I watched this youtube from TED conference by Simon Sinek: “Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Action”.
He explains that companies are successful at selling products when they advertise why they do them. People will buy a product because of why it is done. Decision making is done from the heart, from the belief. Companies who just say what they do, or how they do it do not get as much success.

Simon says… it is the same with ideas…
I thought I’d try to apply it to sustainability…

What?

So what is the problem? What is sustainability? A huge number of studies have gathered data measuring the ampleness of the issues, and created estimations and recommendations. They are essential for governments and international organisation to decide for actions.

Here are some excellent studies with compelling results. We cannot say that we do not know… But you need time to read!

– Living Beyond Our Means from the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment website is a summary of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessement, a 3000 pages document, created by 1360 experts from 95 countries, reviewed by more than 2500 experts from 185 countries. Check out the 107 slides
presentation http://www.maweb.org/documents/document.752.aspx.ppt or my summary of the summary here.

– The Stern Review – The Economics of Climate Change  calculates that climate change will reduce global per-capita consumption of around 20% over the next 2 centuries, in the current trends. However, mitigating the impacts of climate change would only cost around 1% of annual global GDP by 2050 for a weak stabilisation of 550ppm Co2e. Policies to reduce emissions include carbon pricing, technology policy and removal to behavioural change.

– Check out the comprehensive IPCC website. For example the Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation  or the latest assessment report summary (2007).

– For New Zealand, here is the “Climate Change Effects and Impacts Assessment: A Guidance Manual for Local Government in New Zealand“

These are all very interesting researches that all prompt for urgent collective action, while giving governments and decisions-makers clues on how to do it best. Whether they decide to go for it or not is so far political.

But for many people anyway, although striking and obvious, these graphs and facts are boring and not engaging. The required actions seem beyond their means, whereas they actually have the political choice in their voting card…

Some people even deny that there is a link between climate change and extreme weather, but that won’t last!

How?

How can we become more sustainable?

It is important to give information (ex: how-to-do a garden), and to show examples of successful sustainable actions. But there are so many sources of information and so many topics that I do not attempt a list here. Giving tips on how to cut energy bills or recycle does help, but people may be overwhelmed by the number of things to know and do. They may not see connexions between seemingly different subjects. They will do it, then forget it. They miss the big picture. They need to know why…

Why?

So why go sustainable?

Why do I study sustainability? Why do I choose to buy local or fair trade, to bike or walk when I can, to make my own hand-made organic flour bread, to use eco-bulbs, to plant trees, to bring my old clothes to the recycling centre where I get not-so-old ones, to grow a pesticide-free vege garden, to live with a 6 years-old mobile phone, and so on…
Because I believe I can help changing the world in doing my part. I am convinced we can manage to curb these horrific Green House Gas curves (and others)  that threaten to over-heat our planet, if we all do our bit. I believe one day, all humans will be aware and respect the cycles of the nature we are within.

I also believe that the climate change is actually an opportunity for our human specie to grasp our problems as a whole and solve them altogether, from poverty and disparity, to pollutions and ecosystems destructions. Idealist? Yes, I am, because I trust humans. Each human trusts himself, why couldn’t I trust each human?

Therefore I am working towards raising this awareness, as well as spreading the information on the many solutions that do exist.

I know people will not all embark on the sustainability track now. As for products, ideas have an “adoption cycle”. I am humbly an innovator, carving this path for 25 years, despite mockery and derision. I think we are in New Zealand in the early “Early Adopters” phase. I believe this is the decade when we can make a change, and I am not alone. I study sustainability because I want to do professionally what I have been practising at home for long. The more I study, the more I realise we can make it.

Now, one of the most compelling action-prompting Youtube I’ve seen is “The most terrifying video” or the global climate change matrix where Greg Craven brilliantly shows that choosing to take no action is choosing Death! Boy, that is a pretty convincing reason why to go sustainable!

I have a vision of a happy, healthy, sharing era in a sustainable world. I do believe that a majority of people will soon realise that we are better off cooperating with each other and learning to use our resources wisely. Now is a good time  to shift your mindset and adopt the sustainability “innovation”.

“I have a dream” we will get there!

Does this post inspire action?