Sustainability is a hot topic around the world right now, and while many of us strive to be sustainable, the reality is that many of us don’t really know where to start. So today, we want to shed some light on what Sustainability really means, and how you can effectively encompass sustainability into your day-to-day life.
The name sustainability is derived from the Latin word sustainer which means to hold and sustain or to maintain or endure. Sustainability defines the ability of a system or process to endure over a period of time.
How sustainable something is can be understood in terms of its overall efficiency. If a system becomes inefficient at operating within its environment and it starts to consume more available resources and produces more waste, it then qualifies to be an unsustainable system or organization.
The most often quoted definition comes from the UN World Commission on Environment and Development: “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 need social and economic resources.”
What is Sustainability?
What are the 3 pillars of sustainability?
As we just understood, sustainability is a process by which things are kept at a certain level to maintain a balance. And to maintain that balance the concept of sustainability is divided into three pillars: environmental, social and economical development, also called the 3Ps (People, Planet & Profit) commonly represented by three intersecting circles with overall sustainability at the centre.
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