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Do we lose the connection to sustainability? I am sure most of us agree that we need it, but still we do not move on and actually sustainability never became something really sexy, meaning that it never became a real role model and movement with a critical mass to stimulate a systematic shift. Looking for example at sustainably certified hotels and destinations, we are still below a real impact level as even the best destinations never are above 5% sustainable hotels. And this by keeping in mind that the concept of sustainability is already on the market for quite a time. After the COVID crisis, I felt that THIS is the time of sustainability and there was a certain momentum, but it seems over now. We are mainly back to business as usual or is my feeling wrong?
I really asked myself what the reasons for this could be as it is a very decisive time for us and our planet. I looked at movements like the Inner Development Goals and attended the IDG summit in Stockholm, I took part in an offline village experience and listened to health experts and I attended a yearlong course about regenerative leadership principles. Based on these experiences, I came up with the following reasons:
So, what´s the way forward? First, I believe, it is important to understand were we are coming from. When we want to design the future it is important to reflect the past and how we got were we got as society. Interestingly, when doing so, I realized that we were deeply connected to nature, the laws of nature and a sustainable living style in 99% of our time as humans on earth. I love to quote the biologist Janine Benyus here:
"For 99% of our time on earth, we were hunter-gatherers, and our lives depended on knowing the fine, small details of our world. Deep down, we still have a longing to reconnect with the nature that shaped our imagination, our language, our song and dance, our sense of the divine.”
If we, based on this, dive into the logic of the web of life…or the question how life created life on earth. There is a lot to learn for us as human beings as we experience a lot of separation: Separation of humans and nature, separation between male and female qualities, separation of inside and outside, separation of business values and family values…leadership and the way forward should and need to heal these connections….that´s what I am convinced about.
Life`s success principles are very simple…we just need to look back into 3,8 billion years of evolution (I will do so in the next newsletter). If we regenerate ourselves, we regenerate our networks and our planet. And one of lives principles is wintering…to let go, reflect and learn. I am sure if we allow ourself to take a break, reflect and restart, we all know the best way forward. It´s more about listening, more about asking the right questions than giving the right answers…and by reminding myself and us all about this, I love to quote a famous poet, namely Rainer Maria Rilke:
"You have to be patient with the unresolved in our hearts and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and books written in a very foreign language. If you live the questions, you may gradually, without realizing it, live into the answers one day."
Two of these questions, that I learnt from the wise Anna Pollock are: How do we define success in tourism and what actually do we want to sustain (the status, the system, the destination, the organization, the environment, ourselves…?)
In my next reflection in the coming month, I will dive into the 7 principles of the logic of life as they are a good reference point for designing our common future.
