Sustainable development calls for a long-term structural strategy for the world's economic

and social systems, which aims to reduce the burden on the environment and on natural
resources to a permanently viable level, while still maintaining economic growth and social
cohesion. Only development that manages to balance these three dimensions can be sustained
in the long term. Conversely, ignoring one of the three aspects could potentially endanger the
success of the entire development process.
The three dimensions of sustainable development:
It has been commonly accepted that sustainable development consists of three dimensions:
Social, Environmental, and Economic
Social: equality of opportunities for people, involving welfare, quality of life and sustainable
human development –development should liberate individual capacities and fulfil human
needs, thus ending poverty and improving individuals' quality of life offering a secure life
with full rights and liberties in the long term - and social cohesion.
Environmental responsibility: the ability to use natural resources without undermining the
equilibrium and integrity of ecosystems, reduce burden on the environment.
Economic efficiency: efficiency of economic and technological activities, foster investment
and productivity, economic growth, economic output potential.

Sustainability has become a crucial concept in global public and political discussions in
recent years and also has increasingly entered into the scientific discourse. It is, however,
difficult to determine the exact meaning and to provide one single definition of the term
sustainability. The term is used in a broad range of meanings in public and scientific
discussions.
From a philosophical perspective one can identify three main characteristics that determine
the core meaning of the modern concept of sustainability and the fundamental issues to which
it refers.
1. The meaning of continuance. Literally, the term sustainability means the ability to keep
going, to keep up, to maintain, and to cause to continue in a certain state. Further, the term
sustainability allows for two interpretations: it can be understood as the ability of a system,
entity, or process to maintain itself, or the ability of humans to maintain a certain system,
entity, or process.
With its basic meaning of continuance, the term sustainability refers to the idea of some kind
of stability in time. It is the idea of distinguishing stable factors in a context of dynamics and
change. In this perspective, for instance, “a sustainable ecosystem is one that, over the normal
cycle of disturbance events, maintains its characteristic diversity of major functional groups,
productivity, and rates of biochemical cycling”. Scientific approaches to sustainability differ
depending on the way a system, entity, or process is defined, the time horizon is chosen, and
the parameters of study are determined.
The differences between scientific definitions of, and approaches to, sustainability result from
the different subject matters of scientific disciplines, which make them focus on different
systems, entities, or processes.
2. The meaning of orientation. The modern use and understanding of the term sustainability
shows an inherent normative and evaluative meaning, and it would be a misinterpretation and
misrepresentation to disregard this meaning in academic discussions. The simultaneity of the
continuance aspect and the orientation aspect in the meaning of the modern term of
sustainability has caused problems and led to confusion.
3. Sustainability is about fundamental relationships. Here, 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. In addition to the relationship between
contemporaries and the relationship with future generations, there is a third relationship
involved with the modern idea of sustainability: the relationship between humans and nature.
This relationship is addressed both indirectly and directly.

Particularly, our relationship with future generations is to a large extent an indirect and
asymmetrical one, mediated by the long-term effects of our environmental actions and
resulting environmental changes. Thus, when we address the relationship with future
generations with the modern concept of sustainability, the relationship between humans and
nature plays a crucial role.
Sustainability is also about the self-maintaining ability of nature—ecosystems or evolutionary
processes—and the human impact on that ability. The human–nature relation is also at the
core of many approaches of the natural sciences that analyze the sustainability, that is, the
continuance, of certain natural systems as an aspect of itself, and consider human impacts on
such systems as externally given factors.
Thus, the modern term sustainability, by its very meaning, refers overall to three fundamental
relationships of the human being which I, in short, call sustainability relations:
(i) The relationship between humans and their contemporaries
(ii) The relationship between currently living humans and future generations
(iii) The relationship between humans and nature
In summary of the discussion of the sustainability concept, the core meaning of the modern
concept of sustainability encompasses three aspects: continuance, orientation, and
relationship. To express this by one definition, one may say that sustainability is the ability to
establish continuance as a means for orienting human actions and life toward the threefold
relatedness of human existence to contemporaries, future generations, and nature. In other
words, sustainability addresses our ability to recognize and realize ourselves as
fundamentally relational beings, as beings embedded in the threefold relationship with others,
future generations, and nature. It addresses the human being as a timely, socially, and
naturally contingent being and the implications of this threefold contingence for human self-
identity, life, and actions.

1.1 Sustainability Definitions

Sustainability as a Term
The term sustainability has a multidisciplinary use and meaning. In dictionaries,
sustainability is typically described by many sources as a capability of a system to endure and
maintain itself. Various disciplines may apply this term differently. In ecology, the word
sustainability characterizes the ability of biological systems to remain healthy, diverse, and
productive over time. Long-lived and healthy wetlands and forests are examples of
sustainable biological systems.
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

With human decision-making involved, sustainability attains a significant ethical aspect and
transforms social paradigm on success, growth, profit, standards of living. This re-evaluation
requires broader and more synergistic overview of many components of anthropological
ecosystems, including technology.

Three Pillars of Sustainability

Sustainable development involves environmental, economic, and social aspects. For a
particular process to be sustainable, it should not cause irreversible change to the
environment, should be economically viable, and should benefit society. Sustainability is
represented as the synergy between society, economics, and environment. The environmental
aspects include use of natural resources, pollution prevention, biodiversity, and ecological
health. The social aspects include standards of living, availability of education and jobs, and
equal opportunities for all members of society. The economic factors are drivers for growth,
profit, reducing costs, and investments into research and development, etc. Intersection of
social and environmental spheres leads to creation of conservation and environmental
protection policies, establishment of environmental justice, and global stewardship for
sustainable use of natural resources. This framework is in some way a simplification, but it
proved to be helpful in identifying key areas of impact and set the basis for objective
analysis.

Figure 1.1. Interplay of the environmental, economic, and social aspects of

sustainable development.

Credit: Mark Fedkin. Adopted from the University of Michigan Sustainability Assessment
[Rodriguez et al., 2002]

Dimensions of Sustainability
Three fundamental meanings or dimensions of sustainability were defined by
Christian Becker in his book "Sustainability Ethics and Sustainability
Research" as continuance, orientation, and relationships. As discussed in this
chapter, the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability is something that often
results in confusion and miscommunication between different entities and
spheres involved. For example, an environmentalist, economist, and politician
can discuss sustainability as a project goal, but actually having three
different goals in mind. So, new project developers in the sustainability era
should certainly seek to broaden their perspective and at the same time
develop sufficient depth in articulation of their sustainability vision.

TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

1. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two
key concepts:
a. the concept of 'needs,' in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding
priority should be given; and
b. the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the
environment's ability to meet present and future needs.