What is sustainability?
We can define sustainable development as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Two concepts can be extracted from that definition. The first is that the development of our society is intended to fulfill our needs. These needs can be primary such as the need for food, shelter, hygienic conditions or related to our modern way of living, which are social and cultural determined, such as using cars to commute, having a computer with internet access to communicate or having a television for entertainment.
The second concept outlined in the definition above is that the environment capacity of supporting our development is limited. The consumption standards to fulfill those needs that are not primary must be compatible to the current state of technology and social organizations capacity, aiming for long term sustainability.
Although many of us instinctively think of the environment when hearing ‘sustainable development’ it is important to underline that full sustainability is only achieved when the development is economically viable, socially shared and compatible to the earth’s capacity of supporting it.
In that sense, sustainable development elements are usually understood as a three legged stool, each leg being the economic, the social and the environmental aspects of the development. Those aspects, as the metaphor clearly states, are closely interrelated and we cannot pursue one without regarding to the others.
The Plus Network - ICSC suggest the planing cycle represented below as a reference for cities that want to become sustainable. It represents the stages of the planning as a never ending spiral that leads to sustainability.
This can only be achieved by disseminating values that encourage consumption within the ecological possibilities of supporting that production and also by actions that leads us towards a more equal society so we all can aspirate to take part in the society’s development.
Having that in mind, in this website we chose to focus on the environmental aspects of sustainability, but always considering what is economically viable and socially responsible.