Resources on thrivability

January 15, 2008 at 9:15 pm (Uncategorized)
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In my research through the last few years, I have come across some references to thrivability that I want to collect here and share with you.

Thrivability Institute 🙂

Interesting paper on the future with a thrivable attitude (pdf)
by Peter Ellyard, Chairman, Preferred Future Insititute and Sustainable Prosperity Foundation

and his paper Planning for Thrival and Thrivability in a Planetist 21st Century includes much of the material from the shorter paper linked above.

He begins with:

During the last few years I have commenced using the ‘thrival’ in my work with clients. You won’t find this word in any dictionary, and some of my colleagues who are linguistically precise do not approve my using it. However I use the word to make a particular point. We have a word survival to describe an aspirational goal but not ‘thrival’. The lack of such a word says a lot about the lack of loftiness of the aspirations of English speaking people. I also use the word ‘thrivability’. These words sum up the journey we need to make to transform ourselves for success in a globalising world , to aspire to thrive and to grow the ability to thrive.

See also, on page 51:

A sustainable society is one which is prosperous in four different ways these are

  • ecological prosperity;
  • economic prosperity ;
  • social prosperity;
  • cultural prosperity.

I believe we need not a triple bottom line but a quadruple: one which measures levels of poverty/prosperity in all four forms.

Page 55-56 offers:

The journey to an ecologically sustainable or ‘green’ future is a journey of
imagination, design and innovation. A ‘green’ future will be created by concentrating on, and promoting innovations in, two broad areas:

  • ‘green’ ways—the values, ethics, beliefs, paradigms, behavioural patterns, customer preferences, and professional ethics and practices needed for an ecologically sustainable society;
  • ‘green’ ware—the designs, products, services and technologies which will be needed to realise an ecologically sustainable society.

Concurrent with the promotion of ‘green’ ways and ‘green’ ware is the

implementation of policies for:

  • the creation of ‘green’ markets in order to provide a domestic demand for green’ ware which would then be exported to a world which is demanding it. Any country that wishes to show leadership in the development of ‘green’ ways and ‘green’ ware will need to ‘green’ its markets ahead of the rest of the world in order to provide a domestic market to nurture the development of these innovations.
  • establishing new industries and enterprises to provide both the ‘green’ ways and ‘green’ ware needed to realise a sustainable society.

Imaginify has been collecting resources on thrivability, see here:

Fast Company post on blacks moving to being “thrival” and a related blog post.

Thrivability and waste

have links for me? Know of other orgs or folks talking about flourishing or using similar terms that I should be aware of? Please inform me!

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