Sustainability

"Unsustainable" redirects here. For the song, see The 2nd Law: Unsustainable.

Visual representations of sustainability and its three dimensions: Left, sustainability as three intersecting circles. Right top, a nested approach. Right bottom, literal 'pillars'. The schematic with the nested ellipses emphasizes a hierarchy of the dimensions, putting "environment" as the foundation for the other two.

Sustainability is a societal goal that broadly relates to the ability of people to safely co-exist on Earth over a long time. Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied with literature, context, and time. Sustainability is commonly described as having three dimensions (or pillars): environmental, economic, and social. Many publications state that the environmental dimension is the most important, and, in everyday use, "sustainability" is often focused on countering major environmental problems, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, and air and water pollution. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable living).

A closely related concept is that of sustainable development, and the terms are often used synonymously. However, UNESCO distinguishes the two thus: "Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal (i.e. a more sustainable world), while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it."

The concept of sustainability has been criticized for various reasons. One such criticism is that the concept is vague and merely a buzzword. Another is that sustainability as a goal might be impossible to reach; it has been pointed out that "no country is delivering what its citizens need without transgressing the biophysical planetary boundaries".

How the economic dimension of sustainability should be addressed is controversial. Scholars have discussed this aspect under the concept of "weak and strong sustainability". For example, there will always be tension between the ideas of "welfare and prosperity for all" and environmental conservation. Therefore, trade-offs are required. Approaches that decouple economic growth from environmental deterioration would be desirable but are difficult to implement.

There are many barriers to achieving sustainability that must be addressed for a "sustainability transition" to become possible. Some barriers arise from nature and its complexity. Other barriers are "extrinsic" to the concept of sustainability. A number of extrinsic sustainability barriers are related to the dominant institutional frameworks where market mechanisms often fail to create public goods. Some approaches humanity can take to transition to environmental sustainability include: maintaining ecosystem services, reducing food waste, promoting dietary shifts towards plant-based foods, reducing fertility rates and, thus, population growth, promoting new green technologies, and adopting renewable energy sources while phasing out subsidies to fossil fuels. Global issues are difficult to tackle as they require global solutions, and existing global organizations (such as the UN and WTO) are inefficient in enforcing current global regulations, for example due to the lack of suitable sanctioning mechanisms.

Definitions

Current usage

Sustainability is regarded as a "normative concept", that is, it is defined based on what people value. This can be illustrated as follows: "The quest for sustainability involves connecting what is known through scientific study to applications in pursuit of what people want for the future."

Modern use of the term "sustainability" was strongly influenced by the 1983 UN Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission. In the commission's 1987 report, titled Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland Report), sustainable development is defined as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". The report helped bring "sustainability" into the mainstream of policy discourse and popularize the concept of "sustainable development".

Some key concepts to illustrate the meaning of sustainability include:

• Sustainability is a normative concept (connected to "what we see as desirable");
• Choices matter (in other words: "it is not possible to sustain everything, everywhere, forever");
• Scale matters (in both space and time) and place matters;
• Sustainability can be positively thought of as a fuzzy concept where the goals are more important than the approaches or means applied;
• Limits exist (see planetary boundaries).
• Sustainability is interconnected with other essential concepts (namely resilience, adaptive capacity, and vulnerability);

In everyday usage, "sustainability" is often focused mostly on the environmental aspects, as can be seen in publications by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Specific definitions

Scholars have pointed out that a single specific definition of sustainability may never be possible, but that the concept is still useful. Attempts have been made to define sustainability broadly or in more specific terms, for example:

• "Sustainability can be defined as the capacity to maintain or improve the state and availability of desirable materials or conditions over the long term."
• "Sustainability [is] the long-term viability of a community, set of social institutions, or societal practice. In general, sustainability is understood as a form of intergenerational ethics in which the environmental and economic actions taken by present persons do not diminish the opportunities of future persons to enjoy similar levels of wealth, utility, or welfare."
• "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. Sustainability is not just environmentalism. Embedded in most definitions of sustainability we also find concerns for social equity and economic development."

Some definitions refer mainly to the environmental dimension. For example, the Oxford Dictionary of English defines sustainability as: "the property of being environmentally sustainable; the degree to which a process or enterprise is able to be maintained or continued while avoiding the long-term depletion of natural resources".

Historical usage

Further information: Sustainable development § Development of the concept

The term sustainability is derived from the Latin word sustinere (tenere, to hold; sub, under). "To sustain" can mean to maintain, support, uphold, or endure. It is therefore the ability to continue over a long period of time.

Historically, sustainability referred to environmental sustainability and simply meant using natural resources in a way so that people in the future ("future generations") could continue to rely on their yields in the long term. The concept of sustainability, or Nachhaltigkeit in German, can be traced back to Hans Carl von Carlowitz (1645–1714), and was applied to forestry (now sustainable forest management). He used this term in the sense of long-term responsible use of a natural resource in his 1713 work Silvicultura oeconomica, writing that "the highest art/science/industriousness [...] will consist in such a conservation and replanting of timber that there can be a continuous, ongoing and sustainable use".

The idea itself goes back to times immemorial, as communities have always worried about the capacity of their environment to sustain them in the long term. Many ancient cultures, traditional societies, and indigenous peoples have had practices restricting the use of natural resources.

Comparison to sustainable development

Further information: Sustainable development

The terms "sustainability" and "sustainable development" are closely related and are often used synonymously. Both terms are intrinsically linked with the "three dimensions of sustainability" concept. One distinction that can be made is that sustainability is a general concept, whereas sustainable development is a policy. Sustainability can be considered a broader concept than sustainable development because the latter focuses mainly on human well-being.

This section is an excerpt from Sustainable development.[edit]

Sustainable development is an approach to growth and human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The aim is to have a society where living conditions and resources meet human needs without undermining planetary integrity. Sustainable development aims to balance the needs of the economy, environment, and social well-being. The Brundtland Report in 1987 helped to make the concept of sustainable development better known.

Dimensions of sustainability

Sustainability Venn diagram, where sustainability is thought of as the area where the three dimensions overlap

A nested circles diagram indicating a hierarchy between the three dimensions of sustainability: both economy and society are constrained by environmental limits

Development of three dimensions

A "Wedding cake" model for the sustainable development goals, which is similar to the nested circle diagram, where the environmental dimension or system is the basis for the other two dimensions

Three different areas of sustainability are normally distinguished: the environmental, the social, and the economic. Several terms are in use for this concept in the literature: authors may speak of three "pillars", "dimensions", "components", "aspects", "perspectives", "factors", or "goals", but all mean the same thing in this context. The emergence of the three dimensions paradigm has few theoretical foundations but gradually emerged without a single point of origin. Nevertheless, the distinction itself is rarely questioned, and the "three dimension" conception of sustainability is a dominant interpretation within the literature.

The Brundtland Report stated that the environment and development are inseparable when trying to achieve sustainability. It also stated that sustainable development is a global concept that links environmental and social issues and is equally important for developing countries and industrialized countries:

The 'environment' is where we all live; and 'development' is what we all do in attempting to improve our lot within that abode. The two are inseparable. [...] We came to see that a new development path was required, one that sustained human progress not just in a few pieces for a few years, but for the entire planet into the distant future. Thus 'sustainable development' becomes a goal not just for the 'developing' nations, but for industrial ones as well.

— Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland Report),

Furthermore, Agenda 21 from 1992 explicitly talks about economic, social, and environmental dimensions:

Countries could develop systems for monitoring and evaluation of progress towards achieving sustainable development by adopting indicators that measure changes across economic, social and environmental dimensions.

— United Nations Conference on Environment & Development - Earth Summit (1992),

Agenda 2030 conceived the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with their 169 targets as balancing "the three dimensions of sustainable development, the economic, social and environmental".

Hierarchy

Scholars have discussed how to rank the three dimensions of sustainability; many publications state that the environmental dimension (also referred to as planetary integrity or ecological integrity) is the most important. For example, an assessment of the political impacts of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2022 stated that the integrity of the earth's life-support systems must be maintained for long-term sustainability. The authors said that the SDGs "fail to recognize that planetary, people and prosperity concerns are all part of one earth system, and that the protection of planetary integrity should not be a means to an end, but an end in itself". The fact that the SDGs do not prioritize environmental protection is problematic as this could incentivize countries to further subordinate environmental priorities in their developmental plans. The authors state that "sustainability on a planetary scale is only achievable under an overarching Planetary Integrity Goal that recognizes the biophysical limits of the planet".

The protection of ecological integrity (or environmental sustainability) can be seen as the core of sustainability. Consequently, this sets limits to economic and social development.

The nested ellipses diagram of the three dimensions of sustainability also gives the environmental dimension a special status: it implies a situation where society is embedded in the environment, and economic conditions are embedded in society. It therefore stresses a hierarchy. A similar depiction of the three dimensions or systems is the "SDG wedding cake" model by the Stockholm Environment Institute, where the economy is a smaller subset of the societal system that in turn is a smaller subset of the biosphere system.

Environmental sustainability

Further information: Human impact on the environment

Increasing awareness of environmental pollution in the 1960s and 1970s provided the basis for what was later discussed as sustainability and sustainable development. This process began with concern for environmental issues (natural ecosystems or natural resources and human environment) in the 1970s, and was later extended to all the systems that support life on Earth (including human society). Reducing these negative impacts on the environment would improve environmental sustainability.

While environmental pollution is not a new phenomenon, it remained a local or regional concern for most of human history. This changed in the 20th century, when awareness of global environmental issues increased. The harmful effects and global spread of pesticides like DDT were first discussed in the 1960s. In the 1970s it was shown that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were depleting the ozone layer. This led to the de facto ban of CFCs with the Montreal Protocol in 1987.

The effect of greenhouse gases on the global climate was discussed by Arrhenius in the early 20th century (see also history of climate change science). Climate change as affected by human activities became an important topic in academic and political discourse several decades later, leading to the establishment of the IPCC in 1988 and the UNFCCC in 1992.

In 1972, the UN held its first conference on environmental issues. The UN Conference on the Human Environment stated the importance of the protection and improvement of the human environment,and emphasized the need to protect wildlife and natural habitats:

The natural resources of the earth, including the air, water, land, flora and fauna and [...] natural ecosystems must be safeguarded for the benefit of present and future generations through careful planning or management, as appropriate.

— UN Conference on the Human Environment,

In 2000, the UN launched eight Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by the global community by 2015. Goal 7 was to "ensure environmental sustainability", but did not mention the concepts of social or economic sustainability.

Public discussion of the environmental dimension of sustainability often revolves around prevailing issues of the time. The dominant environmental issues in the 21st century have been climate change, loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, and air and water pollution (including marine plastic pollution and ocean acidification). Man people are concerned about human impacts on the environment, such as impacts on the atmosphere, land, and water resources.

Many scientists have said that the most troubling environmental issue is "potentially catastrophic climate change due to rising greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and agricultural production—particularly from farming ruminants for meat consumption".

The overall impact of human activities not only on the biosphere but even on the geological formation of the Earth led Paul Crutzen to speak of the current geological epoch as the Anthropocene. The impact of human activity on local to global ecosystems can reach tipping points beyond which irreversible harmful developments will be triggered, such as to the climate.

Economic sustainability

To some, the economic dimension of sustainability is as controversial as the concept of sustainability itself. If the term "development" in sustainable development is understood in economic terms ("economic development") or even identified with economic growth, the notion of sustainable development can become a way of whitewashing an ecologically destructive economic system because of the perceived trade-offs between "welfare and prosperity for all" (in terms of material needs such as food, water, health, and shelter) and environmental conservation.

On the other hand, especially for people in the least developed countries, economic development may reduce hunger or energy poverty. For that reason, the first target of Sustainable Development Goal 8 calls for economic growth as a driving force for societal progress and well-being. This target is to: "sustain per capita economic growth in accordance with national circumstances and, in particular, at least 7 per cent gross domestic product growth per annum in the least developed countries". In 2011 UNEP cited the big challenge to society to "expand economic activities" while reducing the environmental impacts of economic activities. In other words, humanity will have to determine how societal progress (potentially by economic development) can be reached without excess strain on the environment.

According to the Brundtland report: "Poverty is a major cause and also effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality." The report demands a new development path for sustained human progress and highlights that this is a goal for both the developing and the industrialized nations.

UNEP and UNDP launched the Poverty-Environment Initiative in 2005, which aims at the triple vision of having neither extreme poverty, nor greenhouse gas emissions, nor net natural asset loss, which is proposed to guide the structural reform that will enable poor groups and countries to achieve the SDGs at scale. Such initiatives might be seen as a measure to mitigate the trade-off between a large ecological footprint and high status of economic development.

Social sustainability

The social dimension of sustainability is the least well defined and least understood. A possible definition is that a socially sustainable society should ensure that people are not hindered by structural obstacles in the areas of health, influence, competence, impartiality, and meaning-making.

Some scholars place social issues at the very center of sustainability discussions. They suggest that all of the domains of sustainability are social, including ecological, economic, political, and cultural sustainability. These domains all depend on the relationship between the social and the natural, with the ecological domain defined as human embeddedness in the environment. From this perspective, social sustainability encompasses all human activities. It is not just relevant to the focused intersection of economics, the environment, and the social.

Broad strategies for more sustainable social systems include improved education and the political empowerment of women, especially in developing countries; greater regard for social justice, notably equity between rich and poor both within and between countries; and, perhaps most of all, intergenerational equity. One step to social sustainability would be to provide more social safety nets to vulnerable populations globally.

Social sustainability is thought to lead to livable communities which would be "equitable, diverse, connected and democratic and provide a good quality of life".

Proposed additional dimensions

Some sustainability experts and practitioners have proposed more dimensions of sustainability, such as institutional, cultural, political, and technical dimensions. Some consider resource use and financial sustainability as two additional dimensions of sustainability. In infrastructure projects, for instance, one must ask whether sufficient financing capability for maintenance exists.

Other frameworks bypass the compartmentalization of sustainability completely.

Cultural sustainability

Further information: Cultural sustainability

Some academics and institutions (such as Agenda 21 for culture and the United Cities and Local Governments) have pointed out that a fourth dimension should be added to the dimensions of sustainability since the economic, environmental, and social dimensions do not seem to completely reflect the complexity of contemporary society. This discussion includes culture in sustainable development through developing a solid cultural policy and advocating a cultural dimension in all public policies. Another example of this four-dimensional view was the Circles of Sustainability approach, which included cultural sustainability.

Interactions between dimensions

Environmental and economic dimensions

Further information: Weak and strong sustainability

The relationship between the environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability is a debated topic. The concept of weak sustainability assumes that natural capital (or environmental resources) can be substituted with "capital made by humans". An example is the technological progress that has solved many environmental problems, such as using environmental technologies to reduce pollution. The concept of strong sustainability, on the other hand, states that nature (or natural capital) provides functions that cannot be replaced by technology. Thus, strong sustainability acknowledges the need to preserve ecological integrity. It emphasizes that many resources and ecosystem services cannot be readily recovered or repaired once lost. Examples include biodiversity, pollination, fertile soils, assimilation capacity, clean air, clean water, and climate regulation.

Robert Ayres, a physicist and economist, has argued that, in practice, economic decisions are taken at very narrow social scales, such as for the interests of individuals, family groups, or firms, and not with regards to future generations and planetary welfare.

Weak sustainability has been criticized as "popular among governments, and business, but profoundly wrong and not even weak, as there is no alternative to preserving the earth's ecological integrity". This statement underlines the central importance of the environmental dimension of sustainability. For example, in 2020 the World Economic Forum stated that: "Our research shows that $44 trillion of economic value generation – more than half of the world's total GDP – is moderately or highly dependent on nature and its services and is therefore exposed to nature loss." Three large economic sectors are highly dependent on nature: construction, agriculture, and food and beverages. Drivers of nature loss include: land use change, sea use change, climate change, natural resource use and exploitation, pollution, and invasive alien species.

Trade-offs

The notion of trade-offs between different dimensions, for example between environmental management and economic growth, is frequently discussed. Balancing the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of sustainability is difficult. For example, environmental and social costs are not generally paid by the entity that creates them, and are not expressed in the market price. Usually, these costs are either not addressed or are left to be resolved by government policy.

Trade-offs between environmental management and economic growth have to be discussed. However, there is often disagreement about the relative importance of each. To resolve this, there is a need to integrate, balance, and reconcile the dimensions.

It has been argued that the physical limits of Earth and its ecosystems mean that the "aspirations for universal human well-being embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals" cannot be supported under current trends.

Measurement tools

Further information: Sustainability metrics and indices

Urban sustainability analysis of the greater urban area of the city of São Paulo using the 'Circles of Sustainability' method of the UN and Metropolis Association.

This section is an excerpt from Sustainability measurement.[edit]

Sustainability measurement is a set of frameworks or indicators used to measure how sustainable something is. This includes processes, products, services and businesses. Sustainability is difficult to quantify. It may even be impossible to measure as there is no fixed definition. To measure sustainability, frameworks and indicators consider environmental, social and economic domains. The metrics vary by use case and are still evolving. They include indicators, benchmarks and audits. They include sustainability standards and certification systems like Fairtrade and Organic. They also involve indices and accounting. They can include assessment, appraisal and other reporting systems. The metrics are used over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. For organizations, sustainability measures include corporate sustainability reporting and Triple Bottom Line accounting. For countries, they include estimates of the quality of sustainability governance or quality of life measures, or environmental assessments like the Environmental Sustainability Index and Environmental Performance Index. Some methods let us track sustainable development. These include the UN Human Development Index and ecological footprints.

Environmental impacts of humans

Further information: Planetary boundaries and Ecological footprint

Methods to measure or describe human impacts on the Earth include the ecological footprint, ecological debt, carrying capacity, and sustainable yield.

The concept of planetary boundaries considers that there are absolute thresholds of the carrying capacity of the planet which must not be crossed in order to prevent irreversible harm to the Earth. Environmental issues that have been proposed to have planetary boundaries include: climate change, biodiversity loss (changed in 2015 to "change in biosphere integrity"), biogeochemical (nitrogen and phosphorus), ocean acidification, land use, freshwater, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosols, and chemical pollution (changed in 2015 to "introduction of novel entities").

The IPAT formula, which was developed in the 1970s, states that the environmental impact of humans is proportional to human population, affluence and technology. Therefore, ways to increase environmental sustainability would include human population control, reducing consumption and affluence (e.g. reducing energy consumption), and developing innovative or green technologies (e.g. renewable energy). In other words, the broad aim would be to have fewer consumers and less environmental footprint per consumer or person.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment from 2005 measured 24 ecosystem services and concluded that only four have shown improvement over the last 50 years, while 15 are in serious decline and five are in a precarious condition.

Economic costs

The doughnut model, with indicators to what extent the ecological ceilings are overshot and social foundations are not met yet

The field of environmental economics has proposed different methods for calculating the cost (or price) associated with the use of public natural resources. The damage to ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity were calculated in The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project from 2007 to 2011.

Sustainability economics takes a long-term view of human welfare. One way of doing this is by considering the social discount rate, which is the rate by which future costs and benefits should be discounted when making decisions. The more one is concerned about future generations, the lower the social discount rate should be. Another approach is to put an economic value on ecosystem services so that environmental damage can be assessed against perceived short-term welfare benefits. For example, it has been calculated that, "for every dollar spent on ecosystem restoration, between three and 75 dollars of economic benefits from ecosystem goods and services can be expected".

In recent years, the concept of doughnut economics has been developed by economist Kate Raworth to integrate social and environmental sustainability into economic thinking. The social dimension is here portrayed as a minimum standard to which a society should aspire, whereas an outer limit is imposed by the carrying capacity of the planet.

Barriers

The political goal of sustainability formulated in the "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" (the 17 Sustainable Development Goals) is very comprehensive and ambitious. The declaration stated that "In these Goals and targets, we are setting out a supremely ambitious and transformational vision" and described the SDGs as being "of unprecedented scope and significance". Due to the high complexity of this goal, there are many reasons why sustainability is so difficult to achieve, known as sustainability barriers. These barriers need to be analyzed and understood before they can be addressed effectively.

Some sustainability barriers have their origins in nature and its complexity ("everything is related"). Others are rooted in the human condition: the value-action gap, for instance, relates to the fact that we often do not act according to our convictions. These barriers have been called intrinsic to the concept of sustainability as such.

Other barriers are extrinsic to the concept of sustainability. This means they could in principle be overcome, for example by putting a price tag on the consumption of public goods. A number of extrinsic sustainability barriers are related to the dominant institutional frameworks where market mechanisms often fail for public goods. Also, legal frameworks rarely consider issues of intergenerational justice and future generations. Existing societies, economies, and cultures incite consumption expansion, so the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change.

Furthermore, there are several barriers related to the difficulties of implementing sustainability policies. There are trade-offs to be made between objectives of environmental policies (such as nature conservation) and economic development (such as poverty reduction). There are also trade-offs between short-term profit and long-term viability. Political pressures generally favor the short term over the long term and thus constitute a barrier to actions oriented toward improving sustainability.

Barriers working against sustainability can also be due to the Zeitgeist, such as consumerism and short-termism.

Transitions

Components and characteristics

A sustainability transition is defined by the European Environment Agency as "a fundamental and wide-ranging transformation of a socio-technical system towards a more sustainable configuration that helps alleviate persistent problems such as climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss or resource scarcities." The concept of sustainability transitions is a similar to the concept of energy transitions.

It has been stated that a sustainability transition must be "supported by a new kind of culture, a new kind of collaboration, [and] a new kind of leadership". It requires substantial investment in "new and greener capital goods, while simultaneously shifting capital away from unsustainable systems" and actively demoting unsustainable options.

To achieve a sustainability transition, societies would have to change their fundamental values and organizing principles. These new values would emphasize "the quality of life and material sufficiency, human solidarity and global equity, and affinity with nature and environmental sustainability". Some scientists have said that a transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements.

Scientists have pointed out that: "Sustainability transitions come about in diverse ways, and all require civil-society pressure and evidence-based advocacy, political leadership, and a solid understanding of policy instruments, markets, and other drivers."

Four overlapping processes of transformation, each with different political dynamics, have been proposed: they are either led by technology, markets, government, or citizens.

Action principles

Action principles that people and decision-makers can follow to facilitate more sustainable societies have been divided into four types:

• Nature-related principles: Decarbonize; reduce human environmental impact by efficiency, sufficiency and consistency; be net-positive – build up environmental and societal capital; prefer local, seasonal, plant-based and labor-intensive; polluter-pays principle; precautionary principle; and appreciate and celebrate the beauty of nature
• Personal principles: practice contemplation, apply policies cautiously, celebrate frugality
• Society-related principles: Grant the least privileged the greatest support; seek mutual understanding, trust and multiple wins; strengthen social cohesion and collaboration; engage the stakeholders; foster education – share knowledge and collaborate.
• Systems-related principles: Apply systems thinking, foster diversity, increase the transparency of the publicly relevant, maintain or increase option diversity.

Example steps

The update to the 1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity proposed some steps humanity can take in three areas to transition to environmental sustainability:

• Reduced consumption: reducing food waste, promoting dietary shifts towards mostly plant-based foods.
• Reducing the number of consumers: further reducing fertility rates and thus population growth.
• Technology and nature conservation: maintaining nature's ecosystem services, promoting new green technologies, and adopting renewable energy sources while ending subsidies to energy production through fossil fuels.

In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly announced in the Agenda 2030 for the Sustainable Development Goals: "We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient path." The 17 goals and targets lay out some of the transformative steps. For example, with regard to the future of the planet Earth, the UN's pledge is to "protect the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consumption and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and taking urgent action on climate change, so that it can support the needs of the present and future generations".

Options for overcoming barriers

Further information: Sustainable development § Pathways

Issues around economic growth

Further information: Eco-economic decoupling, Degrowth, and Steady-state economy

In order to resolve tradeoffs between economic growth and environmental conservation, the concept of eco-economic decoupling has been proposed. The idea would be to decouple environmental bads from economic goods as a path towards sustainability. This would mean "using less resources per unit of economic output and reducing the environmental impact of any resources that are used or economic activities that are undertaken". Pressure on the environment can be measured by the intensity of pollutants emitted. Decoupling can then be measured by following changes in the emission intensity associated with economic output. Examples of absolute long-term decoupling are rare, but some industrialized countries have decoupled GDP growth from both production and, to a lesser extent, consumption-based CO₂ emissions. However, even in this example, decoupling alone is not sufficient and needs to be complemented by "sufficiency-oriented strategies and strict enforcement of absolute reduction targets".

A 2020 meta-analysis of 180 scientific studies found that there is "no evidence of the kind of decoupling needed for ecological sustainability" and that "in the absence of robust evidence, the goal of decoupling rests partly on faith". The possibilities for decoupling and thus the feasibility of green growth have been questioned, and it has been argued that decoupling on its own will not sufficiently reduce environmental pressures, but needs to include the issue of economic growth. Adequate decoupling is currently not taking place due to rising energy expenditure, rebound effects, problem shifting, the underestimated impact of services, the limited potential of recycling, insufficient and inappropriate technological change, and cost-shifting.

The decoupling of economic growth from environmental deterioration is difficult because environmental and social costs are not generally paid by the entity that causes them, and are therefore not expressed in the market price. For example, the cost of packaging may be factored into the price of a product, but the cost of disposing of that packaging may not. In economics, such factors are considered externalities, in this case a negative externality. Usually, externalities are either not covered at all or left to be addressed by government action or by local governance.

Some examples of potential incorporation of environmental and social costs and benefits into economic activities include: taxing the activity (the polluter pays); subsidizing activities with positive effects (rewarding stewardship); and outlawing particular levels of damaging practices (legal limits on pollution).

Government action and local governance

Without government action, natural resources are often over-exploited and destroyed in the long term. A textbook on natural resources and environmental economics stated in 2011: "Nobody who has seriously studied the issues believes that the economy's relationship to the natural environment can be left entirely to market forces."

Related to this aspect, Elinor Ostrom (winner of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences) stated that the choice should not be limited to either the market or the national government, and that local governance (or self-governance) can be a third option. She studied how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources. She showed that, over time, communities using natural resources such as pastures, fishing waters, and forests can establish rules for use and maintenance that lead to both economic and ecological sustainability. An important requirement for the success of self-governance is to have groups in which participants are frequently communicating. In this case, groups can manage the usage of common goods without overexploitation. Based on Ostrom's work, it has been argued that: "Common-pool resources today are overcultivated because the different agents do not know each other and cannot directly communicate with one another."

Global governance

Questions of global concern are difficult to tackle because global issues would require global solutions, but existing global organizations (UN, WTO, and others) are not sufficiently equipped. They lack sanctioning mechanisms to enforce existing global regulations. Furthermore, they are not always accepted by all nations (an example is the International Criminal Court), their agendas are not aligned (for example UNEP, UNDP, and WTO), or they are accused of nepotism and mismanagement. There are also challenges that multilateral international agreements, treaties, and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) face and which result in barriers to sustainability. There is a dependence on voluntary commitments (for example Nationally Determined Contributions for climate action), existing national or international regulation not being effectively enforced, and regulatory white spaces and control deficits for international actors (including multi-national enterprises). Lastly, many global organizations (such as WTO, IMF, World Bank, UNFCCC, G7, G8, OECD) are perceived to lack legitimacy and democracy.

Responses by nongovernmental stakeholders

Businesses

Today, the public primarily associates sustainable production with special seals of quality (here the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) seal for wood products in a forest in Germany).

Sustainable business practices integrate ecological concerns with social and economic ones. One accounting framework for this approach, the triple bottom line, uses the phrase "people, planet, and profit". The circular economy is a related concept in sustainability with the ultimate goal of decoupling environmental pressure from economic growth.

Growing attention towards sustainability has led to the formation of many organizations such as the Sustainability Consortium of the Society for Organizational Learning, the Sustainable Business Institute, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Supply chain sustainability refers to companies' efforts to consider the environmental and human impacts of their products' journey through the supply chain, from raw materials sourcing to production, storage, and delivery, and every transportation link in between.

Religious communities

Further information: Religion and environmentalism

Religious leaders have stressed the importance of caring for nature and environmental sustainability. In 2015 over 150 leaders from various faiths issued a joint statement to the UN Climate Summit in Paris 2015. They reiterated a statement made in the Interfaith Summit in New York in 2014:

As representatives from different faith and religious traditions, we stand together to express deep concern for the consequences of climate change on the earth and its people, all entrusted, as our faiths reveal, to our common care. Climate change is indeed a threat to life, a precious gift we have received and that we need to care for.

Individuals

Further information: Sustainable living

Individuals can change their lifestyles, practice ethical consumerism, and embrace frugality to live more sustainably. Sustainable living approaches can reduce environmental impacts by altering the built environment to make cities more sustainable. Such approaches include sustainable transport, sustainable architecture, and zero emission housing. Research can identify the main issues to focus on (e.g. flying, meat and dairy products, car driving, and household sufficiency) and how cultures of sufficiency, care, solidarity, and simplicity can be created.

Some young people are using activism, litigation, and on-the-ground efforts to advance sustainability, particularly in the area of climate action.

Critiques

Impossible to reach

The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development have been criticized from different angles. According to Dennis Meadows, one of the authors of the first report to the Club of Rome, called "The Limits to Growth", many people deceive themselves by using the Brundtland definition of sustainability. This is because the needs of the present generation are actually not met today, and the economic activities to meet present needs will substantially diminish the options of future generations. Another criticism is that the paradigm of sustainability is no longer suitable as a guide for transformation because our societies are "socially and ecologically self-destructive consumer societies".

Some scholars have even proclaimed the end of the concept of sustainability due to "the realities of the Anthropocene"; humans now have a significant impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems (for example causing unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss and climate change). It might become impossible to pursue a goal of sustainability when faced with these complex, radical, and dynamic issues. Others have called sustainability a utopian ideal: "We need to keep sustainability as an ideal; an ideal which we might never reach, which might be utopian, but still a necessary one."

Vagueness

The term is often hijacked and thus can lose its meaning: "Ask anyone what it means and they will give you a wide range of answers from saving the planet to recycling". As sustainability is a concept that provides a normative structure (describing what human society regards as good or desirable), a specific definition may never be possible.

However, it has been argued that while sustainability is vague and contested it is not meaningless. Although lacking in a singular definition, a concept such as sustainability might still be useful. Scholars have argued that its fuzziness can actually be liberating, since it means that "the basic goal of sustainability (maintaining or improving desirable conditions, and more broadly strengthening the capacity to do so) can be pursued with more flexibility".

Confusion and greenwashing

Sustainability has a reputation as a buzzword. Confusion and mistrust can result when the terms "sustainability" and "sustainable development" are used in ways that are contradictory to more widely accepted conceptualizations, so clear identification of how the term is being used in a particular situation is beneficial.

Greenwashing is the practice of deceptive marketing by a company or organization by providing misleading information about the sustainability of a product, policy, or other activity. Investors are wary of this issue as it exposes them to risk. The reliability of eco-labels is also doubtful in some cases. Ecolabelling is a voluntary method of environmental performance certification and labelling that is attached to food and consumer products. The most credible eco-labels are those that are developed with close participation from all relevant stakeholders.

See also

• List of sustainability topics
• Outline of sustainability

References

Environment portal

Earth sciences portal

Ecology portal