Leadership Challenges for Sustainable Development

25 Years of WCEDAnupam Saraph, PhD

Future Designer

Dedicated to all those anonymous humans striving to leave the world better than they found it

to check exponential growth to focus on life, on whole systems and their purposes, not

on symptoms and quick fixes that fail to assume the leadership of systems, not just the

organizations that they are a part of

The Challenges

“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

We Live in an Exponential Era

Source: Alan Atkisson and Junko Edahiro, Life Beyond Growth, ISIS Academy 2012

“You talk very little about life, you talk too much about survival. It is very important to remember thatwhen the possibilities for life are over, the possibilities for survival start.”

― Speaker from the floor WCED Public Hearing Sao Paulo, 26-29 Oct 1985

Focus on symptoms has kept us in survival mode

We pay no heed to building unbounded cities and economies. We continue to seek solution in supply, not demand management. We fail to address the rapid pace of deterioration in renewable

resources - surface and ground water, forests and fisheries. We forget the life giving natural endowments in small streams and

rivers. We completely miss land and income reforms or the promotion of

local and diverse economies and life-styles that bring life to everyone, not just survival.

Instead of yielding to enduring solutions we find ourselves addicted to quick fixes that leave us in worse crisis than when we began.

“All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

― Chief Seattle

to check exponential growth to focus on life, on whole systems and their purposes, not

on symptoms and quick fixes that fail to assume the leadership of systems, not just the

organizations that they are a part of

The Leadership Challenges for Sustainable Development