ABSTRACT
More and more businesses are adding sustainability to their strategy for survival in the market. But very few of these businesses have yet to understand the full and complex nature of sustainability and the need to shift our cultural models away from consumption and toward caring relationships as a means to achieve satisfaction. The central issue underlying the environmental and sustainability problem is population growth. Sustainability demands that the people of the world stop consuming in the way that we do today. Consumption is an inevitable consequence of life and of cultural existence for humans. The Great Recession has led some to argue that a change is happening, that the reduction of consumption (and the reduction of debt to support that consumption) represents a shift in the American psyche that will last well through the next generation. Reshaping the economic structure will produce many winners and losers, and will be opposed by those, including politicians, who wield power.
