Ten Essential Ideas for Sustainability Leaders in the 2020s

Abstract

This Discussion Outline was prepared for the WAAS-organized March 17, 2019, Special Meeting on Global Leadership for the 21st Century—Ideas That Can Lead to Action, which followed the VII Global Baku Forum, March 14-16. Its statements are derived from or supported by the contents of The Security & Sustainability Guide (www.securesustain.org; in development) and include current and emerging ideas deserving more attention from leaders: 1) we cannot have security without sustainability, and vice versa; 2) security is worsening worldwide, making sustainability more vulnerable; 3) still, an under-appreciated transformation to sustainability is underway; 4) but fragmentation within the transformation is widespread; 5) the intensifying global information explosion is out of control; 6) global population in 2050 will likely grow by 30% to 10 billion people; 7) a new political continuum is needed to supplement traditional “left-right” thinking; 8) a new economics for the 21st century is needed to supplement and eventually replace industrial-era economics; 9) new sources of non-polluting energy and new foods and food production methods are emerging; 10) the climate change problem is understated, but climate is only part of a wider set of urgent environmental problems.