What is existential sustainability in professional life?
Lund University works with Existential Sustainability on the basis that it could be a complementary objective to the seventeen already existing through Agenda 2030. When the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, through Johanna Gustafsson Lundberg, associate professor and senior lecturer in ethics, Lovisa Nyman, researcher in systematic theology, and Erik Sidenvall, professor of practical theologian, arranged a conference on the subject, existential perspectives in working life were at the centre. In many professions there are principles of professional ethics, a value base or a basic framework to be based on. This could apply, for example, to teachers, police officers and health workers, but also to engineers, economists and journalists. Sometimes ethical stress can arise for the employee when the pressure from the external systems is too great to meet people satisfactorily.
The day began with Johanna and Lovisa giving a proposal from a humanistic perspective on how to understand existential sustainability. Crucial to them is the human need to tell stories and listen to stories in order to understand both himself and his world around him. This theme was also prominent in many of the other presentations. The audience listened to a number of stories about the experiences and reflections of people with different professional roles.
Magnus Fredricson is an engineer and sustainability strategist but has also taken a course in existential sustainability in Lund as a doctoral student. Now he works with regional development in Skaraborg, where conversion and electrification are high on the agenda. He spoke of a balancing act between the need to achieve a rapid transition and everyday municipal life, where many other issues also had to be addressed.
- Complexity increases and the large transformative projects create stress, says Magnus Fredricson. While making important decisions, you are also stuck in a system. One way to deal with it can be not to work with whole solutions, but to choose to take a step forward and then a new step.
Andreas Eggertsen, architect and climate strategist, spoke about existential sustainability from a different perspective, namely how a practicing architect can work to support the existential well-being of others. This can be done by working with the physical environment and an architecture that takes both people and the climate issue into account. It could be by exploiting the existing and transforming it, creating something new in line with the EU taxonomy, to speed up egalitarian climate transition in the built environment.
Listening to people's stories is an important part of many people's professional lives, and several of the speakers stressed the importance of letting a story be heard. Johan Assarsson is the social secretary and works with young people in the social services, where children's needs are at the centre. The work includes, as a public authority, conducting investigations aimed at assessing risk, but we must not forget that young people also have their own stories that need to be listened to and that the importance of being a fellow human being is more central. Hospital chaplain Ingemar Moritz, spoke about the theme of “Being an Existential Interpreter”, and how as a priest in the borderland between life and death he has a kind of interpretive function and often meets people face to face with their life story in focus.
- As an existential interpreter in a hospital church, we as priests have unique competences that complement the mission of health professionals, he says. We get to be fellow walkers along the way by sharing life story and the existential and spiritual issues. Being able to tell your life story can be very important for people in the final stages of life.
The story is also important for Jonatan Wistrand, who is a general specialist at Braheälsan in Löberöd. There it is the patient encounter with stories of joy, hope and sadness but also an interpretation of the stories of illness that is at the center. Having the time and aiming to be the doctor you want to be are important components.
Karin Wisti is a special education teacher at Polhemsskolan and works there with the enhanced four-year program. There is often a need to adapt the school environment in order for the students to reach their full potential and some of the students may have failed in the traditional school.
- We want to create a place for these students but also an identity and that students get a positive story about themselves. We do a school trip, and it gives them pride to be able to think “I am also a person who can go on a trip” and “I am also a person who has belonging”, says Karin Wisti.
Finally, Birgitta Persson from Future by Lund said that the idea of existential sustainability is also important when working with innovations.
- Many people think mainly of technological solutions when they mention innovation, says Birgitta Persson. But innovation can also be about, for example, innovative methods, business models, services, processes or ways of organizing. Innovation is often born in the borderlands where transversal fields meet and where new thoughts and ideas arise.
The EU is investing heavily in research and innovation to solve the green transition.
- We know that the root of the climate crisis goes deeper, continues Birgitta Persson. The climate crisis is a symptom of the relationship crisis we are in, where we have lost touch with ourselves, with each other and with nature. What if we put resources into dealing with the relationship crisis? In it, inner development and existential sustainability can be a crucial piece of the puzzle. Our capacity for empathy, creativity and holistic thinking is a crucial part of our green transition.
Birgitta Persson explains how Future by Lund works to integrate perspectives on internal development into the innovation process. IN project IPA examines and tests how the perspective can be integrated into the innovation process based on innovation in culture and creative industries.
Conference on “Existential Sustainability - at Work” was organized by the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies and Future by Lund.