Kalle reflects on Social Sustainability – from Boundary Conditions to Systemic, Systematic, and Strategic progress

Takeaway for leaders at all levels, everywhere

A sustainable society requires that both the ecological and the social systems are maintained. Researchers from many fields—such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, and political science—agree that Trust is the central concept for all social species. Social sustainability is about creating conditions for trust among people in diversity, so that they can thrive together and collaborate effectively across all important boundaries—gender, age, professional skills, cultures, and geography. Which, naturally, increases the social capacity to solve common problems. In short: communities with low trust and diversity fail to utilize the potential to act powerfully together. But how can we plan complex goals in complex organizations in complex systems to be successful without boundary conditions ? It is not difficult, it is impossible.

In the socially sustainable society, there are no structure obstacles in the way of

• Health

• Influence

• Competence

• Impartiality

• Meaning-making

This means, that together with the three ecological boundary conditions, social sustainability calls for five more, eight boundary conditions all together. Within which all scalable attractive goals must be modeled.

The five social boundary conditions are as essential as the ecological ones for obvious reasons:

1. It is Social Systems (Organizations, Regions, Value chains and other Communities) that create un-sustainability in the first place, violating also the ecological boundary conditions.

2. It is only competent, trustful, diverse Social Systems that can mend the unsustainable destruction of Ecosystems as well as Social Systems that is now going on at global Scales.

3. If the Five Social Boundary Conditions are lacking from the modelling of goals (‘A’, of ABCD planning), it is not only difficult, but impossible, to ask all the right questions to cover systemic, systematic, and strategic progress towards attractive scalable goals of any kind. [1].

In other words, power structures should support systematic collaboration in organizations to achieve such visions—or at least not stand in the way. Many years after this breakthrough in research, it is now clear that also the social boundary conditions, n:o 4-8, are easy to understand, and inspirational to share, in group collaboration to model and cooperate towards organizational goals. It has also been shown how strategic guidelines for support of ABCD processes, such as the Golden Rule, Transparency, Integrity, Accountability can be summarized into a structured methodology to operationalize, measure, and create economic value from these boundary conditions.

In More Detail
One of my doctoral students, Merlina Missimer, after her graduation from the International Masters in Leadership towards Sustainability (MSLS) at the Blekinge Institute of Technology , asked to stay with us to write her doctoral thesis on how social sustainability could be developed using the same methodology we applied for ecological sustainability. In 2015 she defended her PhD thesis [1] and is know a senior lecturer at our faculty for Strategic Sustainable development. This reflection builds on a summary of that thesis, plus experiences of applying it for concrete planning and follow-up in organizations from the public as well as private sectors.

Why Social Sustainability is Crucial
Social sustainability is not a “soft” issue alongside ecological sustainability—it is a precondition for success with all sustainability goals. It is people who create our ecological problems, and it is people who must solve them. If the social system collapses—with broken trust leading to social “diseases” such as corruption, segregation, lack of diplomacy, violence, and eroded democracies—then effective cooperation on sustainability and avoiding wars over resources becomes difficult or impossible.

Economy and Sustainability
The economic system is a means within the social system, not an end. This is often misunderstood, as in the term “Triple Bottom Line” which misleadingly elevates the economy to be comparable with the goals social and ecological sustainability—see, for example, my reflection on “The Elephants in the Economic Room.” Economic development is one of many means to support transitions to ecological and social sustainability. The same applies to many other means that are at least as important, such as education, laws, and measurement of important factors outside the economic system. Therefore, we must understand how social systems work, what mechanisms make them robust, and then assess how different means can be aligned to reach that state.

The Foundation of Social Sustainability
Humans are a social species. We build our quality of life through relationships and interaction. A strong social system is characterized primarily by:
– Trust – between people and between people and institutions.
– Diversity – functional variation that makes the system resilient.
When those two are in place, humans are generally clever to autonomously self-organize into social sustainability. And vice versa, when power structures are in the way of the two cornerstones, eroding trust empowers various vicious cycles as an inevitable consequence.

When trust breaks down, social “diseases” arise; corruption, segregation, violence, crime, reduced social mobility, eroded democracy, weakened trade, diminished diplomacy, and increased risk of wars over resources. Research shows that (i) if trust erodes under a certain level, it is extremely expensive and resource demanding to get trust back again, so this is called “Social Entrapment” [2]. The same reference makes it clear that people do not thrive in such systems and know that it is wrong — which gives hope for change. The problem is to restore trust to get out of the social trap. Which, in turn, calls for the Stepwise method to be applied as a shared mental model at all levels of leadership and cooperation.

Social Sustainability Principles
In a socially sustainable society, there are no structural obstacles to:
1. Health – e.g., safe working conditions and rest.
2. Influence – e.g., freedom of speech and the ability to participate in decision-making.
3. Competence – e.g., opportunities for education and personal development.
4. Impartiality – e.g., absence of discrimination across social boundaries and generations.
5. Meaning-making – e.g., culture and co-creation of meaningful conditions.

These principles are boundary conditions for the modelling of any socially sustainable future. All combinations within the boundary conditions are socially sustainable, all outside them are not. They meet the same five criteria we used to develop ecological sustainability principles; they are:
– Necessary (to avoid confusion with debatable topics such as values)
– Sufficient (cover everything to reduce the risk of overlooking key aspects)
– Concrete (so they guide action)
– General (usable across societal boundaries for shared success)
– Non-overlapping (to create distinct clarity and enable measurement of progress)

… and thus work for strategic modeling of scalable futures, along the boundary conditions for ecological sustainability (the “A” in the ABCD methodology).

The Five-Level Model – A Logical Structure to understand the essential terminology for social development
To operationalize ecological sustainability into an Operative System, we also used the Five-Level Model:
1. System Level – overview of the whole (all of civilization as well as organizational dependencies), and from there…
2. Success Level – define sustainability (the boundary conditions), and from there…
3. Strategic Level – guidelines such as the Golden Rule and Transparency for stepwise processes.
4. Action Level – concrete measures into stepwise planning programs and implementation, naturally following the previous three levels.
5. Tools Level – indicators, education, policies, and other means to support, measure, and communicate.

So, where do essential terms sit in this structure?

In the literature on social sustainability, one often encounters many central concepts . Where do they belong? Here we need the Five-Level Model (see above) to place them where they fit and thereby make them dynamically part of creation. Examples, important ones, but also good for training the logics as such:
– Empathy – Where does it sit? It belongs to the First, System Level, as a constitutional human trait enabling the power of our social species to put ourselves into the clothes of others.

-Golden Rule – Where does it sit? It belongs to the Third, Strategic Level. We make use of our constitutional empathy when we follow the the Golden Rule, so called from its superposition in all religious and philosophical systems for human interactions:“Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself.” Imagining roles as reversed works as a simple “acid-test” of proposed actions.

– Independent Control – where does it sit? It belongs to the First, Systems Level. All successes achieved through the ABCD methodology should be Institutionalized as laws controlling parliaments, parliaments controlling governments, boards controlling top executives, auditors controlling boards.

– Transparency, Integrity, and Accountability – Where do they sit? They all belong to the Third, Strategic Level, for creating openness, moral principles and steadfastness against temptation, and clear distribution of responsibility. (They are then institutionalized into adopted policies and governance systems at, the first, Systemic Level).

– Concrete Actions, Where do they sit? They belong to the Fourth, Action Level. It can be as simple as a leader sending a “cc” on an email to follow the strategic guideline of transparency (at level 3), thereby fulfilling the boundary condition of Influence (at level 2). Or, how could we influence social systems we are dependent on if secrecy and cheating prevail? It can also involve stories and narratives, for instance about historic founders of organizations and their compassionate drivers, that circulate in the organization.

– Measurement and Reporting, where do they it sit? They belong to the Fifth, Tool level. We measure through indicators and tools such as whether certain elements exist or not at the First, Systems level, for instance policies for transparency, or if there are opportunities or not to submit proposals that are listened to, if there are training programs, polls, management systems, and numerical progress metrics (e.g., key figures for reduced sick leave, increased social mobility, lowered staff turnover).

Only then does it become relevant to present annual reports and similar documents, where development of both ecological and social sustainability is integrated into smart strategic business and the reporting thereof.

Organizations can start with an ABCD analysis:
– A: Cooperate to model your vision including asking the right questions under each of the social sustainability principles.
– B: Map the current state – where are our assets as well as structural obstacles today?
– C: Generate ideas – what actions can be designed to remove the obstacles?
– D: Prioritize – which actions should be prioritized into a stepwise progress good for ROI from the beginning?

Conclusion
Social sustainability does not arise by itself. We need the operative system with its:
– (A) Boundary conditions that are robust also for social re-design of goals, implying that they are necessary, sufficient, concrete, general, and non-overlapping. Which is a prerequisite for the next step:
– (ABCD processes) Systemic, systematic and strategic planning towards such goals. And the next:
– Choosing amongst support tools as ‘Apps’, when needed, to support ABCD processes for instance more detailed tools for decision support, dialogue, monitoring, communication, and follow up.

[1] Social sustainability within the framework for strategic sustainable development (2015 Merlina Missimer, ISBN/URN: ISBN 978-91-7295-307-9; LIBRIS-ID 18418821)

[2] Rothstein, B. (2005). Social Traps and the Problem of Trust. Cambridge University Press.

All hot topic Reflections are direct consequences of our Operative System.

For a deeper dive into the science behind the Operative System that informs all Reflections, see the peer-reviewed Open-Source paper with all its references: doi.org/10.1002/sd.3357. For the full title, see footnote below.

Or, for concluding reflections, practical insights and training, click on “Kalle Reflects” to see all reflections.

If you need any further advice, perhaps getting some further references, please send a question to us from the homepage.

Footnote: Broman, G. I., & Robèrt, K.-H. (2025). Operative System for Strategic Sustainable Development―Coordinating Analysis, Planning, Action, and Use of Supports Such as the Sustainable Development Goals, Planetary Boundaries, Circular Economy, and Science Based Targets. Sustainable Development, 1C16.