What is Sustainability?

The term “sustainability” refers to the ability of an ecosystem to maintain itself over time. An ecosystem that is sustainable can continue to provide the same services, resources, and benefits to human and other species indefinitely. To be sustainable, an ecosystem must be able to regenerate the resources it uses, such as water, air, and soil. It must also be able to adapt to changes, such as climate change, without collapsing. There is more to that topic thought.

What is Sustainability?

Personally, I really like the definition mentioned in the Our Common Future report – paraphrasing, sustainability or sustainable growth means finding ways to meet our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. It means using resources wisely and efficiently, and finding ways to use renewable resources instead of finite resources. All this needs to happen while we also reduce pollution, waste, and protect ecosystems.

Three pillars of sustainability

The United Nations Our Common Future report is free to download, and it goes deep into issues we need to mitigate to be able to achieve this kind of peaceful coexistence with our planet. More distilled version of it can be found when browsing the UN Economic and Social Council page – there you can find an information, that three pillars of sustainable development are economic, social, and environmental in nature. Focusing on those three points is a good way to operationalize and manage all the already executed or planned efforts.

Current UN Sustainable Development Goals, giving a clear blueprint on how to help in the most impactful way, can be easily categorized under those pillars:

1. Economy – with goals like funding basic infrastructure or job opportunities for youth.
2. Social – with goals like empowering women and girls, access to education or vaccinations.
3. Environment – with goals like avoiding wasting water, recycling, or using energy efficient appliances.

And all those goals are based on a personal, down-to-top action. You can join and help in many ways, since by sharing this planet, we are all on the same boat…

PS. Some time ago UN released a short (30 min) documentary about the proposed solutions, their importance, and the situation we all share. I strongly recommend it for you to check!