What is Sustainability?
A Basic Understanding
What we normally call sustainability, environmental sustainability, is not all there is to sustainability.
Sustainability is a term everyone knows, but fewer know that it is shortened from ‘Sustainable Development’. Fewer know that sustainability is not exclusive to the environment. In fact, the most widely accepted definition of is: “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” This was developed by the Brundtland Commission in 1987 for the release of their report entitled Our Common Future, a founding work on the study of Sustainability and Sustainable Development.
The Brundtland Commission reports on three different types of sustainability; Environmental Sustainability, Economic Sustainability, and Social Sustainability.
What they mean:
Environmental Sustainability
Saving the World
Environmental Sustainability is the process of ensuring that we, humans, interact with the environment in such a way that the generations which will follow still have a similar environment to live in. There are many different reasons to pursue Environmental Sustainability, they can be as simple as wishing for the sustained existence of animal habitats or ecosystems or as selfish as wanting the environment to be maintained to a point where we can continue taking advantage of it in perpetuum. Either way, or anyway in between they all have the same result; an environment in which the existence of animal, plant, and even general organic matter continues to thrive.
Economic Sustainability
Working for The World
Economic Sustainability can seem a little counter-intuitive at first glance. We should mainly give thanks to our media companies for that inaccuracy. Economic Sustainability is any economic practice with continuous operationality which does not negatively impact the environment, or society as a whole.
What this means is that economic sustainability is any way to make money that does not take advantage of the people with which it is involved or the environment in which it operates.
Social Sustainability
Living in The World
Social Sustainability might be the most difficult type of sustainability to accurately define, as it refers to a sustained society. So, instead of trying to limit Social sustainability to a definition it is adequate to consider what social sustainability encompasses. That is any relationship in society, whether it is a relationship between households or a relationship between employee and employer, both effect social sustainability. Social sustainability considers the general quality of life of those living in a society, it considers poverty, and the wage gap, and it considers any other balance or imbalance in society. As a rule of thumb it might be possible to consider social sustainability as the measure of imbalances in a society, where the more balanced the many aspects of society are, the better that society functions, and so the more sustainable that society is.
In Summary
To sum up this brief introduction to sustainability, the three parts; environmental, economic and social sustainability can be considered the pillars of sustainable development. All an integral part of how we as a global community should consider our actions, and how they may or may not be sustainable.