Thanksgiving and a New World of Sustainability

Thanksgiving: Days to eat turkey, watch football, and give personal thanks for the fortunes of the year. It is also an opportunity to reflect and give thanks for the eco accomplishments and the improved personal sustainability accomplishment gained in our life.

When the Pilgrims came to the ‘New World’, they quickly learned that survival would not be based on “Old World” thinking or the way of life they left behind. They would have to engage with the native people and embrace a whole new set of sustainable skills.

Like these settlers experiencing a new frontier, today’s “New World” still emerging before us requires the same expansion in thought and understanding. Each year, our sustainability consulting practice reflects on the lessons learned by the settlers in the story of the first Thanksgiving and compares our own expanded social and eco awareness over the past year.

• How do we interact with the environment to in a way that provides what we need but does not compromise our future?

• How do we interact with increasing global society of varying cultures?

• How do we incorporate the knowledge gained from both to improve our current state?

• How do we maintain this knowledge and action to ensure personal sustainability?

The story of Thanksgiving is a celebration of expanded eco awareness and the bounty that resulted from applied knowledge. Our own story, not yet written, is a journey of not only survival but boundless growth. Similar to the Pilgrims coming to the ‘New World’, it requires an openness to trade traditional thinking for new ideas and sustainability concepts.