Social sustainability: Satisfying human needs

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.

One of our four sustainability principles

says in a sustainable society,

people aren't 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 are 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 or 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 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 satisfy
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
that 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 organizes
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
all 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,
product, and services

through the lens
of these nine human needs

and associate the 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 does 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 are trying to change,
which is crucial to stimulating innovation

and to avoid superficial problem-solving.

If you are 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.

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