Sustainability

Abstract

The well-known and growing environmental problems of climate change and biodiversity loss on a global scale have compelled humanity to reconsider its mutual relationship with the natural environment. Indeed, since at least the late 20th century, the search for solutions to the challenges associated with human population expansion within the restricted space and using the limited amount of resources afforded by Earth has driven people toward more environmentally conscious development, i.e., sustainable development. Sustainability integrates the environmental, social and economic dimensions of life over large scales of time and space (i.e., from the short- to long-term and from the local to the global scale, respectively). As such, sustainable practices are those that incorporate environment, society and economy in the production and delivery of goods and services while simultaneously generating added value, making a profit, and meeting the needs of both current and future generations. To translate theory into action and effect a real change, however, the decision-making process must be imbued with sustainability. Therefore, the adoption and implementation of sustainable practices relies on the design of simple, reliable and comparative measures for their evaluation and the development of the appropriate frameworks and methods to realize them in practice.