sustainability definitions

sustainability definitions - from print

As noted, definitions of sustainability and its (evil?!) twin, sustainable development, abound. This page has yet to be developed, so I simply list a few definitions.

Sustainability is a relationship between dynamic human economic systems and larger dynamic, but normally slower-changing, ecological systems in which: (1) human life can continue indefinitely; (2) human individuals can flourish; (3) human cultures can develop; but in which (4) the effects of human activities remain within bounds, so as not to destroy the diversity, complexity, and function of the ecological life-support system (Costanza 1992:^ref 111 and Norton 1992^ref).

survival is a mere shadow of sustainability.... (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1994: 581)

...I consider questions about sustainability to be essentially normative and any answers they prompt essentially contested...
The nub of my argument is that the ideal of sustainability - the focus of so much thinking about our ecological predicament - beckons us toward the now unfamiliar yet still morally resonant question of what sustains us. In so doing, this ideal offers to move our understanding fluidly back and forth between moral and technical questions and between our moral experience and our technological practices... (Davison 2001:^ref ix).

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