World Environment Day – 5th June
Today is #WorldEnvironmentDay. This is a day where across the globe we come together to educate, celebrate and try to help our ailing planet and each other. This year has a significant new and urgent narrative as we all try to adapt to Covid 19 and our future beyond it.
Ireland is still in lockdown, and since early March I have not been out of my home village more than twice. We are a resilient people with a strong sense of community, but like many others my neighbours and I have felt the walls closing in at times. In the last few weeks I have noticed a positive change -not just in Ireland but across the globe. The impatient demand to get back to “normal” has faded out and the strongest voices now are calling for a fairer, greener, more sustainable reboot of what we used to have. We can rebuild a better future out of our current situation, but how do we harness this potential?
Cultural change is one of the hardest things to achieve and we can only start that journey by asking some very hard and complex questions. Tim O’Reilly has written a truly inspirational blog post asking some of these questions. At times it is uncomfortable reading, as he asks us to confront deeply held beliefs and concepts not only of the future, but also our past and I highly recommend you to read it not once, but several times. Each time I go back to the post there is something new or another nuance I missed in the last reading.
https://www.oreilly.com/tim/21stcentury/
I wanted to write a blog today about how to unpack the complexity of “sustainability” and how to begin and move forward on the journey as we’ve helped so many organizations do over the last few years.
I couldn’t. I can quote you facts and figures, best practice and scientific studies about sustainability and climate change. It is a major part of my job and my life and I am proud of it. I couldn’t write that blog because today is different.
Today we join across the globe in the face of huge uncertainty. Today is the day maybe we can stop for a moment, breathe and see the green new shoots of a future. Today is the day where we need to reflect and ask hard questions of ourselves and honestly answer those questions back. From there, we take action.
Written by; Rebecca Byrne.
