Ethics and sustainability: ethics from the Greek “ethos” means the way of behaving in a society; for the Greeks, however, it is an orderly and good society, whose citizens are precisely ethical, ethically honest. An ethical society takes care of social order, peace, progress and sustainable well-being, indicates actions that are absolutely worthy or unworthy for man. Characteristics of ethics are respect for the law, morality, honesty, transparency, sincerity and loyalty. The principle of responsibility, conscience and justice are the foundation of ethics.
Sustainability has a primary ethical value and is linked to the principle of responsibility. From an environmental perspective, human activities are unsustainable if they irreversibly degrade the natural ecosystems which are the basis of life. Around the 1980s, “sustainable development” was defined as that which satisfies the needs of the present without compromising the possibility of satisfying the needs of future generations. This definition is insufficient and considers the absolute centrality of our species obvious. In reality, only a non-material form of development that allows and perpetuates the life of the biosphere can be defined as sustainable. This is a definition that recalls an ethics that does not only include humanity.
The maintenance in vital conditions of the terrestrial biosphere and even of individual ecosystems has never been held as an ethical value. There was no perception of the non-separability of every human work process of the global ecosystem. This perception is essential, the ethics of the Earth must be kept as the first value. This therefore implies the respect and enhancement of traditional knowledge, together with continuous scientific research. Sustainability in a closed system in which resources are limited implies that what is taken from the environment is subsequently returned. Hence the need to create a circular economy based on the principle of giving back.
Precisely for this reason, we decided to formalize a choice made from the beginning, from the inception of Tenuta delle Terre Nere: the choice of sustainability, of organic, of the ethics of the Earth, of respect for ancient and modern knowledge, involving all our contributors. A choice that is also the mission of every true vigneron: to take care of what has laboriously come down to us and pass it on to posterity in a possibly better and more beautiful condition.