Recently I had the pleasure of helping several Stanford students with a sustainability project. These bright graduates and many professional practitioners are conversant with the principles of sustainability.
However, it reminded me that the public might not perceive sustainability in its entirety. Instead, it is viewed as a shorthand term for environmentalism. Occasionally sustainability might include dialogue about social justice or community development, but overwhelmingly it is seen and used as an environmental term.
While that may have been the environmental movement’s original intent, after the UN Brundtland Commission’s definition in1987, sustainability united development and the environment. This resulted in the “three pillars” of sustainable development (often called the “triple bottom line” or “three-legged stool”) including economic, social, and environmental factors. Each of these is of equal weight but one of these – the economic - tends to be ignored in most communications.
It shouldn’t be because to be sustainable an economy has to grow, and in order for companies to maximize ongoing sustainability solutions – environmentally, technically, and socially - businesses must be profitable.
In any discussion about sustainability economic issues cannot be disregarded or forgotten. The economic success of a business (or a government) is absolutely instrumental to achieving authentic and long-term sustainability.