The who, what, when, where, why, and how of Sustainability

Sustainability is a word that hold many definitions that, creates a broad scope of its many concepts. Along with its many definitions and concepts, there are levels of denotation and connotation it presents as well. When one closes their eyes what does the mind perceives what Sustainability is? What colors come to mind? How about the textures or objects? What are the overall type of 5 senses that one would associate with sustainability such as the scent, taste, small, sound, and sight? What does it sound like and what time of day is most associated with sustainability? What about the term sustainable, does it seems more of a constated focus? Does that term function as an enhancement to content that orbits sustainability? Are concepts of sustainability sustainable or is the sustainable content belong within sustainability?

Welcome to our digest as we unpack how sustainability in scope expands though concepts in addition to what these concepts are; and how we can relate and apply to them in a high brow layman’s context to the high ranking delegate seeking to increase influence in a foreign administration to the at home matriarch wife or patriarch uncle leveraging both nuclear and extended family duties on how a systematic approach to sustainable living can be beneficial.

The premiere definition of what Sustainability is as a subject matter, application, and a form of a multi-tier policy that synthesizes an eclectic set of disciplines. This understanding includes that earth and its ecosystem of lifeforms included. By sustaining equilibrium from the plant’s origin billions of years to the establishment of the United States of America, Sustainability is ensured by not comprising today at the expense of future generations.

We’ll continue to answer all these questions as we explore more how this concept materialize as a buzzword and an institutional ideology.

Within our discuss of this topic, we will feature a set of time periods that will also be featured and referenced as milestones in the history of sustainability. Here are several listed here:

  • The pre-colonial years when various of indigenous cultures across the world practiced sustainable methods that were intrinsic for survival and adaptability.
  • The advent of proto sustainability both the 1st industrial revolution and the 1st machine age
  • Post World War II and the effects of pre-civil rights/mid-cold war international economic development across developed, 2nd world, and 3rd world nations
  • Post civil rights conjunction with both the U.S. relinquishment from the gold standard to the fiat platform and the environmental regulation standards
  • The modern interpretation of classical sustainability began with UN Conference on the Human Environment during both the cold war and the environmental regulation framework shaped fractionally to partially the gold to fiat U.S. dollar transition
  • The term, ‘sustainable development’ is established also a decade after the executive branch instituted the fiat standard.
  • During the final quarter of the cold war era presented various of thought leaders from Gro Harlem Brundtland to Bill McDonough over the course of 15 years prior to the beginning of the Afghanistan war, the NATO Expansion, the Canadian G8 summit, the scheduled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, and the South African Earth Summit.

What we can deduct is that Sustainability is this in regards the passage of time for the long-term, and we can easily reason than because of the decades of accumulation of not only adverse environmental impact but both the inequalities and inequities of the human condition within across all spectrums of human activity: education, entertainment, economics, law, politics, labor, religion, sex, and war.

Sustainability means to remain durable over periods of time, durability is to sustainability what resilience is to adaptability is some respects. Another way of looking at defining it would to state or understand that sustainability is to renew or be everlasting to generations to come. Regeneration within nature is a sustainable state in concept due to sustaining its essence.

In context of what modern, contemporary, and post-modern sustainability, its defined by a trinity of social and institutional outcomes of the triple bottom line. Sustainability extends past the dynamic of achieve the bottom-line to remain in the black by restructuring to be only 33.3% of the outcome. The other 66.6% are split into two unique channels that engages the human or social component that separates itself from the more capitalist driven single bottom-line, while the final 33.3% of third bottom-line redirects to living environment, the more non-sentient life and material via the science based order of the planet. This creates a synthesis of three subjective opposing constructs from one another forms a cohesive system for institution, businesses, and communities to leverage. When working together as the triple bottom line, to remain functional, they work within a checks and balance framework. We’ll have a more real world angle when we go into more detail explain the progenitor of the triple bottom line and other platforms.

Rather the term, sustainable or sustainability is used, the greater understanding is how and why sustainable development is applied. The purposes of attracting better public and social engagement, environmental stewardship through both, conservation and preservation, and positioning strategically in the free market in spreading prosperity; development that’s sustainable for the long(er) term of any institution, organization, or MSME (micro, small, medium enterprise).

What is does sustainability mean to you? How has sustainability served in a historical context? How can we educate and training to bring sustainable results? What comes to mind when see and hear the word ‘sustainability’.

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