What is Sustainability?

Sustainability - yes it's certainly a well-used buzzword these days!  But what does it mean? Dictionary.com gives two definitions:

1. The ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, or confirmed.

2. The quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance.

I think '2' is better than '1' but a definition that I believe rings true is:

The trouble is that whilst 'sustainability' is preached by many politicians and others with forked tongues, I don't see much evidence of them practicing what they preach.  But in fairness to the decision-makers, the traditional way of evaluating business cases doesn't favour long-term considerations.  Let me give you two examples, one imaginary and one real.

Starting with the fictional case, let's imagine I own a forest, which I don't want to keep.  I am approached by two potential purchasers.  Company A wants to pay me $1million.  Their plan is to clear all the trees and build 20 luxury villas.  Company B wants to lease the land and pay me $10,000 per year.  Their plan is to establish a sustainable logging business.  From a financial perspective the decision is a no-brainer.  The $10,000 per year from Company B is less than even the potential interest payments on the $1million payment from Company A.  But in fact, Company A's business plan only makes sense to them because they are not bearing the true costs of their actions.  The clearing of the trees will mean that tons of carbon dioxide will no longer be absorbed, thus adding to the problem of global warming.  At a time when we are trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, how do you put a cost on a project that is blatantly exacerbating the problem?  Whereas Company B's sustainable logging project would incur little cost to the future environment.  If Company A had to pay a hefty penalty to, say, the State for reducing carbon dioxide absorption, it's housing project would almost certainly not be viable.

My second example is very real.  The UK Government is currently obsessed with the desire to invest in fracking projects.  The installations will inject liquid at high pressure into subterranean rocks, to force open existing fissures and extract gas.  Quite apart from the technical risks associated with fracking, let's compare it with alternative renewable energy sources, i.e. windmills, tidal power, solar systems, etc.  all these green technologies exist but the argument that is used time and time again is that they are too expensive.  Well my counter argument is that if fracking companies were charged a hefty premium for the carbon dioxide that they will be adding to the atmosphere, which would result in extremely high prices to the consumers, then the business case for green technology would win hands down.

Returning to my favoured definition for sustainability - the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs - just how often do you see this put into practice?

In the words of Jeffrey D. Sachs: "We need to defend the interests of those whom we've never met and never will."