07-06-05 - Platform

07-06-05 is a change project. It is based on the fact that people’s desires, companies’ progress, and the planet’s environmental needs are not in conflict, but in agreement. People and companies need therefore neither be threatened nor forced to change behavior to preserve the environment. It is quite sufficient that we act on our own dreams of decent lives and good cultures.

For a while now, people throughout the world have discussed “sustainable development”. We believe this inaccessible concept can only be realized if we as humans lead sustainable lives, and when the companies and organizations we work for develop sustainable cultures.

Sustainable Life
Sustainable life is a life we, as individuals, have the strength to live, an existence with which we are happy over time, and which can be maintained and developed. Without becoming neither moralistic nor pessimistic (we are neither!), it may seem that a growing number of us lead lives in conflict with this. “It cannot continue this way, it can not last. However, in a year or two, or maybe three, THEN we will make the necessary changes and live differently,” is expressed repeatedly among people in general.

A sustainable life probably has a different meaning for different people in various phases of life:

The sustainable life may be about childhood – such as the fact that five year old children receive treatment for stress-symptoms, that purchase pressure, fashion pressure, and body fixation start as early as age 10-11, that physical activity and outdoor play are increasingly substituted by media consumption. Living sustainable lives may therefore mean to reclaim childhood – so that babies are not launched directly from toddlers to teenagers, but are given the freedom and time to just be children.

The sustainable life may be about time – which is considered the scarcest commodity, although we have historically never had shorter workdays and more timesaving technology than now. That we have lost control of our private time, that it is divided, that there are always urgent matters, always small chores to handle before we concentrate on larger matters, that the slow, ample time and the coherent thought lose in competition with haste and acceleration. More people find that the distinction between work and leisure fades, as we are constantly available for information and influence – through mobile phones, wap, and web. Living sustainable lives may be about reclaiming time – not turning back time, but regaining control over time.

The sustainable life may be about health – at a time where an increasing number of people suffer from excess weight, high blood pressure, and diabetes, where depression and burnout affect an increasing number of people, and where a growing number of us are physically inactive. Pouring additional tens of billions into public health will probably not help, if we continue to live unhealthy lives. Living sustainable lives may be about reclaiming health – both physically and mentally. We must take greater responsibility for our own health.

The sustainable life may be about consumption – or rather, freedom from consumption, at least from senseless consumption, freedom from a use-and-toss mentality, freedom from an existence where an empty container becomes the most valuable asset, because it serves as a dustbin. Living sustainable lives may be to reclaim the freedom of action – in the sense that freedom is not to “deal with”, but to act.

Thus, the sustainable life is also about sustainable consumption – partly in form of quantity (meaning a reduction in consumption in our part of the world), and partly in form of quality (using lasting goods rather than consuming breakable goods, as well as reusing things that are intended for reuse).

Sustainable Culture
Between a sustainable individual life and a sustainable global development, lies the sustainable culture of the companies and organizations we work for.

A sustainable culture is maintainable and develops over time, because the people within are supplied with as many resources as they spend, and are not just emptied, but recharged. The sustainable culture has room for both ingenious and ordinary people, it understands the value of diversity, the need for young and old, men and women, Norwegian and other cultures, progress and setbacks.

An increasing number of Norwegian companies understand the importance of building sustainable cultures, because they are a condition for long-term added value and human development.

A sustainable culture cannot be founded on profit maximizing, short-term profit, abuse of resources, or harassment of people and environment.

Individual and System – Sustainable Development
People living sustainable lives and working in sustainable cultures will contribute to sustainable development – willfully and enthusiastically.

Much environmental and change work has lately been based on the fact that individuals lack the freedom and power to create change, that individual change is irrelevant unless something fundamental happens with the systems that drive economic and social development. We do not wish to lead a great debate about this. We believe that change is best achieved if both energy is created and responsibility is taken on an individual level (this is where we direct our energy!), and an effort to change systems and structures is made (where many other organizations do considerable work).

Particularly because the perhaps most important ideological foundation is common, both for the sustainable individual and the sustainable system: the fact that we must share.

It is about sharing work hours, tasks, demands, and rewards, so that each person can take his or her part. And it is about the fact that we must share resources, nationally and globally; not for the rich to become richer so that the ones with too little will have enough, but that we who have more than sufficient share with those who require the very basic.

We believe that the expression “to share” is the plain, positive, and future-oriented way to express “solidarity”, “equality” and “global redistribution”. Particularly since sharing is an excellent acid test of what is genuinely valuable: for the most important values in life there is more for everyone when they are shared (happiness, experiences, dreams), while the less important values are recognized by diminishing pieces when shared (GDP, emission quotas, petroleum fund units, etc.).

Organization
Because we focus on individuals and cultures, rather than systems and structures, we prefer being less systemized and structured. We would like for a sufficient number of people to work full time with 07-06-05 to create power, continuity, and order, but not so many that the goal itself becomes to receive monies to remain employed. We do not believe in organization charts and boxes, we believe in positive influence. We do not believe in member lists and contingencies, but in initiative and imagination. We do not believe in contract work, we believe in network. We do not believe in Judgement Day, we believe in the new day.