My journey to human sustainability (HS) research, as well as the creation of this website is briefly summarised in order to give you an idea of how it all started. Please join in me on this fascinating journey.
My journey to human sustainability...
My passion for understanding people as individuals and in groups began in childhood and led me to study Sociology and later pursue a Master’s in Public Relations which was basically the communication between an organisation and its various publics/stakeholders. Over fifteen years in sales management and another twelve as a business owner gave me deep experience working with diverse professionals across industries.Throughout my career, I noticed how many people feel unfulfilled at work. This observation drove me to ask: Is this way of living and working sustainable for people? That question led to a PhD in Human Sustainability, which I pursued with a full scholarship at the University of Glasgow (Scotland, UK). Today, I collaborate with the Adam Smith Business School (University of Glasgow) as an Adjunct in Management, elaborate my PhD research with publications, and consult organizations, as well as participate even at the board level. Read more about my journey in this blog post.
Understanding
"The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding"
Leornado Da Vinci.
Respect
"Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only" (Kant, 1990, p. 45-46).
Definition and main principles of Human Sustainability (HS)
I argue that human sustainability (HS) needs to take a more central place in education, research, business and public policy. I define human sustainability (HS) and its main principles as follows, based on my PhD research which focuses on HS.
“Human sustainability is when organisations respect human beings as free, rational and responsible, include them in policy formulation and decision-making and encourage them to build mutual respect with all persons within and beyond their organisations” (Meleti, 2020, PhD Doctoral Thesis, p. 36).
The main principles of human sustainability (HS) are information sharing, participation in decision-making, meaningful work, fair promotion, selection and evaluation, and respect. Although "respect" is one of the findings and as such main principles of human sustainability, I believe that it is the most important one because if argues that we should " never treat people as means only but always as ends in themselves". Respect could influence the other principles such as information sharing, participation in decision-making and so on (Meleti, 2020, PhD Doctoral Thesis). For example if there is that type of respect for employees then it is more likely to encounter good information sharing and participation in decision-making.
Read more about the principles of sustainability in this blog post.
What is my goal with
human-sustainability.org
My goal with human-sustainability.org is to do the following (this list is not exhaustive): to promote human sustainability (HS) and increase awareness of its significance and the necessity to take a more central place in education, business, research and public policy; to focus on people in organizations and to realise that organizations cannot exist without people and cannot thrive without respected people who are healthy, satisfied and productive; to encourage managers in organizations to ask advice and consultancy in order to make tailor-made HS plans that will help them become more sustainable and viable; to enhance the other sectors of sustainability because I believe that human sustainability can assist the flourishing of social sustainability, ecological sustainability and environmental sustainability. Further research is needed regarding these elements of my goal because research is limited in human sustainability.
Therefore, I hope this site can become a key resource for managers in organizations of all sectors to get information as well as inspiration for improvement of their workplace so they can "re-humanise" their workplace, their organizations and make them more sustainable in the short and long run.
The Goal
To rehumanise the workplace and sustain people and organizations; to use my theory and practice of human sustainability (HS) to make HS tailor made plans that will humanly transform the workplace and make organizations more sustainable that thrive in the present and future.
