2022: Creating a Lexicon of Future
Field Guide to Flourishing: S is for Sustainability
Sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In addition to natural resources, we also need social and economic resources. Sustainability is not just environmentalism. Embedded in most definitions of sustainability we also find concerns for social equity and economic development.
Where does the term come from? While the concept of sustainability is a relatively new idea, the movement as a whole has roots in social justice, conservationism, internationalism and other past movements with rich histories. By the end of the twentieth centuries, many of these ideas had come together in the call for ‘sustainable development. ~ What is Sustainability?
Three Core Pillars of Sustainability
Environmental Sustainability: Simply the frugal yet efficient use of natural resources. Allowing natural resources to replenish themselves for future use naturally, and without overexploitation leading to severe ecological damage to the Earth.
Economic Sustainability: Economic Sustainability has had its critics and has been open to misinterpretation in the past. However, at its very core, as described by Dunphy et al. (2007), it is the process of how business can achieve profit without doing any short- or long-term harm to the environment. Economic Sustainability is about accepting and…
