What Is Sustainability?
Summary
TLDRSustainability is about preserving resources for future generations by balancing environmental preservation, social equity, and economic viability—known as the 'three pillars' of sustainability. The term refers to practices that allow natural and human systems to endure without exhausting resources. Historically rooted in forestry, sustainability now encompasses a broader spectrum, aiming to address the challenges of environmental degradation and resource depletion. As human demand grows and the planet's ecosystems decline, sustainability emphasizes innovation and cooperation to secure a balanced and sustainable future for both people and the planet.
Takeaways
- 🌿 Sustainability is about preserving or maintaining resources for the long term.
- 🔄 It involves practices like recycling and using renewable energy sources to reduce resource depletion.
- 🌱 The term originated in 1800s Germany, focusing on managing forest resources for continuous use.
- 📚 Georg Hartig's definition emphasized using forests for maximum benefit without compromising future generations' needs.
- 🌐 The Brundtland Commission's definition from 1987 is widely recognized, emphasizing meeting current needs without compromising future generations' abilities to do the same.
- 🔁 The example of aluminum soda cans illustrates a shift from linear consumption to a cyclical, more sustainable model.
- 💹 Sustainability encompasses economic benefits, such as job creation and profit from recycling industries.
- 🌎 The 'three pillars of sustainability' include environmental preservation, social equity, and economic viability.
- 👥 Social equity in sustainability means fair treatment, especially in addressing global poverty and environmental exploitation.
- 🌳 Environmental preservation is a key pillar, focusing on protecting the Earth's ecosystems.
- 💼 Economic viability ensures that sustainability is not just environmentally friendly but also financially feasible.
- 🌟 Sustainability is seen as a critical conversation for society, essential for the survival and nourishment of future generations.
Q & A
What is the basic definition of sustainability?
-Sustainability is the capacity to endure or continue, meaning a product or activity can be reused, recycled, or repeated without exhausting the resources or energy required to create it.
How is sustainability related to the environment?
-Sustainability is related to the environment through the preservation of natural spaces, the use of renewable energy sources, and the reduction of resource depletion to maintain ecological balance.
What does the term 'three pillars of sustainability' refer to?
-The 'three pillars of sustainability' refers to the interlocking factors of environmental preservation, social equity, and economic viability, which are all necessary for true sustainability.
What is the historical origin of the term 'sustainability'?
-The term 'sustainability' first appeared in forestry studies in Germany in the 1800s, when forest overseers began managing timber harvesting for continued use.
How did Georg Hartig define sustainability in 1804?
-Georg Hartig defined sustainability as utilizing forests to the greatest possible extent but in a way that future generations will have as much benefit as the living generation.
What is the widely quoted definition of sustainability from the Brundtland Commission?
-The Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as meeting 'the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'
Can you provide an example of sustainability from the script?
-An example of sustainability is the recycling of aluminum soda cans, which has led to a billion-dollar recycling industry, created jobs, and reduced environmental impact.
How does sustainability address social equity?
-Sustainability addresses social equity by ensuring fair and equal treatment of people and communities, particularly in eradicating global poverty and preventing environmental exploitation of poorer regions.
What is the economic aspect of sustainability?
-The economic aspect of sustainability requires that human development depends on the long-term production, use, and management of resources as part of a global economy.
How does sustainability differ from environmentalism?
-While environmentalism often focuses on the protection of nature, sustainability seeks to balance environmental, economic, and social interests, encouraging innovation that merges these interests rather than setting them in opposition.
Why is sustainability considered important in today's society?
-Sustainability is important because it addresses the critical issue of managing limited resources and ecosystems to ensure the survival and nourishment of future generations amidst escalating global demands and environmental degradation.
Outlines
🌿 Understanding Sustainability
The first paragraph introduces the concept of sustainability, explaining its association with resource preservation and activities like recycling and renewable energy use. It provides a historical context, tracing the term back to 19th-century Germany and its evolution to the modern definition. Sustainability is defined as the capacity to endure, emphasizing the reuse and conservation of resources. The paragraph also discusses the three pillars of sustainability: environmental preservation, social equity, and economic viability, which are essential for an activity to be considered sustainable. An example of aluminum can recycling is given to illustrate the economic and environmental benefits of sustainability.
🌎 The Three Pillars of Sustainability
The second paragraph delves deeper into the three pillars of sustainability: Planet, People, and Profit. It discusses the importance of integrating environmental, social, and economic considerations for an activity to be sustainable. The paragraph highlights the influence of American environmentalism on the concept of sustainability and contrasts it with earlier debates that often pitted the environment against the economy. It emphasizes the need for coordinated innovation to balance environmental, economic, and social interests. The paragraph concludes by stressing the critical importance of sustainability in the face of declining natural resources and escalating demand, urging action for the preservation of the Earth and the well-being of future generations.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Sustainability
💡Renewable Energy
💡Natural Spaces
💡Recycling
💡Three Pillars of Sustainability
💡Environmental Preservation
💡Social Equity
💡Economic Viability
💡Brundtland Commission
💡Environmentalism
💡Resource Depletion
Highlights
Sustainability is about preserving or maintaining resources.
Sustainability is associated with recycling, renewable energy, and preserving natural spaces.
Sustainability means a product or activity can endure or continue without exhausting resources.
Biological systems like wetlands and forests exemplify sustainability by remaining productive over time.
Sustainability is about long-term resource preservation rather than quick consumption.
The term sustainability originated in 19th-century Germany in relation to forestry management.
Georg Hartig's definition of sustainability emphasized future generations' benefits from forests.
Sustainability now includes preserving natural spaces, wise resource use, and equitable distribution.
Sustainability seeks to balance societal growth with environmental protection.
The Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as meeting current needs without compromising future generations.
Aluminum soda cans exemplify a shift from linear to cyclical use of materials through recycling.
Recycling creates economic benefits, jobs, and reduces environmental impact.
Sustainability encompasses environmental preservation, social equity, and economic viability.
Sustainable activities must protect the environment, ensure social equity, and be economically feasible.
The three pillars of sustainability are Planet, People, and Profit.
Sustainability is influenced by historical and cultural views on nature in the United States.
Environmentalism and sustainability share common goals but sustainability seeks a more balanced approach.
Sustainability encourages innovation to merge environmental, economic, and social interests.
The future of our planet and its inhabitants depends on sustainable management of resources.
Sustainability is crucial for the survival and nourishment of future generations.
Transcripts
So what is Sustainability?
You’ve probably heard the term sustainability in some context or another.
Maybe you’ve used some product or service that was labeled as sustainable, or maybe
you're aware of some campus or civic organization that focuses on sustainability.
You may recognize that sustainability has to do with preserving or maintaining resources.
We often associate sustainability with things like recycling, using renewable energy sources
like solar and wind power, and preserving natural spaces like rainforests and coral
reefs.
However, unless you have an inherent interest in sustainability, you probably haven’t
thought much about what the term actually means.
This video provides a basic definition of sustainability.
Simply put, sustainability is the capacity to endure or continue.
If a product or activity is sustainable, it can be reused, recycled, or repeated in some
way because it has not exhausted all of the resources or energy required to create it.
Sustainability can be broadly defined as the ability of something to maintain itself.
Biological systems such as wetlands or forests are good examples of sustainability, since
they remain diverse and productive over long periods of time.
Seen in this way, sustainability has to do with preserving resources and energy over
the long term rather than exhausting them quickly to meet short-term needs or goals.
The term sustainability first appeared in forestry studies in Germany in the 1800s,
when forest overseers began to manage timber harvesting for continued use as a resource.
In 1804, German forestry researcher Georg Hartig described sustainability as “utilizing
forests to the greatest possible extent, but still in a way that future generations will
have as much benefit as the living generation."
So while our current definitions are quite different and much expanded from Hartig’s,
sustainability still accounts for the need to preserve natural spaces, to use resources
wisely, and to maintain them in an equitable manner for all human beings, both now and
in the future.
Sustainability seeks new ways of addressing the relationship between societal growth and
environmental degradation, which would allow human societies and economies to grow without
destroying or over-exploiting the environment or the ecosystems in which those societies
exist.
The most widely quoted definition of sustainability comes from the Brundtland Commission of the
United Nations in 1987, which defined sustainability as meeting “the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
As a quick example of sustainability, think about aluminum soda cans.
In the past, many soda cans were used and thrown away without a whole lot of thought.The
practice of throwing them away was unsustainable, since ready sources of aluminum are limited
and landfills and trash dumps were filling quickly with wasted cans.
Consequently, governments and private corporations began to recycle aluminum soda cans, and today
more than 100,000 soda cans are recycled each minute in the United States.
A billion dollar recycling industry has emerged, creating jobs and profits for the workers
and businesses employed in that enterprise, while at the same time using limited resources
more thoughtfully and reducing the impact on the environment.
The process has become cyclical rather than linear, resulting in the continued use of
materials.
But sustainability is about more than just the economic benefits of recycling materials
and resources.
While the economic factors are important, sustainability also accounts for the social
and environmental consequences of human activity.
This concept is referred to as the “three pillars of sustainability,” which asserts
that true sustainability depends upon three interlocking factors: environmental preservation,
social equity, and economic viability.
First, sustainable human activities must protect the earth’s environment.
Second, people and communities must be treated fairly and equally—particularly in regard
to eradicating global poverty and the environmental exploitation of poor countries and communities.
And third, sustainability must be economically feasible—human development depends upon
the long-term production, use, and management of resources as part of a global economy.
Only when all three of these pillars are incorporated can an activity or enterprise be described
as sustainable.
Some describe this three-part model as: Planet, People and Profit.
Our current definitions of sustainability—particularly in the United States—are deeply influenced
by our historical and cultural relationship with nature.
Many American thinkers, writers, and philosophers have focused on the value of natural spaces,
and those ideas contributed to the environmentalist movement that emerged in the second half of
the 20th century.
Grassroots environmental organizations like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club advocate for
the protection and restoration of nature, and they lobby for changes in public policy
and individual behavior to preserve the natural world.
Seen in this way, Environmentalism and sustainability have a lot in common.
In fact, some people think that our current conversations about sustainability are the
next development or evolution of environmentalism.
However, earlier environmental debates often pitted the environment against the economy—nature
vs. jobs—and this dichotomy created a rift between those supporting one side of the debate
against the other.
Many of the current discussions involving sustainability hope to bridge the gap by looking
for possibilities that balance a full range of perspectives and interests.
Sustainability encourages and provides incentives for change rather than mandating change, and
the three pillars of sustainability emphasize this incorporation.
Essentially though, sustainability looks for coordinated innovation to create a future
that merges environmental, economic, and social interests rather than setting them in opposition.
In some ways, sustainability is the most important conversation taking place in our society today.
The earth is our home, and it provides all of the things we need for our survival and
nourishment.
However, that home has limited resources, and our collective future will depend upon
the successful management and use of those resources.
We are living in a critical time, where global supply of natural resources and ecosystem
services is declining dramatically, while demand for these resources is escalating.
From pollution, to resource depletion, to loss of biodiversity, to climate change, a
growing human footprint is evident.
This is not sustainable.
We need to act differently if the world and its human and non-human inhabitants are to
thrive in the future.
Sustainability is about how we can preserve the earth and ensure the continued survival
and nourishment of future generations.
You and everyone you know will be affected in some way by the choices our society makes
in the future regarding the earth and its resources.
In fact, your very life may well depend upon those choices.
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