Definitions of sustainability

Brundtland

The former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland presided over a commission – the World Commission on Environment and Development - in the early eighties, which came out with a report entitled “Our Common Future”. It describes the state of the earth, in terms of resources, population, pollution and other influences on it, as self defeating and calls for a sustainable approach to working and living.
The definition of ‘sustainable development’ it gives is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.
This was a further development of the Kantian ethics that had inspired the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While the UN declaration states that everyone on the planet has to be taken into account and respected in meeting their basic rights, the Brundtland definition extended this to future generations as well. It sounded as a tall order. Not only were we reminded that everyone of the planet deserves a place at the table, we now also had to take into consideration generations that were not even here yet. Still, it undeniably made sense.

Daly

The Brundtland definition has inspired other definitions, partly because it was worded a bit vaguely to the taste of many people. More practical perhaps is the definition given by Herman Daly of the World Bank: “A sustainable society needs to meet three conditions: its rates of use of renewable resources should not exceed their rates of regeneration; its rates of use of non-renewable resources should not exceed the rate at which sustainable renewable substitutes are developed; and its rates of pollution emission should not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment”. The definition does give a good idea of what societies and businesses are up against.

Elkington

Elkington was inspired by Brundtland. In fact, the title of one of his books – “Cannibals with Forks” – refers back to Brundtland’s definition of ‘sustainable development’. It indicates that if you pursue any other kind of development you are in fact nothing less than a sophisticated cannibal. The definition that he works from with his company (SustainAbility) is “Sustainability is the principle of ensuring that our actions today do not limit the range of economic, social, and environmental options open to future generations”.

The 3P model
Elkington developed out of his definition of ‘sustainability’ his ‘three p model’ or the ‘people, planet, profit-model.’ It holds that there are three dimensions to sustainability: the social or people dimension, the ecological or planet dimension and the economical of profit dimension the idea is that sustainability is only possible if the processes and actions justify all three needs; if not, you run the risk of what Elkington calls “cannibalism” (in order to save one thing, you devour another, just as important, thing).
The difficulty is often to find a balance in the three dimensions. The challenge is to make a profit (the profit dimension) in such a way that it is done in a just manner (the people dimension) and in a way that is ecologically justifiable (the planet dimension).
The challenge Elkington poses with this sounds perhaps a bit grandiose (it is reminiscent of the charity commandment in the Christian culture, in which the challenge is to love the neighbor – whoever – from the very same emotion from which you love yourself). Still, it can be done (which is good to know, seeing the alternatives).