Abstract

To break past the limitations of sustainability as conceived by human adults, a colorful cast of animals and creatures probes the essential nature of the issues at hand (and hoof, wing, fin, and paw … ) from all their varied points of view — for the sake of the children of the future.

All the calls to promote the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have yet to produce material results, and the state of the global environment, meanwhile, grows increasingly dire by the day. The way these SDGs have been defined as sustainable in the first place belies the intention of people to persist with — to sustain — the activities of their society into the future in manners convenient for themselves.
For, incapable of taking any point of view but its own, humankind always and forever regards the world from a self-centered perspective. Considered from the other animals’ standpoints, this has got to seem a self-righteous bearing rife with contradiction and deceit.

Author’s Information

Fumikazu MASUDA :
He was born in Japan, 1949. While working as a designer, he researched eco-design to reduce the burden on the global environment. He advocates design for sustainability, which envisions a society in symbiosis with plants and animals. He watches over humans in his forest hut along with the grass and insects. He is a researcher of SDGs and a jury member of various design awards.

Ian TSUTSUI :
He was born in Japan, 1965. Original author & General producer of the “World ! Animal Conference on the Environment” project, that began with the COP3 Kyoto Conference in 1997. Hopes to nurture the development of people capable of stepping outside the framework of preconceived notions to pursue free and creative avenues of thought based on an approach of considering issues from animals’ points of view.