What is sustainable abundance? Visions about our collective future
What does abundance mean in the face of climate change, structural inequality, resource constraints, and histories of oppression? What does it look like in practice?
What is sustainable abundance? What do these two words together mean? What insight, shifts in perspective and inspiration do they offer?
Let’s start with abundance -
Abundance is having what I need and knowing that I have what I need. It’s the spacious ease that comes with this knowing. As Jay Freidlander puts it in his Stanford Social Innovation Review article From Sustainability to Abundance, “Abundance lies at the heart of the natural and human worlds… [It] turns scarcity on its head and reorients [things] toward[s] finding new possibilities.”
Moving on to sustainability -
Sustainability is about designing systems in ways that simultaneously meet social, environmental and economic goals; that strive for intergenerational justice. At first glance this sounds pretty abundance-oriented to me. Full of possibility and new ways of being.
Yet on a practical level, sustainability is more often associated with scarcity than abundance. It’s about the structural reality of our world; limited resources and planetary boundaries; high levels of inequality. Jay Freidlander goes on to say that sustainability tends to “focus on trade-offs between the needs of current and future generations [which] leads people to fear sustainability as a zero-sum game.” It can be misconstrued to “seize upon this notion of scarcity and portray sustainability as a series of sacrifices.”
Which brings me to the heart of this reflection and the centerpiece of my upcoming workshop - What does the spaciousness and possibility of abundance have to offer the conversation on sustainability? What does thinking about sustainability through the lens of abundance have to offer us practically, theoretically, spiritually?
Teaming up with friend, tree scientist and human systems enthusiast, Marceau Guerrin, PhD, and as part of the Wistaria Project’s Feast Your Famine festival, join us as we unleash our creativity about sustainable abundance in cities. Through meditation, dialogue, and hands-on crafts, connect with diverse change makers about your unique vision of what sustainable abundance is, and bring it to life with others by co-designing the future of New York City life.
Sunday, November 17th, 2019 | 6:30-9:30pm, starts at 7pm
Hi, I’m Liz Moyer Benferhat. Writer, facilitator, coach, and development practitioner dedicated to the subtle interplay between how inner transformation feeds the outer transformation we need in the world. Welcome 🌿