Methods of defining ‘sustainability’

Abstract

The notion of ‘sustainability’ emerged in The Ecologist's A Blueprint for Survival, in 1972. The quest to make modern civilization ‘sustainable’ inspired the UN's Stockholm Conference in 1972 and the ‘global trusteeship’ of subsequent international environmental treaties. ‘Sustainability’ is related to ‘futurity’, hence the Brundtland Commission in 1987 defined sustainable development as ‘development which meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. ‘Sustainability’ animates ‘the precautionary principle’, affirmed by the European Union (EU) in 1990 in its Bergen Declaration on Sustainable Development, which requires ecological preservation in cases of scientific uncertainty where serious or irreversible damage is threatened. The Earth Summit in 1992 established ‘sustainable development’ as the most important policy of the 21st century. ‘Sustainability’ is at the heart of The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, accords signed at the Earth Summit that herald a new paradigm of society, economics and the environment. The EU's Fifth Environmental Action Programme (1993) pursues ‘sustainability’ in industry, energy, transport, agriculture and tourism. ‘Sustainability’ has also been endorsed by the Clinton Administration (1994). In the light of these events, ‘sustainability’ is now used widely in biology, economics, sociology, urban planning, ethics and other domains. It is regarded as tantamount to a new philosophy, in which principles of futurity, equity, global environmentalism and biodiversity must guide decision‐making. Far from being a mere doctrine of development science, ‘sustainability’ has emerged as a universal methodology for evaluating whether human options will yield social and environmental vitality.

Putting Sustainable Investing into Practice: A Governance Framework for Pension Funds

“…Beyond the world of investment, the concept of sustainability is now applied widely with varying significance to everything from power generation to agricultural production (compare Basiago, 1995with Brown et al, 1987. While much argument surrounds the definition of sustainability, a commonly cited version derives from the World Commission's statement that sustainable development 'is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs' (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).…”

The Socio-Ecological Factors that Influence the Adoption of Green Infrastructure

“…The objectives of the majority of articles can be grouped into: (1) the development of conceptual or operational frameworks for systemic understanding of green infrastructure use and innovation [23][24][25][26][27][28]; (2) the investigation of factors, such as policy or planning instruments and the action of stewardship groups, that influence the use and performance of green infrastructure and innovation in the field [16,17,19,[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]; and (3) the assessment of the performance of green infrastructure in providing ecosystem services [25,[37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] (Table 1). Exceptions to this grouping include two articles that described the spatial diffusion of green infrastructure technology [4] or defined sustainability and examined its underlying principles [50]. With the exception of articles that did not examine specific types of green infrastructure (31% of articles), the most common type of green infrastructure focused upon in articles was the green roof (36% of types in articles), followed by greenspace (e.g., greenways) (24% of types) and green building technologies (16% of types) ( Table 1).…”

Sustainable urban habitats: design intentions to practical implementation

“…Defining sustainability has become an academic inquiry in itself (Basiago, 2006;Selman, 2008;Toman, 1992 ), correlating this complexity and confusion into its meaning leads to uncertainty. As Walker (2006) emphasises, defining sustainability is not a linear process.…”