AYLİN ÖNEY TAN
Buzzword: Sustainability
The concept of sustainability appears everywhere. Sustainability seems to be the buzzword that solves every problem in every single field. But what exactly is sustainability? How can it be achieved? My discovery of the buzzword dates back to exactly 22 years ago. When I became the director of the Turkey Cultural Heritage Project run by the World Bank, the first concept I met, the first magic word I discovered was “sustainability,” a term that seemed to open every door. So much so that, when I sprinkled a few handfuls of “sustainability” and similar words such as “diversity,” into project reports, everything seemed to work out. But when it came to how sustainability could be achieved in real life, the challenge began. Endless pages and pages of economic and social assessment reports were prepared, environmental and cultural issues scrutinized, days and weeks of fieldwork were conducted, and of course last but not least innumerable stakeholder meetings were held, again with pages and pages of minutes of meetings written. Soon I started to feel that all those procedures were like the act of being sustainable in their own right, and among our colleagues in PMU, Project Management Unit, the buzzword became like a joke-word, we often repeated: “Sustainability is all about never-ending World Bank meetings, they are truly sustainable, they seem to go on and on!”
May 15 2022
