Pretending

In his recent UN speech (here) Leonardo Di Caprio spoke about pretending and acting; how it is his job, but not that of the people entrusted with charting our way through this godawful mess we've made of the global climate.

Many of us 'sustainability' professionals spend a great deal of time pretending too. Pretending to be corporate, pretending that economic success is a pre-requisite for sustainability rather than a happy outcome of it, pretending that we're property people or banking people or IT people... Constantly trying to dress the good up as the bad - always making 'the business case' for something that should be challenging the status quo, not reinforcing it.

The price we pay for some small action, I suppose. 

And at an individual level, the price of ingratiating ourselves to corporate decision-makers for having a modern career that at least ticks some of the boxes for a life that matters. And the ever-present hope for more.

But it does us no justice. Constantly couching our message in terms that will not offend or invite criticism leaves its emotional power at the door - our dreams and aspirations for a better world, but also the gnawing fear of a reality very different from this.

I leave you with this.

And the challenge to build some of the emotion, some of the vision and some of the core reality of our message into our working lives.