Your Sustainability Journey - Start Where You Are

The journey towards sustainability is different for everyone. As sustainability champions and leaders we need to meet others where they are. Our team, and other stakeholders, may not understand sustainability the same way we do.  

There are lots of factors that can influence our understanding of sustainability - experience, knowledge, context and culture are some.  Getting everyone on the same page so that you can all move forward together is important.

But, how do you know where your people are at?  How do you know what sustainability means to them?  How do you know the best way to engage them?

Important questions to consider before jumping into your first or next sustainability initiative or project don’t you think...?

My advice - ask them.  Have a conversation, set up an “answer box” in the staff room so people can respond to the question “What does sustainability mean to you?”.  It’s good to get their responses individually, it doesn’t even matter if they’re anonymous - you can share the variety of answers to demonstrate just how differently we all think about sustainability.  

🔥HOT TIP: If you go around the table and ask this question at a staff meeting, you’ll likely get less variation in responses.  People will fall into the “group think” trap, believing there’s a right answer and so will repeat what they’ve heard.  Provide an opportunity for them to respond individually first then demonstrate that there’s a variety of responses (and no "wrong" answers).

This leads nicely into a conversation about how you could define it collectively, as an organisation.  This process of creating a shared understanding is how you make sustainability relevant and meaningful to your people and place.

🔍Reflection:  When asked what sustainability means to them, what’s important to your people?  How do these ideas relate to your context?

Get creative as you develop your shared understanding.  There’s some fun and creative ideas for developing your shared understanding of sustainability in the What Is Sustainability? Masterclass & Resource Bundle.

You can use the definition outlined in the EYLF 2.0 which defines sustainability as:

'Seeking to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations (Brundtland Report 1987). 

Contemporary understandings of sustainability spans environmental, social, and economic dimensions.'

BELONGING, BEING & BECOMING: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia – V2.0, 2022 pp 68

This can be a good place to start the conversation, but if you want sustainability to be relevant and meaningful to your people and place, spend some time creating your own collective understanding. A definition that reflects what's important to your people and your place. This will evolve over time as your knowledge and understanding develops.

🔍Reflection: What does sustainability mean to you?  What experiences, people, education or values shaped your understanding? Did you have any experiences or people in your early childhood that contributed to shaping your understanding?