Sustainability Quotes

By focusing on reality and treating everything in relation to everything else we can raise our awareness above the narrow perspective of what we experience in our daily lives, and solve our problems using a different level of thinking than the one that created them. As a society our focus should be on health, sustainability, education, and ensuring justice and liberty among all individuals. To achieve this we must inform the public of the situation we are in and encourage a positive change in our behavior. We need to evolve our consciousness and change the way that we look at the world ~ Joseph P. Kauffman

Brian Walker and David Salt have written a thoughtful and powerful book to help resource users and managers put resilience thinking into practice and aim toward increasing the sustainability of our world. I urge public officials, scholars, and students in public policy programs to place this volume on their list of must-read books. It is a powerful antidote to the overly simplified proposals too often offered as solutions to contemporary problems at multiple scales. ~ Elinor Ostrom

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. ~ Michael Pollan

Why is it that so many people start to value money so much that they trade in most of the hours and years of their life in order to get it? ~ Andy Couturier

The vision of the ideal life that we've been taught in the West, which is gaining ever more purchase in China and India and elsewhere, feeds the system we need to undo. Go to school in order to get a degree in order to get a job in order to earn money so you can try to buy happiness because your life sucks, then retire and die: this is not meaningful living. ~ Rob Stewart

From a business perspective, the question related to cities and sustainability is clear and compelling: can you have a healthy company in an unhealthy city? Arguably, no. Companies need healthy cities to provide reliable infrastructure, an educated and vital workforce, a vibrant economy, and a safe and secure environment to survive and thrive. Business executives have a lot to learn from cities, and a lot to contribute, and this book shows the way, chronicling the successes and the lessons learned about what it takes to make a city healthy, in every sense of the word. ~ Joel Makower

Limitless material growth is not sustainable or moral. ~ Bryant McGill

We should bring in an environmental attitude, and I think luxury should automatically be about sustainability and quality. ~ Jochen Zeitz

The future is green energy, sustainability, renewable energy. ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger

If you can't reuse or repair an item, do you ever really own it? Do you ever really own it? Do you ever develop the sense of pride and proprietorship that comes from maintaining an object in fine working order?
We invest something of ourselves in our material world, which in turn reflects who we are. In the era of disposability that plastic has helped us foster, we have increasingly invested ourselves in objects that have no real meaning in our lives. We think of disposable lighters as conveniences
which they indisputably are; ask any smoker or backyard-barbecue chef
and yet we don't think much about the tradeoffs that that convenience entails. ~ Susan Freinkel

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. ~ Kevin McCloud

The goods of creation belong to humanity as a whole. Yet the current pace of environmental exploitation is seriously endangering the supply of certain natural resources not only for the present generation, but above all for generations to come. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

Sustainability, or fairness to the future, therefore involves the concept of stewardship, the idea that the living generation must be stewards of the earth's resources for the generations that will come later. That's a tough role to play. There is nothing natural or innate about it. We need to defend the interests of those whom we've never met and never will. Yet those are our descendants and our fellow humanity. Alas, it's a role that we've mostly ignored till now, to the increasing peril of all who will follow. The ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

Reaching a general understanding that sustainability is the ultimate issue will finally bring us face-to-face with the political challenge of forging a sustainable society during the next few decades. It is a challenge we can meet if we have the leadership and the political will to do so. ~ Gaylord Nelson

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. ~ Sharon Salzberg

The most patriotic thing you can do is to take care of the environment and try to live sustainably. ~ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

All of the solutions to our growth-based problems involve some form of self-restraint. That's why most of those solutions remain just good ideas. That's also why we will probably hit the wall, and why the outcomes described in the previous chapters of this book are likely. The sustainability revolution will occur. The depletion of nonrenewable resources ensures that humankind will eventually base its economy on renewable resources harvested at rates of natural replenishment. But that revolution will be driven by crisis. ~ Richard Heinberg

Each of us has a responsibility for the sustainability of our planet and each of us can make a difference if we choose to do so. ~ Miranda Kerr

In TIME June 7, 2010
On the sustainability of the publishing industry, in the Chicago Tribune:
"I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea. We live in a literate time, and our children are writing up a storm, often combining letters and numbers ... The future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $175." - 5/26/10 ~ Garrison Keillor

Be as a tower firmly set; Shakes not its top for any blast that blows. ~ Dante Alighieri

Align your activity with your vision. Being consistent and intentional with your daily activities will result in sustainable success. ~ Farshad Asl

Each minute wasted with a shark is a missed opportunity to enjoy being with a Dolphin ~ Miguel Reynolds Brandao

Alas, our technology has marched ahead of our spiritual and social evolution, making us, frankly, a dangerous people. ~ Steven M. Greer

We are taught to reinvent ourselves all the time. And nature is teaching us. What is necessary for us to do to create sustainability? There's a shift that has to take hold in our thinking, and it's hard to know when it's going to click for the larger percentage of us. ~ Horst Rechelbacher

Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm. It's about doing more good. ~ Jochen Zeitz

Everyone makes a difference. Someone who does something for others makes a big difference. A person who has no self-interest to do things for others makes a bigger difference. But, one who does everything for everyone for the sake of humanity without vested interest makes a real big difference for sustainability. ~ Anuj

For organisations to become truly sustainable we believe it is essential to create a new organisation model: a more cooperative leader, a new way for people to cooperate inside the organisation and a new way for organisations to be measured by society. ~ Miguel Reynolds Brandao

Responsibility is something higher than my family, my country, my firm, my success. Responsibility to the order of Being, where, and only where, they will be properly judged. ~ Vaclav Havel

We live in a world where there are a hell of a lot of new inputs that need to be factored in to your business. It used to be just about your employees and your customers. Now there are all the issues about global warming, about sustainability, about ethics and now about gender and the distribution of wealth. ~ Stuart Rose

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. ~ Yossi Ghinsberg

Sustainability is a seemingly laudable goal - it tells us we need to live within our means, whether economic, ecological, or political - but it's insufficient for uncertain times. How can we live within our means when those very means can change, swiftly and unexpectedly, beneath us? ~ Jamais Cascio

I wish my artwork could persuade millions of people to join a global conversation about sustainability. ~ Edward Burtynsky

If we each take responsibility in shifting our own behavior, we can trigger the type of change that is necessary to achieve sustainability for our race or this planet. We change our planet, our environment, our humanity every day, every year, every decade, and every millennia. ~ Yehuda Berg

Why does no one speak of the cultural advantages of the country? For example, is a well groomed, ecologically kept, sustainably fertile farm any less cultural, any less artful, than paintings of fat angels on church ceilings? ~ Gene Logsdon

Two years ago, when leaders in neighboring Mathews County broached the subject of sea-level rise, Tea Partiers packed meetings, warning of an environmentalist plot to "put nature above man." They linked a proposal to build dikes to a United Nations sustainability plan known as Agenda 21, which has inspired a number of conspiracy theories among far-right activists. ~ Deborah Blum

When we use these words and we talk about plants having a strategy to do this or wanting this or desiring this, we're being metaphorical obviously. I mean, plants do not have consciousness. But, this is a fault of our own vocabulary. We don't have a very good vocabulary to describe what others species do to us, because we think we're the only species that really does anything. ~ Michael Pollan

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. ~ Susan Freinkel

The first law of sustainability: population growth and/or growth in the rate of consumption of resources cannot be sustained ~ Albert Allen Bartlett

My main issue is sustainability of the Earth, and protection of those animals and people who dwell here. ~ Lynda Resnick

The planetary emergency unfolding around us is, first and foremost ... a crisis of thought, values, perceptions, ideas and judgments. In other words, it is a crisis of mind, which makes it a crisis of those institutions which purport to improve minds. ~ David W. Orr

MERIT AND HARMONY PROMOTE MOBILISATION ~ Miguel Reynolds Brandao

The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible. ~ Edward O. Wilson

Cities must urge urban planners and architects to reinforce pedestrianism as an integrated city policy to develop lively, safe, sustainable and healthy cities. It is equally urgent to strengthen the social function of city space as a meeting place that contributes toward the aims of social sustainability and an open and democratic society. ~ Jan Gehl

No one person has to do it all but if each one of us follow our heart and our own inclinations we will find the small things that we can do to create a sustainable future and a healthy environment. ~ John Denver

A great principle of minimalism is using the minimum amount of resources, which accords perfectly with our present-day need for sustainability. ~ Prem Jagyasi

Creativity and imagination are not frosting on a cake: They are integral to our sustainability. They are survival mechanisms. They are of the essence of who we are. They constitute our deepest empowerment. ~ Matthew Fox

Glorify Sustainable Organisations since they benefit all society ~ Miguel Reynolds Brandao

But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation. For in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is a contradicter of the fundamental miracle of life. ~ Wendell Berry

Every candidate running for president has got to answer the following very simple question: At a time when we need to address the planetary crisis of climate change, and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainability, should we continue to give $135 billion in tax breaks and subsidies over the next decade to fossil fuel companies? ~ Bernie Sanders

Having a similar outlook on life is the central key for long-term sustainability in any love relationship. ~ John Friend

People tend to assume that organic farming and sustainability go hand in hand. But that's not necessarily the case - and it hasn't been for most of history. While going organic has some big advantages, even today most organic farmers still rely on the plow - the chief culprit in the this story. Why? Because it provides cheap, reliable weed suppression." David Montgomery - Growing a Revolution ~ David R. Montgomery

Empowerment wasn't defined as a static concept or standalone occurrence, but as an evolving way to rethink entire power structures and value systems, draw on shared skills and knowledge, and endow marginalized communities with tools for economic sustainability. ~ Andi Zeisler

Performance " is defined as company internal process which transforms the motivation and commitment to tackle sustainability issues perceived as relevant and important (perception, motivation, commitment can be summarised as "Response") into company internal changes. Performance itself can be split up into three individual but linked steps: ~ Anonymous

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. ~ Kate Troll

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

The plow is the main cause of muddy streams and rivers in the springtime. And a muddy stream means that we are dissipating our greatest natural resource - our topsoil. ~ Dr. Blake F. Donaldson

Permaculture is not the movement of sustainability and it is not the philosophy behind it; it is the problem-solving approach the movement and the philosophy can use to meet their goals and design a world in which human needs are met while enhancing the health of this miraculous planet that supports us. ~ Toby Hemenway

Developing intrinsic, emotional sustainability is the key to unlock the chains of emotional addictions... For this you must have tolerance, humility, and a desire to create happiness for yourself-independently... ~ Robin Phipps Woodall

Sustainability is treating ourselves and our environment as if we are to live on this earth forever. ~ Arron Wood

Nature is inexhaustibly sustainable if we care for it. It is our universal responsibility to pass a healthy earth onto future generations. ~ Sylvia Dolson

As far as I'm concerned, however, it is clear that the concept of premium will be increasingly defined through sustainability in the future. ~ Norbert Reithofer

If you want creativity, take a zero off your budget. If you want sustainability, take off two zeros. ~ Jaime Lerner

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. ~ John Ikerd

Japan is already a leader in energy efficiency, and it has a wealth of innovative technologies. We must put this expertise to use creating a model for growth and sustainability that we can share with the world. ~ Yoshihiko Noda

Sustainability is especially ripe for political controversy and opposition because fundamentally it is a new paradigm that represents significant challenges to the status quo. The paradigm of sustainability, with its notions of limitations and carrying capacities confronts dominant paradigms of progress which do not recognize limits to unchecked growth ~ Hazel Henderson

GDP tells you nothing about sustainability ~ Joseph Stiglitz

If nations join together now, before the big collapse and share their resources, they can maintain a level of sustainability. Sustain the people that is, and not banks and businesses. ~ Jacque Fresco

The kind of capitalism we are seeing today under this expansion of property into living resources is a whole, new, different phase of capitalism. It is totally inconsistent with democracy as well as with sustainability. What we have is capital working on a global scale, totally uprooted, with accountability nowhere, with responsibility nowhere, and with rights everywhere. This new capital, with absolute freedom and no accountability, is structurally anti-life, anti-freedom. ~ Vandana Shiva

My kids that's their backyard. I think when they're adults, their memories will be mostly of spending time at beach, the exploration, the freedom that you have. You take care of your house that you live in and we make our bed and we clean our cars and we do all that stuff, but yet we neglect sort of the place that really provides us with the greatest form of sustainability, which is the ocean. ~ Gabrielle Reece

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. ~ Juliana Birnbaum Fox

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. ~ Peter Joseph

The key to understanding the future is one word: sustainability. ~ Patrick Dixon

In paying attention to our wellbeing, we address the needs of our environment - the society that we live in and our planet. Sustainability depends on community - when we learn to be happily reliant on each other, we're less likely to turn to material consumption to meet our emotional needs. ~ Louisa Thomsen Brits

How do we create beauty in a broken world? How do we create a view of sustainability in an economy that is crashing? How do we reconfigure our lives, how do we pick up the pieces and create a meaningful life? So, yes, we have a different form of leadership but the questions remain the same. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

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. ~ Victor Shamas

You maybe able to fool the voters, but not the atmosphere. ~ Donella H. Meadows

There can be no question about whether we should or should not transform our society in the direction of sustainability. ~ Alan AtKisson

There's no such thing as sustainability. There are just levels of it. It's a process, not a real goal. All you can do is work toward it. There's no such thing as any sustainable economy. The only thing I know that's even close to sustainable economic activity would be organic farming on a very small scale or hunting and gathering on a very small scale. And manufacturing, you end up with way more waste than you end up with finished product. It's totally unsustainable. It's just the way it is. ~ Yvon Chouinard

Manufacturers have long chosen plastic for their products on the basis of price and functionality., But creating a more sustainable relationship with plastics will require a new dexterity on our part. It will require us to think about the entire life cycle of the products we create and use. ~ Susan Freinkel

I think we have powerful role-models among us in the American West. Certainly the Hopis, a timeless civilization that understands sustainability and what that means about living in harmony, in tandem with the natural world. We have much to learn from them, and they will survive us, I feel certain about that. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

The notion of 'reduce and refine' is one I've pursued. I truly believe that by making things less complex, by finding innovative ways to make sustainability affordable, we can advance the notion that it is possible. ~ Yves Behar

Labor believes in sustainability. We believe in acting on climate change, not just talking about it. ~ Anthony Albanese

As a nation, this is the moment to start seriously investing our time, energy and resources into proven methods of reducing violence, both within our nation as well as internationally. The cost of violence to our culture and our children is simply not sustainable. ~ Joaquin Phoenix

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. ~ Catherine Friend

Many of our partners are here and this is where the world's expertise on environment and the wider sustainability agenda often and regularly gathers. Here is where international initiatives frequently start and are nurtured. Geneva is one of the hubs where global programs can be often most effectively managed. ~ Achim Steiner

Improving oversight of hedge funds and other private funds is vital to their sustainability and to our economy's stability. ~ Jack Reed

Does anyone beside me experience a deep sorrow that someone called a "Hero for the Planet" and a "star of the sustainability movement" is designing truck factories and Nike headquarters? Ninety percent of the large fish in the ocean are gone. Ninety-seven percent of the world's native forests have been cut. There are 2 million dams just in the United States. Once-mighty flocks of passenger pigeons are gone. Islands full of great aucks, gone. Rich runs of salmon, gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. The oceans are filled with plastic. Every stream in the United States is contaminated with carcinogens. The world is being killed, and this is the respond? Not only am I angry, not only am I disgusted, I am also deeply, deeply sorrowful.
And I am deeply ashamed.
We need to act differently. ~ Derrick Jensen

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. ~ Rich Roll

Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved ~ Phil Harding

Our vision of interconnectedness resonates with new networks of world citizens in nongovernmental organizations linking from numberless centers of energy, expressing the emergence of a new organic whole, seeking unity within and across national lines ... If governments and their leaders, bound by hierarchy and patriarchy, wedded to military might for legitimacy, fail to grasp the implications of an emerging world consciousness for cooperation, for peace and for sustainability, they may become irrelevant. ~ Dennis Kucinich

To achieve true sustainability, we must reduce our "garbage index" - that which we permanently throw away into the environment that will not be naturally recycled for reuse - to near zero. Productive activities must be organized as closed systems. Minerals and other nonbiodegradable resources, once taken from the ground, must become a part of society's permanent capital stock and be recycled in perpetuity. Organic materials may be disposed into the natural ecosystems, but only in ways that assure that they are absorbed back into the natural production system. ~ David Korten

After all, sustainability means running the global environment - Earth Inc. - like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital. ~ Maurice Strong

To be an effective organisation, the structure of the organisation must be willing to adapt to a network model, leaving the old hierarchy model behind. We see the efficacy of the network model daily in many areas of our lives, and this greatly challenges the old from-top-to-down hierarchical model that many organisations have a hard time letting go of. But I suppose at the end of the day, it is a matter of survival. Simply put, in order to survive, one must adapt and to adapt today, means to take on a more networked approach to doing things in organisations, groups, companies and even in society as a whole (including politics). So in other words, in order for society in all of its forms from big to small, to move forward strongly, it must adapt to a framework that sees itself as a network rather than a hierarchy. ~ C. JoyBell C.

Sustainable Development is more than meeting the needs of today and the future generations; to my understanding this definition better fits sex industry. ~ M.F. Moonzajer

The reason that Google was such a success is because they were the first ones to take advantage of the self-organizing properties of the web. It's in ecological sustainability. It's in the developmental power of entrepreneurship, the ethical power of democracy. ~ Ron Eglash

The energy and daring is to resist the noes, until the final yes has been achieved. ~ Jeffrey D. Sachs

The sharing of goods and resources, from which authentic development proceeds, is not guaranteed by merely technical progress and relationships of utility, but by the potential of love that overcomes evil with good. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

There is no solution available, I assure you, to save Earth's biodiversity other than the preservation of natural environments in reserves large enough to maintain wild populations sustainably. Only Nature can serve as the planetary ark. ~ Edward O. Wilson

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

Now is not the time to repudiate environmental balance, but rather it is the time for all of us to work together - politician, advocate, rancher, scientist, and citizen. Only by doing this will the United States move forward and be a leader in environmental issues and ensure sustainability to our delicate ecosystem. ~ Robert Redford