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What's so good about growth anyway?

barbara bates • Aug 31, 2020
There is a debate about why we want growth at all - one point of view is that we already have quite enough in the way of consumer goods, at least in most of the West, and that we should be looking more at how to hand on and replace what we use for future generations. I've even heard it said that uncontrolled growth is cancerous (I know this all too well: I had it myself a few years ago and thanks to the NHS I don't any more) and in the same way we do not want that for our surroundings. 
 
Another way to think about it as a living system. For example, a plant, a microbe, a human body, is a dynamic living system that continually interacts with its environment, exchanging energy and transforming it. So growth in this way is more about maintenance, repair and new birth. This kind of idea can be applied to business, for example in the work of Giles Hutchins. I've just read his 'The Illusion of Separation' which seems to me really important. 
 
Coming back to the ILM, they quote the Bruntland Commission of 1987 with a great definition of sustainability which seems good to me - 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs'.
 
So it's great to see more and more businesses considering this, and thinking about the Triple Bottom Line of Planet, People and Profit, where Sustainability is at the intersection of the three. You can read more at this link. 
 
How sustainable do you think your own organisation is? 
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