The SDAT Report is Coming! A Prediction

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The SDAT report is coming!

I have a prediction about what we will  not see in the report. I am open minded, I would be happy to be proven wrong, but I think that in the upcoming report the idea of growth will not be re-imagined. 


Economic growth is considered the bedrock of community planning, and economics in general. It's not just an essential component of our economics, it is also a social value, widespread in our country and across the globe. Corporate officers are bound by law to strive for growth and produce this singular result. 

But I, and many others, question this value and see the fall-out from it in the social justice issues we face, in environmental destruction and in a quality of life experience too dependent on materialism. Sustainability is the value that replaces open-ended growth. Sustainability replaces stratified incomes with fairness and opportunity and limits extreme wealth, it replaces environmental wastefulness and pollution with restrained consumption. It replaces materialism with creativity and community.

Aside from population increase, there is no nature-given need for open-ended growth. It's a cultural construct. And once again, it's anchored in our values. Sustainability does not need to be "anti-business" and should welcome entrepreneurship and innovation. I believe that businesses in a sustainable civic environment can do better, and can create rewards for their employees and owners without increasing their physical size, without expansion. They can do this by adding quality and value to their products via ingenuity, resourcefulness and increased customer service. They can do this, in part, with the assistance and support of their community.

Sustainability could very well be embraced by SDAT. But I don't expect that the traditional business community will support sustainability as a central value if the regular tenets of economic growth are not embraced and fostered. I doubt that SDAT will tilt the balance away from growth towards sustainability because doing so would bring so much of our economic activity into question


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