Sustainability History Project

[Post written by: Teddy Gautier & T. Smith]

It is important to remember that the need for sustainability arose from fears relating to present and future living standards, namely, but not limited to, depletion of vital natural resources, poverty, negative impacts on the environment, an anthropocentric view, and a general lack of understanding in terms of complex biospheric interactions. All of these fears or threats arise from human actions and interactions with and within their environment. As a result, any definition of sustainability should include the social requirements that need to be met as the core idea, and the environmental and economic aspects would be then be able to be accounted for. Also, that definition should let people know about the different steps that need to be followed in order to implement sustainable practices. The idea is not to propose a definition that is an absolute, thus making it near impossible to achieve, but rather to create a statement that is more practical and applicable to real life situations. Sustainability should be a conceptual framework that allows for amendments or changes to satisfy particular problems. The definition of sustainability that we are proposing will feature social sustainability as the primary focus, yet without understating the importance of the economic and environmental pillars.

Sustainability, as defined the Brundtland Commission and ubiquitously quoted, is: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Following that definition is the key concept of “needs,” specifically the needs of the world’s poor and marginalized. When poverty is eradicated it should follow that the level of education throughout the world will grow immensely. It is very important that the value of education should not be understated. Positive democratic discourse and human well-being are direct corollaries of education and awareness. Education also provides means, solutions, upward mobility, and opportunity. When poverty is removed and social equity is established then economic and environmental challenges, in terms of sustainability, can be assessed and redressed with much greater ease.

Sustainability is a conceptual constitution by which no one definition is warranted but rather by which many definitions can be framed. The myriad of definitions provides specific and comprehensive solutions to multi-faceted problems that are sometimes intimately related and other times wholly distinct. The prima social approach to sustainability does not seek to weigh explicit or vague definitions. The approach seeks to apply pragmatic resolutions with what knowledge is available in relation to instant and delayed threats. It was no oversight or mistake that sustainability was not herein defined; any attempt at definition would meet objections on abstract grounds. At this point the definition is of little consequence. The pillars of social, environmental, and economic sustainability have demonstrated themselves as real, distinct, and unhindered by interpretative qualms. They have been accepted and the attempt has been made to rank them accordingly.
As previously stated, any attempt to an absolute definition of sustainability would be useless as it would be contradicting what ought to be with what is, which is the near impossibility of satisfying all aspects of sustainability- and ultimately counter-productive because sustainable development is a participatory process. In order to make it participatory, what we need is not a definition that just states what sustainability is and ends up being a contradiction with the actual state of things. A valid definition of sustainability is one that puts an emphasis around what humans gain from it because, in the end, it is humans that will be affected by changes brought about by sustainable development. As such, the following definition is in no way an ultimate that should be strictly applied, but rather a proposition, a move that will get us a step closer to a much more accurate definition:

Sustainability is the concept that all human needs have to be met in order to guarantee efficient economic development, whilst keeping in mind the stakes of the environment we live in. It is an idea that supports social well-being and positive living standards in the present, and ensures their perpetration in the future through the sensible use of all the resources at our disposition. Finally, fair repartition of natural and economic resources is a foundation of the concept of sustainability.

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