Sustainability

Translate This Page

Sustainability: Can our society endure?

Among the many ways that sustainability has been defined, the simplest and most fundamental is: "the ability to sustain" or, put another way, "the capacity to endure."

Today, it is by no means certain our society has the capacity to endure – at least in such a way that the nine billion people expected on Earth by 2050 will all be able to achieve a basic quality of life. The planet's ecosystems are deteriorating and the climate is changing. We are consuming so much, and so quickly, that we are already living far beyond the earth's capacity to support us. And yet nearly a sixth of our fellow humans go to bed hungry each day: both an unnecessary tragedy and a source of social and political unrest. Meanwhile, our globalized world is more interconnected and volatile than ever, making us all more vulnerable.

While sustainability is about the future of our society, for today's industries and businesses, it is also about commercial success. The mandate to transform businesses to respect environmental limits while fulfilling social wants and needs has become an unparalleled platform for innovation on strategy, design, manufacturing and brand, offering massive opportunities to compete and to adapt to a rapidly evolving world.

From a DVC perspective, students are challenged to develop a 'renewable' and 'sustainability mindset' when designing buildings and products. It is this mindset that will make a difference through education. Education for Sustainability (EfS), is about taking action for the environment . It is about changing hearts and minds, and making hands available to assist. It is all about the change of heart, a change of thinking, and developing willing hands to make a difference!

Source: http://www.sustainability.com/sustainability

Sustainable Development Goals by the Inited Nations (UN):

At Rio+20 - the UN Conference on Sustainable Development - countries agreed to establish an intergovernmental process to develop a set of "action-oriented, concise and easy to communicate" sustainable development goals (SDGs) to help drive the implementation of sustainable development. The Rio+20 outcome document, The Future We Want, also calls for the goals to be coherent with the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015. A 30-member Open Working Group (OWG) of the General Assembly is tasked with preparing a proposal on the SDGs.

The United Nations goals

See the Thematic Clusters below, developed by the United Nations 9UN) below, visit the website for more details:

Source: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?menu=1565

OWG2

Poverty eradication

OWG3

Food Security and Nutrition / Sustainable Agriculture

OWG3

Desertification, land degradation and drought

OWG3

Water and Sanitation

OWG4