Environmentalism x Sustainability

    Previously, we have tried to identify all the meanings (or part of them) about Sustainability and Sustainable development. Throughout my readings I came across with a lot of others co-existing movements, and one that really got my attention and made me think about the similarities and differences was ENVIRONMENTALISM.

     By definition, Environmentalism means:

"Environmentalism advocates the preservation, restoration and/or improvement of the natural environment, and may be referred to as a movement to control pollution". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism#Environmental_movement)

     The reason I would like to clarify those 2 concepts is that not only myself but a whole bunch of other people and The government, who advocate for Sustainable development or Sustainability, don't really know the real difference about them and in order to really bring about education for sustainable development we need to have a clear understand about it. So lets first try to understand the concept mentioned above, as stated the main concern of environmentalism is preservation, conservation or improvement of natural environment therefore there are no other inclusions such as social, human and economical aspect. However the term environment itself has at least 2 different definitions: 1) "The social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual" and 2) "The physical, chemical, and biotic factors that act upon an ecological community and ultimately determine its survival" (http://www.anus.com/zine/articles/cladrastis/environmentalism/). Obviously, It does have two different concepts, one that relates to "Humans" and the other "The natural" (or non-human).

     In fact, environmentalism groups have been trying to define themselves since when the movement started 40 years ago, and since the lack of definition and clear purpose had lead the group to a failure on achieving sustainability. Authors around the world say that the reason of this "failure" is because environmentalists act towards natural environmental problems after they had happened so they will never be able to change individual's behaviours and actions if they don't understand the causes of the problems.    

        So do we really need a movement only focused on preservation and conservation of our natural resources or it is the time to have a more complex and broader knowledge that address  all the problems caused by us "Humans" to our natural environment that later will reflect back on our society, economy and our future generations? "Sustainable development's main goal is to do things differently in the first place, instead of just cleaning up the symptoms and underlying problems." (Morgan Williams, The parliamentary commissioner for the environment in New Zeland).

        Sustainable development is a movement that sees problems through all varies spectrums. It does involve every individual along the process in order to empower, engage and promote creativity from all stakeholders and therefore bring about the change. Sustainability is  a continuous process of learning that challenges our mental models to make us reflect upon our actions and decisions. It not only links social, environmental and economical plates but it challenges the systems that link those three dimensions.

      Small, medium and large companies have already started to understand that nowadays their "GREEN" actions such as recycling their waste, are not longer accepted and enough to label then as Sustainable businesses. On our today's society the impact that you as an individual or as a company imprint in our planet is hold accountable against you. The quality of air that we breath, the unfair division of wealth in the world, the inequity of opportunities, starvation are some of the problems within the scope of Sustainable development.