ABSTRACT
Learning, development and sustainability all have positive connotations. The processes they denote are easily thought of as being as harmonious and unproblematic as the outcome. Such processes, however, require change and new thinking that expands earlier understanding, leaving old paradigms and entering new ones. This is painful and laborious for individuals as well as organizations. This duality is an assumption behind this chapter where light is shed on the complexity of sustainability. As in several chapters in this volume sustainability is looked upon in a dynamic way:
only a system that is continuously in a state of ‘becoming’ can be called ‘sustainable’. Sustainability cannot be regarded as a static characteristic of a structure or a process because everything in the system is constantly ‘on the move’. A definition of sustainability must take account of time as a key factor, and should focus on dynamic qualities of the system.
