Sustainability is so overused, that one wonders what the true meaning of the word is.

A healthy bottom line makes a business ‘sustainable’. A good relationship is called ‘sustainable’. A product that can be recycled has even been confusedly called ‘sustainable’. It is used interchangeably with the more general term ‘green’.

Professors William McDonough (American Architect) and Michael Braungart (German Chemist), coauthors of Cradle-to-Cradle  (2002),said in their The Hannover Principles – Design for Sustainability (1992), that “sustainability is a loaded and slippery term”.

The Oxford Dictionary defines sustainable as, “able to be maintained at a certain rate or level”.

The Association for Contract Textiles (ACT),defines a sustainable product as one that has “no negative impact on natural ecosystems or resources”.

 In the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System, the Canada Green Building Council describes Rapidly Renewal Products as those “that are typically harvested within a ten-year cycle or shorter”.

I like Peter Victor's description of sustainability in his book, Managing without Growth (2008). A Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, he describes the three Daly principles, which to my thinking, makes perfect sense. The following summarizes these principles:

The 3 Principles of Sustainability:

1. Renewable Resources

Consumption of renewable resources should not exceed their ability for regeneration.

2. Non-renewable Resources

The depletion of non-renewable resources should not exceed the rate of any renewable alternative creation.

3. Waste

The emissions should not exceed the ecosystem’s ability to absorb them.

William McDonough sums it up nicely with his “eliminate the concept of waste”, the 6^th of the Hannover Principles. When one considers sustainability in practical terms of their everyday life, it becomes a way to raise consciousness about all our decisions.

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