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About Sustainability
What is Sustainability?
In 1983, the United Nations commissioned Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland to study sustainable development. The study, Our Common Future (also commonly called The Brundtland Report), published in 1987 contains the best-known definition of sustainability:
What’s the difference between sustainability and environmentalism?
Sustainability is not just about the environment, it’s also about other key issues − economic and social. It extends beyond ecological issues to include people and the institutions and communities that support them.
Sustainability connects the environment, the economy and the society. All three are important and all three must be integrated. Integrating economic, environmental and social objectives is known as “triple bottom line accounting.” This approach to decision making recognizes the full costs of decisions in a way that supports financial, environmental, and community well-being over the long term. This means, for example, considering purchases – from recycled paper to hybrid vehicles – not only in terms of their cost in dollars, but also in terms of how they affect the environment and what they contribute to society and quality of life. Integrating all three objectives will ensure a greater quality of life now without compromising future generations.
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