The term ‘Promising-Future’ has become common, particularly when used by businesses in their strategic plan communications, governments in justifying their spending decisions, politicians in their election manifestoes, and many scientific communities advocating for specific actions to be taken to solve global issues.  All such uses of the term inherently portray prospects of anticipated successes and opportunities for their audiences.  Arguably, the language of such utterances provides a more attractive version of somewhat more pedestrian ‘mission, vision and value’ declarations.  This era of global ‘promising-future’ declarations is exemplified by the 2015 United Nations triumvirate of resolutions on climate, disaster reduction, and sustainable development.  ‘Resilience and Sustainability’ are dominant constructs within the strategies adopted to assure peace and prosperity for all, whilst protecting the planet.  However, the ‘practicability,’ i.e., the viability, feasibility, and efficacy of the articulated measures, appear to have been frequently overlooked.  This limitation, whether for geopolitical, socio-economic or technical reasons, can result in the unintended creation of unreachable outcomes.  From an engineering perspective it is important to balance the intrinsic societal, economic, environmental, and sustainability traits of a nation whenever proposing and developing their technical systems. Such a rounded approach, involving aspects of resilience, sustainability, and practicability, should enable the engineering communities of all countries to contribute to the health of the planet and the prosperity of its inhabitants well into the future. But how do we turn this rhetoric into action?