Hi Alex here which human needs do we have to satisfy to live a sustainable life?
Interestingly enough most definitions of sustainability mention meeting needs
the Brundtland Commission of the United Nations in 1987
defined sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
In a previous video we used natural science to see that sustainability can
be defined
as meeting human needs within ecological constraints and one of our
four sustainability principles
says in a sustainable society people are not subject to conditions that
systematically
undermine their capacity to meet their needs so what are these needs?
how can they help us become sustainable? You may be familiar with Maslow's
hierarchy of needs
I won't get into it here but there are many resources available online if
you're interested
and here is another interesting theory about human needs that was developed by
Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef
he published in 1991 a book called
human scale development demonstrating that human needs
are finite and classifiable; there are nine fundamental human needs
that are constant through all human cultures and across historical time
periods;
what changes is the ways
these needs are satisfied. So these nine human needs
are: subsistence we need food water shelter
protection we need a safe place to live social security
participation being part of decisions that affect our life
idleness some free time relaxing
affection we need friends love understanding
learning meditating creation
cooking designing inventing identity
a sense of belonging knowing oneself and freedom
being able to choose how we live our lives although these needs
are the same than the Romans or the native people used to have thousands of
years ago
some of the ways we satisfy say our need for protection
participation or freedom can be very different today
than they were then. While some satisfiers
satisfy only one need for example insurance provides us with protection
some satisfy several needs at once
for instance breastfeeding satisfies a baby's need for subsistence
but also protection, affection and identity these are called synergistic
satisfiers
Max-Neef also differentiates other types of satisfiers called
destroyers by supposedly satisfying a need
they stop us from meeting several others for example
censorship pretends to satisfy our need for protection
but it actually stops us from meeting our need for
understanding participation creation identity
and freedom some are pseudo satisfiers
for example fashion and trends can generate a false sense of identity
and finally Max-Neef also organized satisfiers in four categories
being having doing and interacting
depending on how we satisfy our needs so how is this helpful to become
sustainable?
first when working towards reducing and eventually eliminating
our contribution to conditions that systematically undermine people's
ability to meet their needs
we now have a framework to organize our thinking we can scrutinize our
activities
products and services through the lens of these nine human needs
and associated satisfiers, pseudo-satisfiers
and destroyers secondly when looking for ways to improve
or replace an unsustainable practice we can step back
and take a different perspective: why is this product here in the first place
which needs does it satisfy? can we satisfy these
needs as well or even better with a different product or service?
for example a music festival gathers tens of thousands of people
who join to meet their needs for participation idleness
creation and identity. Can we invent a totally different way to meet the same
needs
with fewer carbon emissions due to transportation
and less impact on the local ecosystems just asking the question
opens a whole new way of thinking. Can we invent new ways to satisfy our needs for
identity and freedom
that do not require buying and consuming so much stuff?
Can we imagine other ways to satisfy our need for idleness that do not
require flying halfway around the world
and intruding on other people's culture and land?
when we do find a sustainable satisfier can we improve it
to make it a synergistic satisfier and meet several needs at once with the
same amount of resources?
at the end of the day being sustainable is about meeting our needs within
ecological constraints
and Manfred Max-Neef's human needs can be very useful
to find ways to satisfy needs using fewer resources
they provide a new lens and help us take another look at the system we're trying
to change
which is crucial to stimulate innovation and to avoid superficial problem solving
if you're interested in reading more about this the book human scale
development
is available as a free PDF online the link is in the description below
you can find all our engaging sustainability videos to learn and teach
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