Whenever presenting my ideas about sustainable development and the establishment of a common vision for all stakeholders involved, I am confronted with reactions in line with where mass media and mainstream communications have positioned the entire concept of Sustainability today. “So you are talking about going green!” is the main assumption I must try to wipe from the mind of my counterparts when presenting our initiative – to the point that I deliberately ensured our magazine and website would avoid using my favorite color in their look & feel.
Out of all my peers, it is certainly not me who first embraced the “environment-friendly” trend and fashion. As a matter of fact, my concept of Sustainability comes from a different starting point: that of a woman born and raised in a city (or better, in different cities, in different continents), who loves city-life and who sees the future of urban development as the result of today’s work most impacting her own future.
I see the issues surrounding city mobility and modernization of our public and private transportation systems as one of the key pillars in my concept of Sustainability. I see security policies, systems and infrastructures put in place to grant my own safety – a cornerstone element for the wellbeing of residents, visitors and travelers – as a necessary investment for the prosperity of economies and society in general. Of course I also look at resources, but not only from the “green perspective”. I look at human labor, intelligence and even data as resources to be managed and mined properly.
What I therefore consider the key axes of our investigation for Sustainable Development are:
- Security (National and Urban Security, in the era of Global Mobility and continued development and growth of our metropolises)
- Transportation (City Mobility: traffic congestion and public network efficiency as a key challenge to address in the context of modern urban aggregates; Global Mobility: managing migration flows / addressing the VISA divide in the context of international trade and travel; Transparent Supply Chains: certified delivery models for overall legitimate manufacturing and trade)
- Resources (management of Natural, Scientific & Technological, Human/Labor resources in our globalized economies and highly populated world)
I look forward to developing our vision together with all of you and to learn from those who show us how progress can be achieved alongside holistic thinking about our planet and society. I want to learn how to include also the most remote places and underprivileged members of humanity in this process. A grain of sand can become a pearl and the world is our oyster.
Sophie B. de la Giroday