Sustainability A way of life!

What is systemic thinking and why is it so important? Since many centuries it has been practice to understand various things by deconstructing them and breaking apart different components into smaller pieces or parts. We analyse things and try to solve it. Analytical skills have been very important in our society and well recognised. Systemic thinking does not only allow thinking analytically but it also requires thinking holistically by understanding the problem through its complexities. Systemic thinking requires brain to make connection of one problem to another or the effect of one problem to another and encourages to approach in such a way that it does not only solve the problem but also avoids any unforeseen issues through different connections. It offers a better way to manage critical situations and improves the way we think in this 21 st century. In many organisations, governments and businesses we hear shared leadership, integrative approach or holistic thinking; these are...

There are many stakeholders in Bollywood such as producers, directors, writers, singers, actors, actresses and many others. Huge amount of contractual and material transactions that happens daily in Bollywood industry and the producers are making big bucks from movies releases and so on. How can we bring them to take the ownership of CSR? How can we bring them to support community at large in India? How can we bring them at the forefront to support the issues such as poverty reduction, education for poor, women empowerment, environmental degradation, sustainable cities and climate change? Can they make more movies focusing on these areas to educate people in and out of India? Can they organise regular event around India to support such activities? Or can they set up a board or an "NGO - Bollywood" where every member contributes certain amount and the funds are utilised towards addressing those pressing issues? Much more needs to be done. Certainly there is a room for this...

In Australia local councils are charging rates for individual household waste and sewerage systems. Rates are standard for all household under one council but different council may have different rates. The question that comes to my mind is one household may produce 5kg of waste per week vs another who produces 8kg or 10kg of waste per week. Because some households are well aware of GHG emissions, environmental degradation and other climate change related issues therefore they produce less waste by changing their behaviour and actions. Whereas others who are least bothered to worry about such issues or does not care at all therefore they continue to produce waste as much as they can and consume more and more resources. So why those household who produces less waste and cares about the environment should pay the same council rates as others who produces twice the amount of waste? Is that because councils don't have the process on how to measure individual household's waste? o...

In modernised world many societies are built in an urban area to bring more people in from regional areas. People are offered living space, room for a car and storage to store the stuff that is unwanted on a daily basis. In many urban units storage is offered along with the car space. A question comes to my mind when thinking about sustainable cities and sustainable living that why do we need so many car space and so much of a storage space? Why don’t we offer shared car, shared equipment’s similar to shared laundry for example vacuum cleaner or gardening equipment’s in case of strata townhouses. So much of a money, time and waste can be saved through creating shared co-housing communities. This will not only help people with financial burden but will also be able to bring them together and make connection with their neighbours while sharing equipment’s and get to know each other compare to current set up where hardly anyone knows who is living next door.  So much of a car s...