Pattern Languages for Sustainability

Photo by: Kuma Kum from Unsplash.com (used with permission).

Sustainability as a practical discipline can expand faster and be more effective if we would develop knowledge solutions to sustainable development challenges in the form pattern languages. Patterns provide more effective forms of capturing, disseminating and validating knowledge than can be achieved by randomly floating loose ideas, prose and isolated best practices. This article explores the emergence and possibilities of using pattern languages in sustainability and sustainable development

At first glance, a festival of metaphors

Repurposing, long-termism, resilience, regenerative, conscience capitalism, ‘zero net’ or ‘net positive’ the crowds, as well as people in business, government and academic research, use an abundance of terms to express what they see as sustainable as the path to sustainability. Not a surprise, given that sustainable development by nature regards potentially all human, social and environmental issues and challenges at all different levels of social organization.

By way of example, Figure 1 shows over 210 metaphors of sustainability in contemporary sustainability conversations: qualities or situations we commonly associate with sustainability.

Figure 1: Sustainability Metaphors. Source: The Sustainability Web, by Olaf Brugman. Use permitted when and as long as compliant with the Creative Commons NY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

A rich and comprehensive understanding of sustainability is an opportunity to be creative and think of lots of new things we can do for humanity to maintain its existence while preferably having a good life in thriving communities.

However, the variety of words and terminology also comes from a limited common understanding of what sustainability or sustainable development could mean. Or should mean.

The variety of terminology available favours creativity in creating new ideas and visualizing our future in new ways. It also represents a risk and a challenge: how to build competence and expertise in an area? How to enable decision-makers and people that are not professionals in sustainability matters to think and shape their lives and businesses that increase our societies’ and organizations’ viability in the long term?