The Dual Nature of Sustainability

Sustainability as a problem domain is not only complex, rather could be characterised through numerous dualities, which are notably difficult to reconcile. For example, some of these include (a) managing short-term targets for sustainable development and climate action, along with long-term visions by which to repattern broader human ecologies; (b) protecting ecosystems against human intervention, while attempting to establish reconnection between nature and culture; (c) maintaining one’s socioeconomic status, while facilitating fundamental institutional reform; and, (d) enabling quality of life for diverse populations, while minimising the ecological footprint of industrialised development. Arguably, these dualities also imply a need for more than one phase of transition—a fast and slow, or short and long, track for systems change.