What is sustainability?
"Sustainability" is defined as the study of how natural systems function, remain diverse and produce everything it needs for the ecology to stay in balance. It also acknowledges that human civilization takes resources to sustain our modern way of life [1]. There are countless examples throughout human history where a civilisation has damaged its own environment and seriously affected its own survival chances (some of which Jared Diamond explores in his book Collapse: How Complex Societies Choose to Fail or Survive [2]). Sustainability takes into account how we might live in harmony with the natural world around us, protecting it from damage and destruction.
Why maintain sustainability is important?
We now live in a modern, consumerist and largely urban existence throughout the developed world and we consume a lot of natural resources every day. In our urban centers, we consume more power than those who live in rural settings [3] (p3-4). Urban centers use a lot more power than average, keeping our streets and civic buildings lit, to power our appliances, our heating, and other public and household power requirements. That's not to say that sustainable living should only focus on people who live in urban centers though, there are improvements to be made everywhere. It is estimated that we use about 40% more resources every year than we can put back - and that needs to change [4] (p2). Sustainability and sustainable development focus on balancing that fine line between competing needs - our need to move forward technologically and economically and the needs to protect the environments in which we and others live. Noteworthy, sustainability is not just about the environment [5]. It's also about our health as a society in ensuring that no people or areas of life suffer as a result of environmental legislation, and about examining the longer-term effects of the actions humanity takes and asking questions about how it may be improved [3].
It's no secret that people are living longer and that the global population is on the rise [6]. In fact, our world in data calculates there will be 11.2 billion people living on the Earth by the year 2100 [7]. This population explosion is perhaps one of the greatest reasons why sustainable development is important.
Targeting short-term gains, humans have destroyed the natural systems at a great pace. But it is difficult to estimate the impact of anthropogenic activities on ecology, in terms of economics and even the survivability rate of different life forms on Earth. Although technology has also advanced at a great pace, still, we have hungry people who do not get enough calories to grow normally or even survive. We have issues of availability of potable water, pure air to breathe, and ever-increasing problem of land degradation. Saline soils are going to increase by 50% up to 2050, and land degradation has affected almost every country of the world [8]. The human population is going to produce 27 billion tons of municipal solid waste by 2050 [8]. Amount of non-degradable wastes is increasing by the minute and some of the dangerous recalcitrant are accumulating in the food chains and are the cause of contamination of natural resources and extinction of species apart from causing harm to the humans. As per a recent report published in Scientific Reports, a mass of plastic waste named as "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" approximately 1.6 million km2 in size (twice the size of Texas, or three times as big as Borneo island in Indonesia), is floating on the surface of Pacific Ocean [9]. Plastics are also accumulating on land and in water bodies at an unprecedented rate; hence we need to find a quick alternative for these harmful creations of humans, besides a great input of technology and an increasing role of microorganisms to manage and tackle this issue [8].
The underlying concern of modern society is that while today people are enjoying the comforts of economic development, the future generations are on the verge of confronting scarce natural resources and polluted environment. It is our most important responsibility to leave the planet as a self-sustainable system providing equal opportunities for survival not only to our future generations but also to all other species cohabiting with us.
History of Sustainability
Humans have, since the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution and maybe even before then, been a consumer rather than a replenisher of environmental resources. From hunter-gatherer societies that moved into an area to use up its resources in a season before setting up camp or moving on, only to return the following year to do the same, the development of a surplus economy saw permanent settlements. Slash and burn farming replaced natural wilderness often with uniform crop plantation [10] (p2483) and camps gave way to settlements, then eventually villages, towns, and cities, which would put pressure on the environment.
Sometimes, the environmental pressures forced people into making these changes in the first place (growing human population being one of those pressures). Often, they eventually had to move on to somewhere new where the environment could better sustain them and their practices, or make further changes to their existing environment. There was no real concept of sustainable living, even if the people of the distant past understood that soil had maximum fertility that could be exhausted and replenished with livestock.
Many societies collapsed due to an inability to adapt to the conditions caused by these unsustainable practices [2]. Whether that was introducing alien species that upset the balance of the ecosystem, cutting down too many trees at once, or even a failure to adapt to natural fluctuations in the climate, we are far more aware in the modern world about the potential damage caused by human action. Cultural change often led to the survival of those societies beyond what might have been expected under the circumstances [10] (p2485).
Though some Renaissance and Enlightenment philosophers would express concern about resources and over-population and whether these were sustainable in the long term, these people were not taken seriously at the time other than as a hypothetical question. It would take until the 20th century before we would understand the impact that we could have on our environment. Environmental damage, pollution, destabilising soils by cutting down trees, fossil fuels, and other environmental issues led to a growing concern about the environment and whether we were or could damage our own ecosystem.
After The United Nations was founded after World War II, at least two organizations were established to tackle the issues about sustainable development. In 1945, UNESCO was established to promote the importance of human culture and of science [11]. Today, their remit is "to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development, and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information" [12]. The second organization is UNDP, established in 1965. UNDP formulated 17 Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted by all member states of the United Nations in 2015. Its mission is "to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030" [13].
By the late 20th century, the science of climate change was firmly established. We knew by the 1980s about the problems of the greenhouse effect and the destruction of the ozone layer [14]. Coming very late in the century, an awareness of the notion that some of our resources - particularly fossil fuels - was finite. Therefore, we should make efforts to move to renewable methods of power. It was then that we saw the social, economic, and scientific birth of the environmental movement.
The Three Pillars of Sustainability
In 2005, the World Summit on Social Development identified three core areas that contribute to the philosophy and social science of sustainable development. These "pillars" in many national standards and certification schemes form the backbone of tackling the core areas that the world now faces. The Brundtland Commission described it as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" [15]. We must consider the future then, in making our decisions about the present.
Economic Development
This is the issue that proves the most problematic as most people disagree on political ideology what is and is not economically sound and how it will affect businesses and, by extension, jobs and employability [3] (p4). It is also about providing incentives for businesses and other organizations to adhere to sustainability guidelines beyond their normal legislative requirements. Also, to encourage and foster incentives for the average person to do their bit where and when they can; one person can rarely achieve much, but taken as a group, effects in some areas are cumulative. The supply and demand market is consumerist in nature, and modern life requires a lot of resources every single day [15]; for the sake of the environment, getting what we consume under control is the paramount issue. Economic development is about giving people what they want without compromising the quality of life, especially in the developing world, and reducing "red tape", i.e., the unnecessary bureaucracy of doing the right thing, which may add the financial burden.
Social Development
There are many facets to this pillar. Most importantly is awareness of and legislation protection of the health of people from pollution and other harmful activities of businesses and other organisations [15]. In North America, Europe, and the rest of the developed world, there are strong checks and programmes of legislation in place to ensure that people's health and wellness are strongly protected. It is also about maintaining access to essential resources without compromising the quality of life. The most prominent hot topic for many people right now is sustainable housing and how we can better build the houses we live in from sustainable material. The final element is education - encouraging people to participate in environmental sustainability and teaching them about the effects of environmental protection as well as warning of the dangers if we cannot achieve our goals [16] (p7-12).
Environmental Protection
We all know what we need to do to protect the environment, whether that is recycling, reducing our power consumption by switching electronic devices off rather than putting them on standby mode, by walking short journeys instead of taking the bus. Businesses are regulated to prevent pollution and to keep their own carbon emissions low. There are incentives for installing renewable power sources in our homes and businesses. Environmental protection is the third pillar, and to many, the primary concern of the future of humanity. It defines how we should study and protect ecosystems, air quality, integrity, and sustainability of our resources and focusing on the elements that place stress on the environment [15]. It also concerns how technology will drive our greener future; the EPA recognized that developing technology and biotechnology is key to this sustainability, and protecting the environment of the future from potential damage that technological advances could potentially bring [1].
A Sustainable Future
It is not yet clear what our sustainable future will look like. But, with emerging technologies and the improvement of older cleaner fuel sources, many people now look to a post-fossil fuel world - including businesses. Since the 1950s, we have experienced unprecedented growth, including intensive farming, a technological revolution, and a massive increase in our power needs [17] (p2), putting even greater pressure and strain on the planet's resources. We are also far more aware of the plight of the developing world and that facing our planet as we now observe both natural and human-caused disasters and the effects that these can have on the ecosystems and human population. We must develop new, cleaner technologies to cope with our energy demands, though sustainability is not just about the environment.
The biggest social activism movement related to the social side of sustainability development has been programmes such as Fair Trade and the Rainforest Alliance in encouraging good farming practices. At the same time, these programmes ensuring farmers who produce luxury goods such as coffee and cocoa receive a decent living wage [11]. Activist and sustainability professionals hope to remove trade barriers in the future so that they may benefit everyone, contributing to the economic and social development core of sustainability while promoting good environmental practice [15].
S.A.D Team
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