There are many ways to think about and articulate the concepts of sustainability and restoration – that is a global society where our activities don’t systematically undermine the social and ecological systems upon which we depend, and works to restore and revitalize those systems we’re currently damaging. At Aedi we define sustainability using the framework for Strategic Sustainable Development (SSD) to guide our thinking.

credit: Arising, http://wearearising.org

This approach involves imagining oneself in a sustainable future, where the four scientific principles of sustainability are not violated, and then ‘backcasting’ to the present day and asking the question “what did we do back then to get here today.”

I just wrote a post for Greenopolis.com about how the University of Illinois, and hundreds of other colleges and universities are essentially taking this approach to move their campuses, communities, and all of society towards a climate neutral, sustainable future.  (To browse hundreds of other climate action plans from colleges and universities across the country aiming to achieve climate neutrality, check out the online Reporting System of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).)

In some of their planning documents, the folks at Illinois do a good job of articulate two important components of sustainability – the first that has to do with all future generations (human and otherwise) and the second that involves the billions of people today who are already suffering dearly from our global, unsustainable systems.  They write:

“The first societal challenge focuses on the need to maintain natural ecosystem function and adapt human-dominated ecosystems to restore critical functions of natural ecosystems. Such ecosystems: (1) have closed loops (waste from any process is re-used or becomes input to another process), (2) re-use non-renewable resources (e.g., minerals), (3) use renewable resources (e.g., water and forestry supplies) at a rate less than their renewal rate, and (4) provide habitats to healthy populations of native species. Such an approach will be achieved through creative, system-level design of essential human services (e.g., food, water, shelter, energy, transportation, information, social interactions, security, and health care) that emphasize environmental as well as social and economic criteria.

“The second societal challenge focuses on impoverished communities, where a lack of essential human services, often accompanied by rapid population growth, threaten both local and global sustainability and create serious challenges to success on the first grand challenge. Better understanding of the economic, political, and social policy drivers of poverty is needed to develop creative solutions that enable citizens of these countries to sustainably develop needed capabilities, such as food and shelter, having good health and a life of normal length, and fulfilling social needs. To be sustainable, such capabilities must be supported within a diverse and equitable interdependence with economic markets, social security, government services, and political processes. This interdependence provides critical safety nets when environmental, economic, or social changes stress livelihoods.”

The structure of Aedi Group, through the co-profit model, is designed to address both of these simultaneously.  First, our for-profit companies are all set-up to work towards sustainability.  Second, our non-profit, Village Corps, aims to empower the world’s poor to generate sustainable prosperity and resilient communities for themselves.  In this way we aim to ensure that not only does our work support others around the world, but also the economic-engine for that work is not acting against those efforts by reinforcing unsustainable systems that result in symptoms that threaten the very people we would like to help.

It is this approach of imaging the future we want and working together to create it that will help us break free from the habits and systems of the past which are now (largely inadvertently) creating results that threaten billions of people and natural systems of all kinds the world over.