Understanding Secrets of Sustainability Through TRIZ Philosophy

After creating the weapons that can destroy the world, the next challenge of man is not to win an enemy but to survive the disasters. The modern man realizes that the worst challenges to face are the manmade disasters. It is therefore important to control our own behavior to minimize its negative effects on other systems and environment. Any system or process or practice can become unsustainable because of internal conflicts or contradictions. Gain of one group of people causes trouble to another group of people (say, by unfair trading). Improvement in transportation (say, running of vehicles) pollutes air and environment. Growth of urbanization causes deforestation and global warming. It is necessary to overcome these contradictions to achieve sustainability. The concept of sustainability is very similar to TRIZ concept of Ideality. An ideal or sustainable system should have all desired (positive) features and no harmful (negative) features. A sustainable system is ideal and an ideal system is sustainable. Both the concepts can be applied to anything, such as, a product, a process, a practice, a structure, a system or an organization.