Unsustainability is not simply about rising costs, environmental strain, or political unrest. It is also not just about box-checking exercises, prescriptive solutions, or performative measures.
It is a deeper structural condition that leaves individuals exhausted, organisations weakened, societies fragmented, and ecosystems degraded. Conventional approaches try to treat these issues in isolation – economics, medicine, politics, psychology – but they only scratch the surface.
In my new book, Sustainabilism, I explore these crises as interconnected symptoms of a profound absence: systemic integrity. By focusing on systemic integrity, we can build authentically sustainable systems.
When you typically hear about sustainability, you may think purely about the environment. However, we are all surrounded by systems that require enduring sustainability. From your team or organisation, to your family or society, the ability for the systems around us to sustain and thrive are critical. Even your human body, and how you are Being is a system.
Authentic sustainability does not emerge from harder work, patchwork reforms, or simplistic conservation measures. It arises when authenticity, integrity of Being, and systemic coherence are aligned.
At the heart of the book lies the Unified Ontology of Systemic Integrity (UOSI) – a rigorous framework of four interwoven spheres:
Architectonic Sphere: Meta-awareness, Systemic Integrity, Sustained Effectiveness, Normativity
Integrity Sphere: Intention, Trust, Sovereignty, Being
Disintegration Sphere: Shadows, Misery, Suffering, Entrenchment
Modulation Sphere: Patience, Tolerance, Adaptability, Surrender
Together, these spheres reveal why systems falter, drift, or collapse – and how they may regenerate, stabilise, and endure.
Through this lens, instability and collapse are no longer seen as random misfortunes. They are patterned, predictable, and capable of being transformed into pathways of renewal. I guide readers to recognise the hidden dynamics – fear, bias, rigidity, and bad faith – that quietly corrode progress and undermine well-intentioned efforts. By exposing these subterranean forces, the book equips leaders, organisations, and societies with a practical map to move beyond surface-level solutions and into the design of enduring, regenerative systems.
Yet the book is not simply a critique. It is a vision.
It is an invitation to look beneath the noise of crisis and urgency, to discover the underlying architecture of sustainability, and to participate in building systems that last. From the inner life of individuals to the structures of global civilisation, it calls for a profound shift: from fragmentation to coherence, from short-term fixes to long-term integrity, and from unsustainable illusions to authentic renewal.
Ultimately, this book is not just about solving problems. It is about reimagining the very conditions by which life thrives. It is a manifesto for those ready to move beyond rhetoric and into the work of designing human systems that can truly endure.
