation.

Love foods that sustain and protect you, and love you back.

Markets cannot meet the needs of the very poor. The desperately poor are not consumers who will create an immediate profit.

Monitor, transparently, and enforce the separation of Democracy powers: Legislative; Executive; Judicial

MERIT AND HARMONY PROMOTE MOBILISATION

MERIT IS A PRODUCT OF KNOWLEDGE AND TRANSPARENCY

Monoculture is mono for the earth.

Most permaculturists are expert at understanding the relationships between landforms and water harvesting or between soil microorganisms and plant health. But when it comes to our human relationships, we often founder. Nurturing the vegetables in the garden is a lot easier than nurturing our connections to the people who decide where to plant the vegetables and who will water them.

My idea is entirely different. I think we should mix all the species together and scatter them worldwide, completely doing away with their uneven distribution. This would give nature a full palette to work with as it establishes a new balance given the current conditions. I call this the Second Genesis.

My goal is to draw a line with some 'flavor' to it.

Natural selection has a new aspect, one that is psychological denial. Such denial where the “individual benefits as an individual from his ability to deny the truth even though society as a whole, which he is apart, suffers”.

No connection is always easy or free of strife, no matter how many minutes a day we meditate. It’s how we relate to conflict, as well as to our differing needs and expectations, that makes our relationships sustainable.

No anti-slavery crusader aimed for a partial solution or settled on a regimen of interim targets. The fight to end slavery was a fight to end 100 percent of slavery for all time. In just that way, we can't settle for partial measures if we are going to win the war for our world. We need to fight for 100 percent sustainability, now.

Only when we start to distinguish reality from fantasy that we can humbly, with eyes wide open, forge loving and sustainable connections with others.

Of course, chaos can lead to failure and extinction. But so can order. Far more nations, people, and ideas die of atrophy than die from revolution. Both order and chaos are necessary ingredients for long run success - for sustainability.

One of the most important things about permaculture is that it is founded on a series of principles that can be applied to any circumstance—agriculture,urban design, or the art of living. The core of the principles is the working relationships and connections between all things.

No matter how big a company is, one has to always look at business basics.

[...] obtenir la baisse de notre dépendance aux combustibles fossiles demande de la méthode et de la gestion, et non une croyance aveugle dans des objets techniques particuliers qui seraient nécessairement adaptés partout et tout le temps.

On this World Population Day, I call on all with influence to prioritize youth in development plans, strengthen partnerships with youth-led organizations, and involve young people in all decisions that affect them. By empowering today’s youth, we will lay the groundwork for a more sustainable future for generations to come.

Permaculture land-use ethics invite us to protect intact ecosystems where they remain and, where ecosystems have been destroyed, to help restore them. Permaculture design also suggests that we take care of earth while taking care of people.

Our entire system, in an economic sense, is based on restriction. Scarcity and inefficiency are the movers of money; the more there is of any resource the less you can charge for it. The more problems there are, the more opportunities there are to make money. This reality is a social disease, for people can actually gain off the misery of others and the destruction of the environment. Efficiency, abundance and sustainability are enemies of our economic structure, for they are inverse to the mechanics required to perpetuate consumption. This is profoundly critical to understand, for once you put this together you begin to see that the one billion people currently starving on this planet, the endless slums of the poor and all the horrors of a culture due to poverty and pravity are not natural phenomenon due to some natural human order or lack of earthly resources. They are products of the creation, perpetuation and preservation of artificial scarcity and inefficiency.

Rather than flog yourself over a slip, embrace it as simply an integral part of the process of change. Punish yourself and you've just made a second mistake - because holding yourself to an unrealistic standard... is a pattern that can lead to defeatism. A shame spiral that can take you out of the game altogether. And the game is all about long-term sustainability over short-term temporary gains.

right now, sustainable fashion is a subculture, an alternative market. but i don’t think sustainability should be an alternative market. it should be the new normal. but in an industry that has thrived off the normalization of exploitation, it’s kind of like, what’s next?

Real Love may run on a lower voltage, but it’s also more grounded & sustainable.

STRATEGY, MERIT AND HARMONY CREATE SUSTAINABILITY!

Social entrepreneurship represents the opportunity to redefine the role of government.

So imagine that fans of our products or services no longer simply consume and use them. Now we are creating a new opportunity for them to both participate directly in the development of the products but also benefit from a share of the profits too.

OUR SOCIETY IS CONTROLLED BY LAWYERS AND FINANCIERS "PROBLEM MAKERS WE NEED TO EVOME TO A SOCIETY LEAD BY CREATORS, ENGINEERS, SCIENTISTS PROBLEM SOLVERS. SURELY WE WILL HAVE MORE INGENUITY COOPERATION AND PEACE

Sometimes just to touch the ground is enough for me, even if not a single thing grows from what I plant.

Strategic move will be well placed to create multiple blue oceans over time, thereby continuing to deliver high growth and profits over a sustained period.

SUSTAINABILITY EMPOWERS JUSTICE, SECURITY AND ULTIMATELY, HAPPINESS