The Convergence and Divergence of Resilience and Sustainability

Are resilience and sustainability synonyms, or do they describe different states and processes? I get this question a lot.

Both words are evolving rapidly, and there probably isn’t a correct answer. I very rarely heard the word resilience in climate change circles before about four years ago, when it began to surpass adaptation. And the Covid-19 pandemic has expanded the definition of resilience well beyond a narrow focus of climate risk.

In my own work, I rarely talk about sustainability. For me, sustainability refers to fixed targets, and for the most part people don’t need help with fixed targets: meeting water delivery goals, numbers of people for safe sanitation, hectares irrigated, water stored.

Resilience is much more about process—where are we headed, what happens when conditions (or assumptions) change, how do we keep functioning when unexpected things happen. That definition seems to encompass how we’ve used resilience historically in English (“getting back to normal conditions quickly”) as well as the situation where we are now, when we sometimes need to adjust to quite new conditions.

What’s also interesting is when sustainability may get in the way of resilience. What happens when those fixed targets need to be adjusted? I’ve come to believe that resilience is the larger, more encompassing concept. And the one where we need the most help.

John Matthews

Corvallis, Oregon, USA