Three Levels of Sustainability and Their Interdependence
Sustainable Development and Sustainability Education is becoming popular in contemporary world. Sustainable uses of natural resources and waste management are becoming a part of industry and the functioning of society. Sustainability practitioners understand that environmental sustainability achievements need to be supported by establishing and maintaining sustainability with other layers of our life, and usually consider connections between three aspects of sustainability: environmental, social, and economical. However, the establishment of social and economical sustainability needs to be supported by sustainability on a personal level, so the personal aspect needs to be included in sustainability models and given proper consideration.
Any good working model of anything can be considered from different paradigms depending on convenience for developing particular strategies and solving particular problems. In relations between a person and the universe, it is reasonable to consider environmental, then socio-economic, and then personal levels of sustainability as layers. Social and economical are interdependent parts of the same layer, and actually all three layers are interdependent and help each other to evolve. Environment and society are layers in connection between a person and the universe.
Many postmodern philosophical concepts (phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism, etc.) consider human perception and cognition as a primary base for the world model in a human mind, the very first source of our knowledge of our real world. All our models of the real world begin with our abilities and ways to perceive it and interact with it. This makes it reasonable to begin with sustainability on personal level along with activities on the environmental and social-economical levels. This three-level model also goes well with the principle of unity, interconnectedness and similarity of a person and the universe in Theory of Russian Cosmism, a philosophical and cultural movement that emerged in Russia in the early 20th century.
System development is called sustainable if it does not destroy resources for it’s development, and the system is able to function in harmony with larger systems as their part in the long run. Sustainable development of society on the environmental level (1.0) means that we need to take proper care of our waste and reasonably use and re-use our natural resources. Sustainability on a socio-economic level (2.0) means that we need to take care of the proper functioning of social-economic structures in organizations and businesses by making them work in harmony with people’s needs and with the environment besides with accomplishing their own socio-economical goals. Sustainability on the personal level (3.0) means developing a balanced, healthy consciousness which is able to function in harmony with other people, society and the environment.
There is no need for examples of unsustainable features on the environmental level, it has been said a lot about it. Examples of unsustainable features on socioeconomic and personal levels:
Socioeconomic level: disconnection between layers in organizations/institutions/ companies on different community-society levels and between them; bureaucracy, corruption, bribery, general devaluation of person in communication with social structures, aggressive sales & fundraising strategies, poor hiring strategies & unemployment management, impersonal treatment of employees.
Personal level: regular stress, attention disorder, learning disabilities, depression, lost life purpose, suicide, addictions, inadequate social behavior, mental problems, and other health disorders at body, mind, and spirit level.
Since all three levels, environmental, socio-economical, and personal, are interconnected and interdependent, a little unsustainability deviation can be automatically corrected via interaction with other systems within the same level, and/or via interlevel interactions. However, if this sustainability gap is above a certain critical limit, this damage can be carried over onto other systems within the same level, and/or to other levels. For instance, if someone accidentally dumps a can of ink into a river, it will probably dissolve without damaging the river ecosystem. Water flows and organisms in the river will take care of this deviation. However, if someone would often and constantly dump something like that into a river, or dump a huge amount of waste at once, the whole river ecosystem would be damaged, and eventually even people’s health in the cities will be affected. If someone bends an ethical rule in a religious community, the community would support them and help them to get over the bad effects of this harm. However, if ethics get bent often and constantly, or get bent one time but very deeply, the whole community gradually will adjust to it as an unwritten rule. Eventually it will destroy sustainable functioning of the community and affect the whole network which includes this community as a part. If someone gets hurt emotionally he/she will recover in a while. Very deep or regular emotional hurt can lead to health problems on physical, emotional, and mental levels. Conscious and emotionally balanced people would care about keeping their environments clean and performing their duties in society well. They would not throw trash around and hurt others. So maintaining sustainability of consciousness will take care of maintenance of sustainability on other levels.
A positive feedback loop of a growing lack of sustainability eventually unbalances and destroys a system. It can be cured, unwound in a similar way, gradually covering up sustainability gaps with actions which can help grow and carry sustainability to the next level.
Only in the last century humanity realized a need for environmental sustainability when it was discovered that our natural resources are limited, and our waste does not disappear without a trace. Then people realized a need for sustainable changes in society which would help to establish a harmony between nature and society. Now it is time to realize that sustainable changes in society should be prepared by maintaining sustainability on a personal level.
Actually, the human desire to build a perfect world with harmony between a person and society is as old as humanity is. The discovery of environmental sustainability just gave it another dimension, made it deeper and more noticeable. I consider human history as an evolution of human society which is still trying to find a structure of society where everyone is happy. Humanity experienced a sequence of different types of social structures with different types of transitions from one structure to another. There have always been people who thought they know how to build a perfect functioning society. Many of them had strong leadership abilities and historical conditions to try their ideas out, and many of them succeeded at different levels of societies for different periods of time. A human being is a much more complex system than groups, communities, and societies; this is one of the aspects of the problem of establishing and maintaining harmony between a person and a society. However, humanity has gained some positive experience in building societies over the centuries, and in the contemporary world we can come up with better approaches and strategies for solving those problems to some better point.
Limited resources and waste products on sustainability levels:
Distribution and use of resources creates waste which is harmful for the rest of a supersystem (a larger system which is living environment for this system at a certain level).
It is reasonable to divide sustainable strategies by the objects of use (external and internal), and by the subjects of use (resource and waste management).
Internal (I) strategies are dealing with subsystems within a considered system. External (E) strategies are dealing with supersystems, a sustainable way of “installation” of a system into larger systems.
External resource strategies (ER) are dealing with sustainable searching and selecting resources. Internal resource strategies (IR) are dealing with sustainable distribution of resources between layers in a system which provide for what could be called a “socio-economical blood circulation”.Internal waste strategies (IW) are dealing with sustainable waste collection and processing within the system. External waste strategies (EW) are dealing with waste treatment and disposal outside the system.
An identification of type of a particular strategy always depends on the particular system under our consideration. The same strategy can be external for one system and internal for another one. The waste of one system can be a resource for another one. For instance, recycling is an EW-strategy of one system which contributes to IR-strategy solutions for another system. It is like a piece of a “food chain” in the manmade world, similar to a “food chain” in environmental ecosystems. It is a partial solution for sustainable “installation” of a manmade system into the environment. The division of particular social structures (organization, institution, corporation, government branch, etc.) by layers within a system into Upper (U) groups and Lower (L) groups depends on their ability to give or accept resources and waste in a particular system under our consideration.
Example: A particular U-group in a company is giving away social benefits for a particular L-group:
A completed sustainable strategy is a combination of all types of sustainable strategies applied to a certain solution to a problem in certain settings.
An example of the development and implementation of sustainable and unsustainable strategies: George Washington’s decision to become a president and give up the opportunity to establish royalty in the US gave every citizen a better share of power and finances. This IR- strategy was the main leverage which brought America prosperity. The second leverage, an ER-strategy, was welcoming immigrants from all over the world and collecting the best from world cultures. A combination of both strategies and their implementations and policies which followed helped America to grow into a well established country, economically and socially. The country maintained this balance for many years, and gradually became conservative because the sustainable strategies mentioned above gradually stopped being carried into lower society levels. Citizens who succeeded better than others in multiplying their share of power and finances gradually developed a sort of “royalty” within their families, and used this power to close opportunities for others in order to keep this power instead of supporting and passing George Washington’s strategy onto lower layers. Recently, the US government worked out a strategy for bailing out banks to prevent economic collapse. This action can be considered as a first element in a chain of IR-sustainable strategy. Those banks were not made to pass on this bailing out policy to their clients, especially to homeowners with their mortgages who needed their help. So overall that strategy failed to be sustainable. Also, local communities became conservative and comparatively closed, holding onto the power and funds they have over newcomers. They look for excuses to keep those people down instead of welcoming and helping them to settle in, especially those who are different from them in any way and disagree to be "of a second sort". They do it indirectly so they wouldn't be blamed for discrimination. On the other hand, a strategy of welcoming immigrants became no longer sustainable because numbers of them has become enormous and keep growing. This eventually reduced a quality of life in the country, and the situation became really unsustainable. If a system has a flow of resources coming in, it has to have a flow of waste coming out in order to function well and stay alive. For instance any alive being needs not only to eat regularly but also to get rid of waste regularly. America needs to figure out how to keep a strategy dealing with immigrants sustainable, find a way to keep the original spirit of the country and remain being open. It means sustainably use human potential from all over the world, and continue giving opportunities for gifted people all over the world but also arrange for a constant flow out of the country for people who proved that they are not good citizens for society, including those who were born here. For instance a part of the solution might be relocating prisons to Mexico or other third world countries.It will be much less expensive for the US than keep them in the country, and also beneficial for those countries because of money and jobs for serving those prisons coming in as well as opportunities to use potential of prisoners for the benefit of the country as their remedial measures. Also, America should take care of changing its stereotypic image all over the world as a country of economical paradise for every citizen so it will discourage a number of potential immigrants who are expecting an easy life here. Keeping original strategies sustainable would be the way to get back to prosperity which will benefit not only the US but also the rest of the world. Anyone who is not affiliated with the management of the country cannot see a system of all factors which are directly and indirectly included into the situation. That's why this example cannot be taken as advice without proper consideration of the whole system of factors.
Any unsustainable features at any level are the results of missing or blocked connections between layers at one level, or between levels. When a person or a group fails to build those connections, or their connections with the rest of their supersystem get blocked because of their egoistic priorities it will lead to unsustainable features as “social-economical cancer” and “personal consciousness cancer”. This “disease” is similar to a cancer indeed. Cancer cells only serve themselves and gradually multiply in a human body instead of functioning in a balance of taking their part in serving the entire body and taking proper care of themselves.
Desirable sustainable balance can be described as “Socio-economic structures in society are made for serving people, and people are happy to dedicate a great deal of their lives for serving this society”; instead of: “people are for serving socio-economic structures, and those structures are for serving themselves, and people are happy to dedicate their lives for their own purposes only”. George Orwell described a model of a typical society development in his “Animal Farm” (1945), which starts out with high ethical intentions of revolutionary changes in an old harmful society, but gradually turns into an even worse, more harmful society. What does it take to establish “social blood circulation”, build and maintain missing or broken connections between layers on socioeconomic and personal levels and between those levels? How can we protect leaders from gradually changing values in their consciousness because of power they gained, and how can we protect society from harmful leaders?
Let’s take a closer look at the socioeconomic level of sustainability, the dynamics between the social and economical components of our life, and come to an understanding of how those two components help each other to evolve in the development of society.
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