Defining Sustainability

And whether it's Al Gore touring the globe to talk about climate change, or Robert Kennedy Jr's concerns over environmental justice, there is no shortage of high profile commentators on sustainability:

"Sustainability means living on nature's income rather than its capital."
     —Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel Prize Winner

Other thought leaders have fleshed out these definitions further, some of them providing much more tangible applications and implications:

"Sustainability is an economic state where the demands placed upon the environment by people and commerce can be met without reducing the capacity of the environment to provide for future generations. It can also be expressed in the simple terms of an economic golden rule for the restorative economy: leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life of the environment, make amends if you do."
     —Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce. 1994

Interestingly, despite his numerous books on the subject, Paul Hawken is still perhaps best known as the entrepreneurial force behind the company that still bears his name (Smith & Hawken). In his capacity as a recognizable business figure, he is not alone in his pioneering approach. In fact, while activists, NGOs, governments and the media all play a role in defining what sustainability means, some of its most vocal and forceful proponents are to be found in the business world:

"What we thought was boundless has limits, and we are beginning to hit them."
     —Robert Shapiro, (former) CEO and chairman of Monsanto, 1997

Yet despite the growing awareness of this way of thinking, my spell checker still doesn't recognize the word. So right now, "sustainability" is caught in an odd place: in some circles, it has obtained an almost-irritating buzzword status; yet—on the other hand—it has hardly achieved mainstream recognition or understanding. My parents aren't exactly up to speed on this.

So what will become of it? Will sustainability go the way of Y2K? Is it a business fad soon to be replaced by something else in a marketplace constantly looking for that "next thing"? A remark by Thomas Jefferson over 200 years ago provides contrary evidence to this possibility. The ethic he described demonstrates that although the term "sustainable development" is new, the concept has been around for a long time:

"Then I say the earth belongs to each... generation during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and encumbrances, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation. Then, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence."
     —Thomas Jefferson, Third US President, guy found on nickels, 1789

Moving forward, the Center for Sustainable Design will be trying to provide a succinct definition that speaks directly to designers. To get that ball rolling, we would like to hear from you. What does sustainability mean to you as a designer?

For further reading, the resources section of this site features several well written books on the topic. You can also take a look at these links for a deeper dive:

http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/sustain/overview.php

Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development:
http://www.complusalliance.org/templates/Complus2/layout.asp?type=p&MenuId=NDg4