Product Code Database
Sustainability (from the latin sustinere - hold up, hold upright; furnish with means of support; bear, undergo, endure) is the ability to continue over a long period of time.Onions, Charles, T. (ed) (1964). The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 2095. In modern usage it generally refers to a state in which the environment, economy, and society will continue to exist over a long period of time. Many definitions emphasize the environmental dimension. (2025). 9781316514290, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781316514290 This can include addressing key environmental problems, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. The idea of sustainability can guide decisions at the global, national, organizational, and individual levels. A related concept is that of sustainable development, and the terms are often used to mean the same thing. UNESCO distinguishes the two like this: " Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal (i.e. a more sustainable world), while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it."
Details around the economic dimension of sustainability are controversial. Scholars have discussed this under the concept of weak and strong sustainability. For example, there will always be tension between the ideas of "welfare and prosperity for all" and environmental conservation, so are necessary. It would be desirable to find ways that separate economic growth from harming the environment. This means using fewer resources per unit of output even while growing the economy. This decoupling reduces the environmental impact of economic growth, such as pollution. Doing this is difficult.
It is challenging to measure sustainability as the concept is complex, contextual, and dynamic. Indicators have been developed to cover the environment, society, or the economy but there is no fixed definition of sustainability indicators. The metrics are evolving and include indicators, benchmarks, and audits. They include sustainability standards and certification systems, like Fairtrade and Organic. They also involve indices and accounting systems, such as corporate sustainability reporting and triple Bottom Line accounting.
It is necessary to address many barriers to sustainability to achieve a sustainability transition or sustainability transformation. Some barriers arise from nature and its complexity while others are extrinsic to the concept of sustainability. For example, they can result from the dominant institutional frameworks in countries.
Global issues of sustainability are difficult to tackle because they need global solutions. The United Nations writes, "Today, there are almost 140 developing countries in the world seeking ways of meeting their development needs, but with the increasing threat of climate change, concrete efforts must be made to ensure development today does not negatively affect future generations" UN Sustainability. Existing global organizations such as the United Nations and WTO are seen as inefficient in enforcing current global regulations. One reason for this is the lack of suitable sanctioning mechanisms. Governments are not the only sources of action for sustainability. For example, business groups have tried to integrate ecological concerns with economic activity, seeking sustainable business. Religious leaders have stressed the need for caring for nature and environmental stability. Individuals can also choose to live more sustainably.
Some people have criticized the idea of sustainability. One point of criticism is that the concept is vague and only a buzzword. Another is that sustainability might be an impossible goal. Some experts have pointed out that "no country is delivering what its citizens need without transgressing the biophysical planetary boundaries".
The 1983 UN Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) had a big influence on the use of the term sustainability today. The commission's 1987 Brundtland Report provided a definition of sustainable development. The report, Our Common Future, defines it as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".United Nations General Assembly (1987) Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. Transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to document A/42/427 – Development and International Co-operation: Environment. The report helped bring sustainability into the mainstream of policy discussions. It also popularized the concept of sustainable development. Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Some other key concepts to illustrate the meaning of sustainability include:
In everyday usage, sustainability often focuses on the environmental dimension.
Some definitions focus on the environmental dimension. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines sustainability as: "the property of being environmentally sustainable; the degree to which a process or enterprise is able to be maintained or continued while avoiding the long-term depletion of natural resources".
In the past, sustainability referred to environmental sustainability. It meant using so that people in the future could continue to rely on them in the long term.Compare: The English-language word had a legal technical sense from 1835 and a resource-management connotation from 1953. The concept of sustainability, or Nachhaltigkeit in German, goes back to Hans Carl von Carlowitz (1645–1714), and applied to forestry. The term for this now would be sustainable forest management. He used this term to mean the long-term responsible use of a natural resource. In his 1713 work Silvicultura oeconomica, he wrote that "the highest art/science/industriousness ... will consist in such a conservation and replanting of timber that there can be a continuous, ongoing and sustainable use".Von Carlowitz, H.C. & Rohr, V. (1732) Sylvicultura Oeconomica, oder Haußwirthliche Nachricht und Naturmäßige Anweisung zur Wilden Baum Zucht, Leipzig; translated from German as cited in The shift in use of "sustainability" from preservation of forests (for future wood production) to broader preservation of environmental resources (to sustain the world for future generations) traces to a 1972 book by Ernst Basler, based on a series of lectures at M.I.T.
The idea itself goes back a long time: Communities have always worried about the capacity of their environment to sustain them in the long term. Many ancient cultures, traditional societies, and indigenous peoples have restricted the use of Natural resource.
Sustainable development has two linked goals. It aims to meet human development goals. It also aims to enable natural systems to provide the and ecosystem services needed for Economy and society. The concept of sustainable development has come to focus on economic development, social development and environmental protection for future generations.
The popular three intersecting circles, or Venn diagram, representing sustainability first appeared in a 1987 article by the economist Edward Barbier.
Scholars rarely question the distinction itself. The idea of sustainability with three dimensions is a dominant interpretation in the literature.
In the Brundtland Report, the environment and development are inseparable and go together in the search for sustainability. It described sustainable development as a global concept linking environmental and social issues. It added sustainable development is important for both developing countries and industrialized countries:
The Rio Declaration from 1992 is seen as "the foundational instrument in the move towards sustainability".Bosselmann, K. (2022) Chapter 2: A normative approach to environmental governance: sustainability at the apex of environmental law, Research Handbook on Fundamental Concepts of Environmental Law, edited by Douglas Fisher It includes specific references to ecosystem integrity. The plan associated with carrying out the Rio Declaration also discusses sustainability in this way. The plan, Agenda 21, talks about economic, social, and environmental dimensions:
Agenda 2030 from 2015 also viewed sustainability in this way. It sees the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with their 169 targets as balancing "the three dimensions of sustainable development, the economic, social and environmental".United Nations (2015) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ( A/RES/70/1 )
Protecting ecological integrity is the core of sustainability according to many experts. If this is the case then its environmental dimension sets limits to economic and social development.
The diagram with three nested ellipses is one way of showing the three dimensions of sustainability together with a hierarchy: It gives the environmental dimension a special status. In this diagram, the environment includes society, and society includes economic conditions. Thus it stresses a hierarchy.
This nested hierarchy has led some scholars and Indigenous thinkers to call for
/ref>
Another model shows the three dimensions in a similar way: In this SDG wedding cake model, the economy is a smaller subset of the societal system. And the societal system in turn is a smaller subset of the biosphere system.
In 2022 an assessment examined the political impacts of the Sustainable Development Goals. The assessment found that the "integrity of the earth's life-support systems" was essential for sustainability. The authors said that "the SDGs fail to recognize that planetary, people and prosperity concerns are all part of one earth system, and that the protection of planetary integrity should not be a means to an end, but an end in itself". The aspect of environmental protection is not an explicit priority for the SDGs. This causes problems as it could encourage countries to give the environment less weight in their developmental plans. The authors state that "sustainability on a planetary scale is only achievable under an overarching Planetary Integrity Goal that recognizes the biophysical limits of the planet".
Other frameworks bypass the compartmentalization of sustainability into separate dimensions completely.
Environmental pollution is not a new phenomenon. But it has been only a local or regional concern for most of human history. Awareness of global environmental issues increased in the 20th century. (2025). 9780226796048, University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226796048 The harmful effects and global spread of pesticides like DDT came under scrutiny in the 1960s. In the 1970s it emerged that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were depleting the ozone layer. This led to the de facto ban of CFCs with the Montreal Protocol in 1987.
In the early 20th century, Svante Arrhenius discussed the effect of on the climate (see also: history of climate change science). Climate change due to human activity became an academic and political topic several decades later. This led to the establishment of the IPCC in 1988 and the UNFCCC in 1992.
In 1972, the UN Conference on the Human Environment took place. It was the first UN conference on environmental issues. It stated it was important to protect and improve the human environment.UN (1973) Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, A/CONF.48/14/Rev.1, Stockholm, 5–16 June 1972It emphasized the need to protect wildlife and natural habitats:
In 2000, the UN launched eight Millennium Development Goals. The aim was for the global community to achieve them by 2015. Goal 7 was to "ensure environmental sustainability". But this goal did not mention the concepts of social or economic sustainability.
Specific problems often dominate public discussion of the environmental dimension of sustainability: In the 21st century these problems have included climate change, biodiversity and pollution. Other global problems are loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, environmental impacts of animal agriculture and Air pollution and water pollution, including marine plastic pollution and ocean acidification. Many people worry about human impacts on the environment. These include impacts on the atmosphere, land, and water resources.
Human activities now have an impact on Earth's geology and . This led Paul Crutzen to call the current geological epoch the Anthropocene.
The importance of citizens in accomplishing climate change adaptation, mitigation, and more general sustainable development objectives is being emphasized more and more by urban climate change governance (Hegger, Mees, & Wamsler, 2022). The Sustainable Development Goals and the Glasgow Climate Pact are two recent international agreements that acknowledge that sustainability transformations depend on both individual and social attitudes, values, and behaviors in addition to technical solutions (IPCC, 2022; Wamsler et al., 2021). Through their roles as voters, activists, consumers, and community members—particularly in decision-making, information co-production, and localized self-governance initiatives—citizens are seen as crucial change agents (Mees et al., 2016; Wamsler, 2017).
Economic development can indeed reduce hunger or energy poverty, especially in the least developed countries. That is why Sustainable Development Goal 8 calls for economic growth to drive social progress and well-being, where indicators include real GDP per capita growth.United Nations (2017) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 6 July 2017, Work of the Statistical Commission pertaining to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ( A/RES/71/313) However, the challenge is to expand economic activities while reducing their environmental impact.UNEP (2011) Decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth, A Report of the Working Group on Decoupling to the International Resource Panel. Fischer-Kowalski, M., Swilling, M., von Weizsäcker, E.U., Ren, Y., Moriguchi, Y., Crane, W., Krausmann, F., Eisenmenger, N., Giljum, S., Hennicke, P., Romero Lankao, P., Siriban Manalang, A., Sewerin, S. In other words, humanity will have to find ways how societal progress (potentially by economic development) can be reached without excess strain on the environment.
The Brundtland report says poverty causes environmental problems. Poverty also results from them. So addressing environmental problems requires understanding the factors behind world poverty and inequality. The report demands a new development path for sustained human progress. It highlights that this is a goal for both developing and industrialized nations.
UNEP and UNDP launched the Poverty-Environment Initiative in 2005 which has three goals. These are reducing extreme poverty, greenhouse gas emissions, and net natural asset loss. This guide to structural reform will enable countries to achieve the SDGs.PEP (2016) Poverty-Environment Partnership Joint Paper | June 2016 Getting to Zero – A Poverty, Environment and Climate Call to Action for the Sustainable Development Goals It should also show how to address the trade-offs between ecological footprint and economic development.
The government debt increases of many countries were found unsustainable in the long-term.
Some scholars place social issues at the very center of discussions. They suggest that all the domains of sustainability are social. These include ecological, economic, political, and cultural sustainability. These domains all depend on the relationship between the social and the natural. The ecological domain is defined as human embeddedness in the environment. From this perspective, social sustainability encompasses all human activities. It goes beyond the intersection of economics, the environment, and the social.
There are many broad strategies for more sustainable social systems. They include improved education and the political empowerment of women. This is especially the case in developing countries. They include greater regard for social justice. This involves equity between rich and poor both within and between countries. And it includes intergenerational equity. Providing more social safety nets to Vulnerable adult would contribute to social sustainability.Current pension systems are financially unsustainable in some countries.
A society with a high degree of social sustainability would lead to livable communities with a good quality of life (being fair, diverse, connected and democratic).
Indigenous communities might have a focus on particular aspects of sustainability, for example spiritual aspects, community-based governance and an emphasis on place and locality.
Another aspect of social sustainability would be gender equity. According to reports from the United Nations and various research studies, women are disproportionately affected by climate related issues and sustainability efforts than men are. To name a few, natural disasters, carbon taxes, and public transportation expansions have all reportedly had unequal consequences on women and other marginalized groups by making it harder for them to afford different goods and services or newer transit routes (longer car rides equate to more gas purchases), as well as putting them at risk of becoming targets of violence.
These issues often go unaddressed and unheard, as women do not have the ability to voice these concerns due to the little to nonexistent presence of women in environmental policymaking. Despite the contrast in ability, women are often given the responsibility of solving the issues of climate change more than men are, due to the stereotypical feminine aspect of caring for the planet. For this reason, scholars urge the need for more female representation and leadership in environmental politics and policymaking. They also highlight the link between environmental and social sustainability and the importance of addressing the two together so that actual progress can be made, as policymakers often categorize and handle them separately. By improving healthcare, education, and representation in government, women will be empowered to have a voice in policy making.
The opposite concept in that model is strong sustainability. This assumes that nature provides functions that technology cannot replace. Thus, strong sustainability acknowledges the need to preserve ecological integrity. The loss of those functions makes it impossible to recover or repair many resources and ecosystem services. Biodiversity, along with pollination and Soil fertility, are examples. Others are clean air, clean water, and regulation of .
Weak sustainability has come under criticism. It may be popular with governments and business but does not ensure the preservation of the earth's ecological integrity. This is why the environmental dimension is so important.
The World Economic Forum illustrated this in 2020. It found that $44 trillion of economic value generation depends on nature. This value, more than half of the world's GDP, is thus vulnerable to nature loss.WEF (2020) Nature Risk Rising: Why the Crisis Engulfing Nature Matters for Business and the Economy New Nature Economy, World Economic Forum in collaboration with PwC Three large economic sectors are highly dependent on nature: construction, agriculture, and food and beverages. Nature loss results from many factors. They include Land development, sea use change and climate change. Other examples are natural resource use, pollution, and Invasive species.
Some even argue the Sustainable Development Goals are unrealistic. Their aim of universal human well-being conflicts with the physical limits of Earth and its ecosystems.
The IPAT formula measures the environmental impact of humans. It emerged in the 1970s. It states this impact is proportional to World population, affluence and technology. This implies various ways to increase environmental sustainability. One would be human population control. Another would be to reduce consumption and Wealth such as energy consumption. Another would be to develop innovative or green technologies such as renewable energy. In other words, there are two broad aims. The first would be to have fewer consumers. The second would be to have less environmental footprint per consumer.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment from 2005 measured 24 ecosystem services. It concluded that only four have improved over the last 50 years. It found 15 are in serious decline and five are in a precarious condition.
An entity that creates environmental and social costs often does not pay for them. The market price also does not reflect those costs. In the end, government policy is usually required to resolve this problem.
Decision-making can take future costs and benefits into account. The tool for this is the social discount rate. The bigger the concern for future generations, the lower the social discount rate should be.Groth, Christian (2014). Lecture notes in Economic Growth, (mimeo), Chapter 8: Choice of social discount rate. Copenhagen University. Another approach is to put an economic value on ecosystem services. This allows us to assess environmental damage against perceived short-term welfare benefits. One calculation is that, "for every dollar spent on ecosystem restoration, between three and 75 dollars of economic benefits from ecosystem goods and services can be expected".
In recent years, economist Kate Raworth has developed the concept of doughnut economics. This aims to integrate social and environmental sustainability into economic thinking. The social dimension acts as a minimum standard to which a society should aspire. The carrying capacity of the planet acts an outer limit.
Other barriers are extrinsic to the concept of sustainability. This means it is possible to overcome them. One way would be to put a price tag on the consumption of public goods. Some extrinsic barriers relate to the nature of dominant institutional frameworks. Examples would be where market mechanisms fail for public goods. Existing societies, economies, and cultures encourage increased consumption. There is a structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies. This inhibits necessary societal change. Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Furthermore, there are several barriers related to the difficulties of implementing sustainability policies. There are trade-offs between the goals of environmental policies and economic development. Environmental goals include nature conservation. Development may focus on poverty reduction. There are also trade-offs between short-term profit and long-term viability. Political pressures generally favor the short term over the long term. So they form a barrier to actions oriented toward improving sustainability.
Barriers to sustainability may also reflect current trends. These could include consumerism and short-termism.
Conflicts, lack of international cooperation are also considered as a barrier to achieve sustainability. 61 scientists, including Michael Meeropol, Don Trent Jacobs and 24 organizations including Scientist Rebellion endorsed an appeal saying we can not stop the ecological crisis without stopping overconsumption and this is impossible as wars continue because GDP is directly linked to military potential.
A sustainability transition requires major change in societies. They must change their fundamental values and organizing principles. These new values would emphasize "the quality of life and material sufficiency, human solidarity and global equity, and affinity with nature and environmental sustainability". A transition may only work if far-reaching lifestyle changes accompany technological advances.
Scientists have pointed out that: "Sustainability transitions come about in diverse ways, and all require civil-society pressure and evidence-based advocacy, political leadership, and a solid understanding of policy instruments, markets, and other drivers."
There are four possible overlapping processes of transformation. They each have different political dynamics. Technology, markets, government, or citizens can lead these processes.
The European Environment Agency defines a sustainability transition as "a fundamental and wide-ranging transformation of a socio-technical system towards a more sustainable configuration that helps alleviate persistent problems such as climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss or resource scarcities." The concept of sustainability transitions is similar to the concept of energy transitions.
One expert argues a sustainability transition must be "supported by a new kind of culture, a new kind of collaboration, and a new kind of leadership". It requires a large investment in "new and greener capital goods, while simultaneously shifting capital away from unsustainable systems".
In 2024 an interdisciplinary group of experts including Chip Fletcher, William J. Ripple, Phoebe Barnard, Kamanamaikalani Beamer, Christopher Field, David Karl, David King, Michael E. Mann and Naomi Oreskes advocated for a paradigm shift toward genuine sustainability and resource regeneration. They said that "such a transformation is imperative to reverse the tide of biodiversity loss due to overconsumption and to reinstate the security of food and water supplies, which are foundational for the survival of global populations." Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
In 2017 scientists published an update to the 1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity. It showed how to move towards environmental sustainability. It proposed steps in three areas:
The UN said: "We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path."
The 17 goals and targets lay out transformative steps. For example, the SDGs aim to protect the future of planet Earth. The UN pledged to "protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consumption and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change, so that it can support the needs of the present and future generations".
One study in 2020 found no evidence of necessary decoupling. This was a meta-analysis of 180 scientific studies. It found that there is "no evidence of the kind of decoupling needed for ecological sustainability" and that "in the absence of robust evidence, the goal of decoupling rests partly on faith". Some experts have questioned the possibilities for decoupling and thus the feasibility of green growth.Parrique T., Barth J., Briens F., C. Kerschner, Kraus-Polk A., Kuokkanen A., Spangenberg J.H., 2019. Decoupling debunked: Evidence and arguments against green growth as a sole strategy for sustainability. European Environmental Bureau. Some have argued that decoupling on its own will not be enough to reduce environmental pressures. They say it would need to include the issue of economic growth. There are several reasons why adequate decoupling is currently not taking place. These are rising energy expenditure, , problem shifting, the underestimated impact of services, the limited potential of recycling, insufficient and inappropriate technological change, and cost-shifting.
The decoupling of economic growth from environmental deterioration is difficult. This is because the entity that causes environmental and social costs does not generally pay for them. So the market price does not express such costs. For example, the cost of packaging into the price of a product. may factor in the cost of packaging. But it may omit the cost of disposing of that packaging. Economics describes such factors as Externality, in this case a negative externality. Usually, it is up to government action or local governance to deal with externalities.
For highly developed nations, sustainable practices and climate policies "often lead to conflicts between short-term economic interests and long-term environmental goals." However, for developing countries, efforts to address climate change are limited by their financial resources.Suprayitno D, Iskandar S, Dahurandi K, Hendarto T, Rumambi FJ. Public Policy In The Era Of Climate Change: Adapting Strategies For Sustainable Futures. Migration Letters. 2024;21(S6):945-58. To effectively advance sustainability, solutions need to focus on "fostering political commitment, enhancing inter-agency coordination, securing adequate funding, and engaging diverse stakeholders to overcome these challenges."
There are various ways to incorporate environmental and social costs and benefits into economic activities. Examples include: taxing the activity (the polluter pays); subsidizing activities with positive effects (rewarding stewardship); and outlawing particular levels of damaging practices (legal limits on pollution).
Elinor Ostrom (winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics) expanded on this. She stated that local governance (or self-governance) can be a third option besides the market or the national government. She studied how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources. She showed that communities using natural resources can establish rules their for use and maintenance. These are resources such as pastures, fishing waters, and forests. This leads to both economic and ecological sustainability. Successful self-governance needs groups with frequent communication among participants. In this case, groups can manage the usage of common goods without overexploitation. Based on Ostrom's work, some have argued that: "Common-pool resources today are overcultivated because the different agents do not know each other and cannot directly communicate with one another."
Multilateralism international agreements, treaties, and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) face further challenges. These result in barriers to sustainability. Often these arrangements rely on voluntary commitments. An example is Nationally Determined Contributions for climate action. There can be a lack of enforcement of existing national or international regulation. And there can be gaps in regulation for international actors such as multi-national enterprises. Critics of some global organizations say they lack legitimacy and democracy. Institutions facing such criticism include the WTO, IMF, World Bank, UNFCCC, G7, G8 and OECD.
Growing attention towards sustainability has led to the formation of many organizations. These include the Sustainability Consortium of the Society for Organizational Learning, the Sustainable Business Institute, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Supply chain sustainability looks at the environmental and human impacts of products in the supply chain. It considers how they move from raw materials sourcing to production, storage, and delivery, and every transportation link on the way.
As representatives from different faith and religious traditions, we stand together to express deep concern for the consequences of climate change on the earth and its people, all entrusted, as our faiths reveal, to our common care. Climate change is indeed a threat to life, a precious gift we have received and that we need to care for.
Some young people are using activism, litigation, and on-the-ground efforts to advance sustainability. This is particularly the case in the area of climate action.
Some scholars have even proclaimed the end of the concept of sustainability. This is because humans now have a significant impact on Earth's climate system and ecosystems. It might become impossible to pursue sustainability because of these complex, radical, and dynamic issues. Others have called sustainability a ideal: "We need to keep sustainability as an ideal; an ideal which we might never reach, which might be utopian, but still a necessary one."
But some argue that while sustainability is vague and contested it is not meaningless. Although lacking in a singular definition, this concept is still useful. Scholars have argued that its fuzziness can actually be liberating. This is because it means that "the basic goal of sustainability (maintaining or improving desirable conditions ...) can be pursued with more flexibility".
Greenwashing is a practice of deceptive marketing. It is when a company or organization provides misleading information about the sustainability of a product, policy, or other activity. Investors are wary of this issue as it exposes them to risk. The reliability of eco-labels is also doubtful in some cases. is a voluntary method of environmental performance certification and labelling for food and consumer products. The most credible eco-labels are those developed with close participation from all relevant stakeholders.
|
|
