What is sustainability?
--source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability#Definitions
Sustainability
Though relatively new, the term "sustainability" has already proved useful. Sustainability discourse is discussion of how to make human economic systems last longer and have less impact on ecological systems, and particularly relates to concern over major global problems relating to climate change and oil depletion. More useful than discussion, however, is to find ways to make some unit of economic production — a business firm, a family household, a farm — more sustainable. To assist in this, it is meaningful, and pragmatic, to speak of some practices being "more sustainable" or "less sustainable." Thus energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs might be considered more sustainable than incandescent ones, and so on.
Sustainable Development
One of the first and most oft-cited definitions of sustainability, and almost certainly the one that will survive for posterity, is the one created by the Brundtland Commission, led by the former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. The Commission defined sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."[1] The Brundtland definition thus implicitly argues for the rights of future generations to raw materials and vital ecosystem services to be taken into account in decision making.
Commonly Adopted Principles of Sustainability
Despite differences, a number of common principles are embedded in most charters or action programmes to achieve sustainable development, sustainability or sustainable prosperity. These include (Hargroves & Smith 2005, see bibliography):
- Dealing transparently and systemically with risk, uncertainty and irreversibility.
- Ensuring appropriate valuation, appreciation and restoration of nature.
- Integration of environmental, social, human and economic goals in policies and activities.
- Equal opportunity and community participation/Sustainable community.
- Conservation of biodiversity and ecological integrity.
- Ensuring inter-generational equity.
- Recognizing the global integration of localities.
- A commitment to best practice.
- No net loss of human capital or natural capital.
- The principle of continuous improvement.
- The need for good governance.
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