What came first, the sustainability or the resiliency?

Jeff Green | May 22, 2014

... if something has a lot of resiliency it is more likely to be sustainable, but even things that are very resilient are not always sustainable over time. Then again, how sustainable can something be if it is not resilient?

When push comes to shove, is it better to push than it is to shove, or not ...?

All of these questions, as fascinating as they are, point to a debate that is raging in sustainability circles and even at the Frontenac County Advisory Committee on Sustainability. You would think that the one thing that the committee would agree about is sustainability, but you would be wrong.

Members of the committee have been taken aback, as have others, with the ubiquity of the word sustainability. In fact, many of the job titles at Frontenac County have had the name Sustainability stuck on to them in the recent past. Instead of a planning department, there is a sustainability planning department, and instead of economic development it is sustainable economic development, for example.

The suggestion at the committee was that "sustainability" should be phased out or at least limited, and a new word would be used to describe all those activities that the county would like to be involved in but which are not, strictly speaking, in their mandate. Anything to do with social well being, environmental concerns, culture, community improvement, tourism - they are all covered under the umbrella heading Sustainability. The logic is that these diverse enterprises that are carried out by individuals and groups in their own communities and across the county are what build a sustainable place to live and work.

There are those, and I can sympathize, who are sick of the word, and there is now, finally, an alternative on the horizon. For a couple of years, slowly but surely, the concept of resilient communities has been

gaining momentum. It has more grit than sustainable communities, suggesting the strength to withstand the inevitable pressures of modern life. These include attacks on personal and community well-being that will come with rising oil and gas prices, climate change, continual migration of jobs to the city, the ageing tsunami (people are ageing in a huge tsunami-like wave that could swallow us all up if we aren't careful) and much, much, more.

Sustainability is just too nice a word, too much of a soft concept. Resiliency on the other hand, is tough; it is strong; it is what we need.

When I think of resiliency I think of my mother. My mother says she no longer hopes for things to go well, instead she hopes for the strength to handle the situations that will inevitably arise in her life. Sure enough, those challenges are coming fast and furious as she and her family and friends age.

So, if Frontenac County wants to be more like my mother it had better stop talking and start getting its act together. The woman hardly sleeps. Until she broke her wrist she played tennis every day. Six weeks and two metal pins later she was back on the court; that is, when she's not taking care of everyone in her world.

If the sustainability committee want to talk resiliency they had best get off their duff, establish a plan of action and make things happen.

Resiliency never sleeps.