Quo vadis sustainability? We need fresh approaches!

Does the term sustainability taste like a sandwich from the day before? Can we even speak for fish if we are not fish ourselves? And how far into the future do we need to look if we want to ensure a good life for future generations? At the first Sustainability Forum in Langenlois in Lower Austria in October 2016, heads were spinning. At the invitation of organic pioneer and sustainability expert Werner Lampert, and moderated by philosopher Konrad Paul Liessmann, 13 experts from the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences discussed the opportunities and limits of sustainability.

List of participants

Thesis 1: Sustainability is reaching its limits in our economic system

"The concept of sustainability cannot be discussed in isolation from the dynamics and functioning of a modern economy. Sustainability always comes up against limits in this system - because it can never become truly sustainable."

Mathias Binswanger, Economist, St. Gallen/Switzerland

Thesis 2: Our society needs a new narrative of hope

"Our society needs a new narrative of hope. A radical revolution in our society in terms of sustainability and solidarity could give us this. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen."

Philipp Blom, writer and historian, Vienna/Austria

Info about photo: www.autorenfotos.com/autorenfotos/autoren-b/philipp-blom

Thesis 3: The mature soul can connect us with the big picture

"In an alienated modern age, we have lost ourselves and our participation in the earth. The mature human soul can once again create event space for the spirit in the body so that people can devote themselves to the development of all life worlds in the future."

Henning Elsner, physician and psychosomatist, Lahnstein/Germany

Thesis 4: We must commit ourselves to justice

"The cultural revolution required today demands the recognition of the rapidly growing social and natural interdependencies - and thus the commitment to justice under the conditions of finiteness."

Ingeborg Gabriel, theologian, Vienna/Austria

Thesis 5: In our immodesty, we tie our own hands

"We oscillate between the awareness of being part of nature and not being part of it, but rather disposing of it and watching over it like zoo keepers. By believing that we have everything to do with the earth in our hands, we tie our own hands."

Andrea Grill, biologist and writer, Vienna/Austria

Thesis 6: Sustainable policy must keep the future open

"We need to redefine the framework conditions for sustainability. It's not about human survival, but about protecting the planet's life system. Sustainable policy must be structured in such a way that it keeps the future open."

Eva Horn, literary scholar, Vienna/Austria

Thesis 7: Progress will only be made in a society based on solidarity

"Only when we become a solidary, participatory society will there be progress in sustainability. To achieve this, we need a new relationship with responsibility. And we must learn to develop relationships and cooperation."

Werner Lampert, sustainability expert and organic pioneer, Vienna/Austria

Thesis 8: Sustainability policy is a development and peace project

"There are political alliances, a social foundation and pioneers of change in companies. Under these conditions, sustainability can become a counterpoint to the ubiquitous cries of decadence."

Claus Leggewie, political scientist, Essen/Germany

Thesis 9: The concept of sustainability needs to be sharpened

"There is no sustainability without the formation of traditions. You have to face this contradiction if you want to know why sustainability had to become a phrase in a dynamic world that is dissolving all continuity."

Konrad Paul Liessmann, philosopher, Vienna/Austria

Thesis 10: We need a sober optimism about the future

"The point is to bring the old concept of sustainability into a self-confident, materially demanding civil society that does not see its salvation in renunciation, but in development."

Wolf Lotter, journalist and author, Köngen/Germany

Thesis 11: The final catastrophe cannot be stopped

"Sustainability is a concept of promoting the well-being of generations within communities whose members are bound together in solidarity. On a global level, however, such a community of solidarity seems unworldly in today's world situation."

Peter Strasser, legal philosopher, Graz/Austria

Thesis 12: Only feeling connects us with the world

"Because we are living beings, we exist first and foremost in feeling. We need a new approach to sustainability from the perspective of what it means to be able to connect with the world through feeling."

Andreas Weber, biologist, philosopher and writer, Berlin/Germany

Thesis 13: What we lack is a positive vision

"Sustainability is no longer seen as a socio-political issue, but primarily as a question of efficiency. We need to move away from this outdated term and initiate a new, positive social movement."

Harald Welzer, sociologist and social psychologist, FUTURZWEI Stiftung Zukunftsfähigkeit, Berlin/Germany

1) What do we actually mean when we talk about sustainability?

The roots of the concept of sustainability go back to 18th century forestry. Is it still useful today or is it already "worn out", as the sociologist Harald Welzer provocatively put it? The discussion revealed the entire spectrum of opinions - from the preservation of a tried and tested term to its reinterpretation and alternative names such as justice or sustainability. Biologist and author Andrea Grill used the example of different languages to illustrate that even today, sustainable is not the same as sustainable. For example, the German "Nachhaltigkeit" refers to holding, the French "Resilience" to resilience and elasticity. The Italian "Durevolezza" and the Dutch "Duresamheit" emphasize the aspect of duration. The English term "sustainability" is translated first as future viability and only secondly as sustainability.

2) Is it enough to look at our children and grandchildren?

Sustainability is always fundamentally geared towards the future. To put it simply: as human beings, we want to act in such a way that our children and grandchildren will still find an environment worth living in. But is that enough? Shouldn't we be looking much further ahead and thinking in terms of geological eras? The literary scholar Eva Horn took up the currently hotly debated "Anthropocene" as the first geological era shaped by humans. She argued that since humans are changing the system of life on Earth, they are also responsible for the changing state of the planet in the long term. Political scientist Claus Leggewie disagrees: in his experience, concrete measures - for example on climate protection - can only be implemented if we address the next one or two generations.

3) What happens when the Chinese buy second cars?

This touched on another fundamental issue: solidarity. Many emerging countries are now moving into the middle class. A desirable development, but one that also has its limits.

"Today we have 1.5 cars per inhabitant in our latitudes, in China it is only 1 car. If everyone has a traffic density like ours, the planet will collapse," explained theologian Ingeborg Gabriel.

In order to enable people in other parts of the world to rise, the industrialized countries would have to give up some of their prosperity. But that would be difficult to achieve. Journalist Wolf Lotter called for alternatives to bans in order to motivate people towards sustainability. Organic pioneer Werner Lampert described positive experiences from his work with agricultural producers.

"When people are concerned with sustainability, they realize: I can't feed the animals what I take away from people. From that point on, there is solidarity."

4) Do we need to learn to feel ourselves and others again?

The willingness to show solidarity is essentially linked to personal feelings and experiences.

"Only when I feel, experience and believe something do I live it," emphasized Andrea Grill, for example.

The physician Henning Elsner sees vitality and feeling as deficits in our society. His conviction: We need a sense of coherence with which we can locate ourselves in the big picture in order to live - connected to the cycles of nature - in a participatory way with the earth. This allows us to perceive the world again "in such a way that we can sufficiently understand and influence what is happening around us". The philosopher Andreas Weber struck a similar chord with his call for a new vitality that connects to people's inner experience. Ecological commons are one example: In them, economic activity becomes a source of identity for the individual, resulting in participation in the greater whole.

5) Sustainability and capitalism - can they even go together?

But aren't sustainable action and a capitalist economic system contradictions in themselves? Yes, said economist Mathias Binswanger. For him, this system only works if growth continues. It is not possible to control sustainable behavior through prices:

"You would clearly know where you have to go. But there are currently no prices that would achieve this."

The historian Philipp Blom pointed out what had made Europe great - economic growth based on exploitation. And ironically, it is precisely this principle that is now bringing us to the abyss:

"Those who have little want more. And those who have a lot want to keep their privileges. To really change something, we need a deeper rethink."

And for this to happen, Blom believes that even more suffering is required.

6) How can people be reached and moved?

In the end, the practical framework determined the sustainability discourse: how can participation be achieved, which processes are suitable for mobilizing people? For legal philosopher Peter Strasser, people sense that something is no longer right when inequality becomes too great. The journalist Wolf Lotter even identified an "unculture of dishonesty", which was evident in the VW crisis, for example. Economist Mathias Binswanger also appealed for people to see that they are dissatisfied.

"Promises are constantly being made and not fulfilled. We need to focus more on what makes people dissatisfied."

The requirement is therefore to provide a platform for their needs and to restore confidence in the system. Sociologist Harald Welzer presented the "Open Society Initiative" in Germany, which he co-founded, as a positive example of a political-participative process that is proving very popular.

Host Werner Lampert drew his conclusions from the discussion at the Langenlois Sustainability Forum:

"What is needed to create a movement and to make real progress is a new form of discourse. We have to learn to talk to each other differently, to accept each other. Only by accepting each other will we be able to reach people."