How can we value something we can’t live without? David Suzuki looked at this question in a recent blog post covering Environment Canada’s briefing notes on the economic value of ecosystems, arguing that there are certain numbers we just can’t escape – over 13% of our GDP is entwined with our environment, but conventional economics is still missing the mark by putting a numerical value on nature.
While he makes an important point that our economic models fall short in undervaluing ecosystem services, I can’t help but be reminded of the original definition of sustainability – in the context of sustainable development – that came out of the Brundtland Report in 1987: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Although Brundtland drew linkages between the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainability, its definition also set an early precedent for sustainability as something that can be both quantified and justified by some other quantity. These are the same numbers we can’t seem to escape when we make the case for sustainability – cost savings with greater gains in efficiency, job generation, a steady state economy, CO2 margins, and the price tag for “free” ecosystem services. Fortifying “sustainability” with hard data and numbers lays the foundation for a valid, common sense definition, but I find that it depersonalizes it.
That social pillar of sustainability helps personalize its definition in the context of our communities and lived experience. With funding from her 2008 TED Prize, author and historian Karen Armstrong launched a Charter for Compassion based on integrating the Golden Rule into our social and political life. Through her work and this Charter she advocates for finding a place for compassion not only in our personal beliefs, but also in our government policies. The Golden Rule simply asks that we treat all others as we ourselves wish to be treated.
Part of a growing global compassion movement, the Charter has inspired a network of compassionate cities and communities worldwide. The International Campaign for Compassionate Cities sees compassion as way to transform our cities, focusing on “action in city-wide innovation, social entrepreneurship, sustainability, community and civic engagement, and governance.”
Vancouver announced its own campaign to become a compassionate city in 2012 following the city-wide conversation 12 Days of Compassion, co-organized by SFU’s Centre for Dialogue. A compassionate city is one that not only formally values the principle of compassion, but that provides the space for citizens to feel “empowered to make real and necessary changes… developing a new sense of responsibility.”
What does a global compassion movement mean for sustainability? For Karen Armstrong, compassion has the power to produce the necessary shift in our communities to make our social fabric stronger and more resilient. From ourselves to our public policy, embracing compassion in our cities is about finding the empathy to put ourselves in someone else’s position.
There’s a tendency to often separate sustainability from the moral fabric of communities, and to prioritize arguments that appeal to a sound business case for the concept. The Golden Rule, however, is a very natural fit to Brundtland’s original definition. Beyond using resources responsibly to meet today’s needs without compromising those of the future, compassionate sustainability asks us to treat others – today and in the future – as we ourselves wish to be treated.
This simple and elegant concept is at the core of environmental justice, equity, human rights, gender equality, and other facets of social sustainability, but often overlooked. We can’t place a numerical value on compassion or quantify it in any economic model, but we can choose to value its principles in how we interact with one another, govern our cities, and make decisions that will affect generations we will never meet.
How can we value something we can’t quantify and how would compassionate sustainability change our cities?
