It would be difficult to find anyone who doesn’t think 2011 has been challenging for sustainability.  The global economy is at best fragile, hugely unstable and we teeter on the brink of another global recession.  In Europe, not only is the Euro under strain, the whole European project is being called into question.  And in the UK our government has embarked on a seeming all out assault on the environment, with the forests debacle, the ripping up of planning laws and most recently their attempts to undermine the central wildlife and habitat protection measures.  One glimmer of hope was the climate talks in Durban.  But even that is all about jam tomorrow, with promises and fine talk.  But we all know the action needed will be a lot harder to deliver.

2012 looks as if it will be more of the same.  The economy will continue to struggle and the big sustainability moment of the year – the Rio+20 Earth Summit – already looks like it will be a non-event.  More worrying is that our current crop of politicians don’t seem to be up to the task.  All spouting rhetoric essentially wanting to get back to “business as usual”, and only disagreeing on the tactics.

What is clear is that austerity is going to be with us for some time and as we adjust to that and begin to build an economy, society and world to deal with the new reality we have to ask ourselves what type of economy, society and world do we want that to be?

Recently, sustainability thinkers like John Elkington – with his sustainably capitalism – Tensie Whelan – with her end of hyperconsumerism – and Tony Juniper – with his year of resilience – have all pondered on this issue.  Interestingly, and from a different perspective, so too has the Radical Shift blog with it’s A tale of two cities posting.  All of these make different points but do so from the same premise: that the current system got us into this mess and it is now fundamentally broken.  And all of them talk about needing to build a different world, a different economy based on different rules and different values.  In short, sustainability.

This is about building a society and economy based upon community and local; on quality as opposed to quantity; on being as opposed to having.  Building lives of purpose and connection and using the best of modern technology coupled with human scale structures to do so.  But it is also a world that has to be made.  It will not just happen. If we don’t start making it in 2012 then our politicians, financiers and business leaders will build a different world.  One that suits their agenda.  And it won’t be about sustainability.

But as communicators how do we tell this story in a time of austerity?  For many of us in the environment movement it has been all too easy to talk to ourselves.  To think what makes us tick must and should make others tick too.  If we keep thinking like that then we’ll start to talk about sustainability in times of austerity in terms of “giving things up” and in “told you so” tones.  As the Bansky poster on page 26 of today’s (22^nd December) Guardian said “Sorry! The lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock.” But following our values and Banksy’s sentiment may be good for us.  Maybe insightful, even poignant observations.  But it is also the fastest route to failure and to sustainability losing out in 2012.

Most people aren’t like us.  They don’t fit into what Chris Rose calls the same values modes.  Thus our messages don’t have the same effect on them as they do on us.  In fact they often have the exact opposite effect.  So our values are a sure fire way of getting most people running into the arms of our opponents.

If we are going to make a sustainable, post consumerist world from the ashes of the current crisis riddled one then, almost counter intuitively, we need to base our messages in the values that built that consumerist world that we are all so dead against.  So in 2012 let’s build sustainability messaging around creating a new form of aspiration, a new me as well as us.  We need to paint pictures and tell stories that are positive and up lifting, that engender a “I must have that!” response.  And then we must meet these aspiration, these expectations, these desires with ready-made solutions that are have sustainability at their heart.  That are rich and offer a quality of experience (both personal and collective) that makes people want it.

So in the words of the English folk singer, Chris Wood, “let the grand correction commence.”