No such thing as Environmental Issues . . .

A Sustainable future means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. I believe that sustainability is a journey, a process and also a state of mind; it's about the Human Spirit, our outlook on life, our neighbours, ourselves and everything we share our planet with.

During my long career in the environmental movement, I've worked with countless individuals, groups, NGO's, organisations, politicians - even a former USA Vice-President in an attempt to push forward the concept of environmental sustainability. Some progress has been made of course, but we now seem to have reached a point where humanity is precariously balanced between greater self-potential and environmental disaster. However,we must see our predicament as not simply an environmental issue, but a common social and moral responsibility, and we desperately need a shift in consciousness - a kind of spiritual awakening otherwise we will simply perpetuate the insanity of the past or at best only treat the symptoms of our dis-ease, not the underlying causes.

For me, being an 'Environmentalist' was never really enough anyway; if I was ever going to do my small bit towards promoting an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence on this planet and really start to change attitudes and behaviours, it became clear to me some years ago that I would need to acquire a wider range of skills to achieve my objectives.

Sustainable Development has many different definitions, but mine has always seen spiritual and social values as essential ingredients. (See above) So today, I combine the skills of Consultant, Facilitator and Therapist because we must now go beyond mere environmentalism and present a far more holistic and joined-up approach to our work on sustainability. Gone (I hope) are the days of lecturing, blaming and bullying - we are now at last beginning to take people with us and better understand their motivations and even explore things like the psychology of changing attitudes and behaviour.

We have come to believe that we are separate from, and superior to, nature and have unhitched ourselves from the biological reality we are a part of. In an attempt to further disassociate ourselves from our actions, we have created 'environmental issues' so that we can hide or marginalise the chaos we are creating and get on with the more important things in life.

My mantra is this: There ARE no environmental issues - EVERYTHING we do is an environmental issue.