SUSTAINABILITY

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The term sustainability has a modern ring to it, but its basic idea is very old if not ancient. Human being many have given though to it since early days of civilization and they certainly have considered in their use of natural resources and ways of living in most if not all traditional societies before the rise of industry and technology.

The widely cited report of 1972, “limits to Growth” is one of the early warning that showed that unchecked economic growth could not be sustained under the prevailing conventional economic models that depleted nonrenewable resources at a very rapid rate.

This rather controversial report examined the results of a computer model called world that examined the trend of five variables:

  •       Population
  •    Food production
  •    Industrial production
  •    Pollution
  •    Consumption of non-renewable resources

What is Sustainability?
" Sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". In addition to natural resources, we also needs social and economic resources. Sustainability is not just environmentalism. Embedded in most definitions of sustainability we also find concerns for social equity and economic development.


According to the UN  definition of sustainability, three pillars of the sustainability theory and practice are the;

  • Environment
  • Social
  • Economic

Environmental Sustainability

A state in which the demands placed  on the environment can be met without reducing its capacity to allow all people to live well, now and the future. A  state which meet the human needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
 

Social Sustainability

Social Sustainability is a critical component of a community’s well-being and longevity. Social sustainability is largely neglected in mainstream sustainability debates. Priority has been given to economic and environmental sustainability in particular in the context of planning, housing and communities, where policy and investment has focused on renewable resources, low carbon communities and encouraging pro-environmental behavior in households

 

Economic Sustainability

Economic sustainability is defined as the way to achieving economic growth whilst respecting environmental limits, finding ways to minimize damage to the natural world and making use of the earth’s resources in a sustainable way.

However, there are other interpretations of sustainability with political, ethical, religious aspects incorporated into it. In all definitions and explanations interconnectedness between various disciplines is required. The diversity of aspects within sustainability means that many approaches and tools have to be applied in practice.

Sustainability is a concept invented by us (a social constructed), and not something that appears naturally over the course of the history of the earth. For example, such as the species diversity, energy transfer pathways or loss of yield.

It is however, unsustainable human action that cause real and measurable changes (that are not constructed) in natural systems such as loss of species, disruption of energy transfer pathways that lead to unproductive and even collapse of natural system.




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