Summary of keynote delivered at International Conference on Sustainable Development in Pune

1. Leadership Challenges for
Sustainable Development
25 Years of WCED
Anupam Saraph, PhD
Future Designer
Dedicated to all those anonymous humans striving to leave the world better than they found it

2. The Challenges
 to check exponential growth
 to focus on life, on whole systems and their purposes, not
on symptoms and quick fixes that fail
 to assume the leadership of systems, not just the
organizations that they are a part of

3. “My dear, here we must run as fast as we can,
just to stay in place.
And if you wish to go anywhere
you must run twice as fast as that.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

4. We Live in an Exponential Era
Source: Alan Atkisson and Junko Edahiro, Life Beyond Growth, ISIS Academy 2012

8. “You talk very little about life,
you talk too much about survival.
It is very important to remember that
when the possibilities for life are over,
the possibilities for survival start.”
― Speaker from the floor
WCED Public Hearing Sao Paulo, 26-29 Oct 1985

9. Focus on symptoms has kept us in survival mode
 We pay no heed to building unbounded cities and economies.
 We continue to seek solution in supply, not demand management.
 We fail to address the rapid pace of deterioration in renewable
resources - surface and ground water, forests and fisheries.
 We forget the life giving natural endowments in small streams and
rivers.
 We completely miss land and income reforms or the promotion of
local and diverse economies and life-styles that bring life to
everyone, not just survival.
 Instead of yielding to enduring solutions we find ourselves addicted
to quick fixes that leave us in worse crisis than when we began.

10. “All things are connected like the blood which unites
one family.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.
Man did not weave the web of life;
he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
― Chief Seattle

12. The Leadership Challenges for Sustainable Development
 to check exponential growth
 to focus on life, on whole systems and their purposes, not
on symptoms and quick fixes that fail
 to assume the leadership of systems, not just the
organizations that they are a part of