Did you know being sustainable and being green is not exactly the same thing? I’ve been telling my friends for years to stop using plastic water bottles, and it’s time to learn more about why, along with what all these environmentally friendly words mean. So, let’s start with the basics: What is sustainability?

Sustainability

In short, being sustainable means reducing negative environmental, societal, and economic impacts. That’s right, there are THREE pillars to being sustainable. Sometimes, the pillars are referred to as People, Profit, and Planet. Many of us often relate it to the “environmental” pillar, but that is just one piece of it. Living sustainably generally means living in a way that we don’t don’t deplete our natural resources while maintaining a prospering economy for future generations. Save the future!

Next, let’s look at these three pillars further.

But first, check out this video for a visual of the three pillars of sustainability, put together by our sister site, Blue Camelopard.

Economic Sustainability

Economic sustainability is preserving and promoting long-term financial stability - again, saving the future! We want to maintain these resources so those in the future can create economic stability and wealth. In practice, it aims to create a balance between economic growth, resource efficiency, social equity, and financial stability. All of these pieces make this pillar the most difficult to understand. However, it is so complex because the economy relies on social structures and on resources. So, this has to be balanced for the economy to thrive going forward.

Economic sustainability requires such things as:

• Policies and initiatives:

  • to ensure the use of resources is sustainable (like using renewable sources of energy)

  • government initiatives to address social concerns (like poverty or gender equity)

• Setting financial goals and collaborating or pooling resources with other parties

• Focusing on human resources for productivity (ensuring human resource satisfaction)

Social Sustainability

Social sustainability involves focusing on the well-being of people and communities whereby people can exist and thrive going forward - save the future! It’s about promoting equity, human rights, access to education and health care, and decent work. It is ensuring everyone has the chance to fulfill their potential.

Check out the image in this article from Diversity for Social Impact on the pillars of social sustainability.

Environmental Sustainability

The one we have all heard about the most, and where I expect this blog will mostly spend its time: Environmental Sustainability. Environmental sustainability is the use of our natural resources to meet our current needs without compromising the future needs of these resources. Save for the future! Environmental sustainability is about being “green.” Sometimes, sustainability and being green are used interchangeably, but being green is about being environmentally sustainable.

Being environmentally sustainable means using energy resources efficiently and looking for products with less packaging. Look for more articles on these topics soon.

Conclusion

As you can see, there is a lot to being sustainable. And social, economic, and environmental sustainability depend on one another. Start thinking about what you can do to improve the part you play on each of these pillars of sustainability. Check out future posts for some ideas as well.

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