Photo: Heather Yaryan

That we are seeing a rapidly expanding focus on sustainable cities is hardly surprising. Cities have become the principal engine of economic growth in a global economy—and they are having a disproportionate effect on the ecosystems of their regions and the biosphere as a whole.

Currently, the pressing nature of climate change and peak oil, together with our long love affair with technology, have made efforts to reduce the impact of cities the central focus of the sustainable cities movement. While critical, meeting the challenge of a deteriorating planet requires more.  It demands that our cities become active contributors to the social and ecological regeneration of their regions. Cities at the forefront of sustainability are recognizing that they need to take up both halves of the sustainability challenge—reducing damage while growing connection to and among the living systems of their place. More

I love chocolate. My favorite is the seventy percent cocoa kind. I always read the package for source information and buy Fair Trade Certified. Because of that certification, I am trusting that the contract manufacturers’ workers and the indigenous craftspeople and field harvesters are paid fairly. I trust that they work under safe conditions and under global standards of health protection. I am so thankful that someone is doing that checking for me. I also know that I am only achieving part of the goal that I have as a conscious consumer. It is necessary but not….well you know.

When I buy household products, I want non-toxic products so when they go down the drain, or into the air, they are not harming the very sources of life (or humans). I want the materials that make it up to not destroy habitats with their by-products. I want raw materials to not come from substitution of invasive species for indigenous habitat (like palm oil’s rampant proliferation has). I want fish and wildlife, trees and habitats to benefit from my way of living. I want to know how corporations are working with the earth and her living systems. But again, this is part of my concern, not all. More

I had a recent conversation with an author who was writing about going “beyond sustainability.” He couldn’t decide between restoration and regeneration to describe “beyond”, but was tending toward restoration.  Regeneration, he said, seems rather squishy. And he is right…at least insofar as the word is being used, or rather misused, these days.

In our business and in the courses we teach, we talk a lot about the distinction—and the complementarities—between these two processes. So of course I jumped on the opportunity to talk more.  Reflecting on our conversation later, however, I realize I responded to the wrong question. And undoubtedly contributed to my friend’s continuing confusion. The real question is, “Why the growing interest in going beyond sustainability in the first place?”  More