Defining Sustainable Development

Satisfying Basic Human needs
Subsistance
Subsistence
- Being: physical and mental health, equilibrium, sense of humour, and adaptability, all to be understood as attributes and qualities.
- Having (not material): the satisfiers are food, shelter, and work.
- Doing (actions): the satisfiers are feed, reproduce, rest, and work.
- Interacting (times and spaces): the satisfiers are living environment and social setting.
Protection
Protection
- Being: care, adaptability, autonomy, equilibrium, and solidarity.
- Having (not material): insurance systems, savings, social security, health systems, rights, family, work.
- Doing (actions): co-operate, prevent, plan, take care of, cure, and help.
- Interacting (times and spaces): living space, social environment, and dwelling
Affection
Affection
- Being: self-esteem, solidarity, respect, tolerance, generosity, receptiveness, passion, determination, sensuality, and sense of humour.
- Having (not material): friendships, family, partnerships, and relationships with nature.
- Doing (actions): share, cultivate, caress, take care of, make love, express emotions, and appreciate.
- Interacting (times and spaces): privacy, intimacy, home, and spaces of togetherness.
Understanding
Understanding
- Being: critical conscience, receptiveness, curiosity, astonishment, discipline, intuition, and rationality.
- Having (not material): literature, teachers, method, educational policies, and communication policies.
- Doing (actions): investigate, study, experiment, educate, analyse, and meditate.
- Interacting (times and spaces): settings of formative interaction, schools, universities, academies, groups, communities, and family.
Participation
Participation
- Being: adaptability, receptiveness, solidarity, willingness, determination, dedication, respect, passion, and sense of humour.
- Having (not material): rights, responsibilities, duties, privileges, and work.
- Doing (actions): become affiliated, co-operate, propose, share, dissent, obey, interact, agree on, and express opinions.
- Interacting (times and spaces): settings of participative interaction, associations, parties, churches, communities, neighbourhoods, landscapes.
Idleness
Idleness
- Being: are imagination, tranquillity, and spontaneity.
- Having (not material): games, spectacles, clubs, parties, and peace of mind.
- Doing (actions): day-dream, dream, brood, recall old times, give way to fantasies, remember, relax, have fun, and play.
- Interacting (times and spaces): privacy, intimacy, spaces of closeness, free time, surroundings, and landscapes.
Creation
Creation
- Being: imagination, boldness, inventiveness, and curiosity.
- Having (not material): abilities, skills, method, and work.
- Doing (actions): work, invent, build, design, compose, and interpret.
- Interacting (times and spaces): productive and feedback settings, workshops, cultural groups, audiences, spaces for expression, and temporal freedom.
Identity
Identity
- Being: sense of belonging, self- esteem, and consistency.
- Having (not material): symbols, language, religions, habits, customs, reference, groups, sexuality, values, norms, historical memory, and work.
- Doing (actions): commit oneself, integrate oneself, confront, decide on, get to know oneself, recognize oneself, actualize oneself, and grow.
- Interacting (times and spaces): social rhythms, everyday settings, settings which one belongs to, and maturation stages.
Freedom
Freedom
- Being: autonomy, passion, self- esteem, and open-mindedness.
- Having (not material): equal rights.
- Doing (actions): dissent, choose, be different from, run risks, develop awareness, commit oneself, and disobey.
- Interacting (times and spaces): temporal/spatial plasticity anywhere, anytime.
MANFRED MAX-NEEF
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More InformationStop degrading our systems
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More InformationOvercoming the sustainability challenge
Social Pressures
- Rise of inequality
- Erosion of trust
- Increase in diseases of affluence, like obesity and stress
- Increase of discrimination
- …
Environmental Pressures
- Novel entities
- Atmospheric aerosol loading
- Ocean acidification
- Biogeochemical flows
- Land-system change
- Biosphere integrity
- Climate change
- …
Value creation
- Innovation
- Transformation
- Technology
- Ingenuity
- Effectiveness
- Governance
- …