The language we all use in our day to day activities is extremely important to our cognitive understanding of our world and our interactions with that world. It’s a simple enough idea, but not a day goes by where I do not interact with someone who is relating the world in insufficient ways. It’s about vocabulary. It is about the vocabulary we use, most importantly with ourselves. There are more people out there poisoning themselves with language than with alcohol, drugs, prescription drugs or self-help guru-The-Secret nonsense. One of the antidotes of this, is simple and easy and clean. It’s an efficient prescription and it begins with definitions. When we talk about definitions we are self-consciously attempting to free ourselves from the derivative meanings and connotations that accumulate over time. So today I’d like to talk a little about trying defining sustainability.

I don’t think the movement will move forward as quickly or with as much unity of purpose until we know where we’ve been, and until we use a standardized definition of what sustainability is. Now, its important to recognize that this will never be really achieved, because the movement is constituted of so many different pieces and parts, so many strong personalities, and so much entrepreneurial spirit, that getting everyone to agree with a specific definition is basically futile.  But in trying to do it anyway, we can begin to clear out some of the cobwebs, and we can do a lot of good.

To that end, I found a link on twitter, that talked about the origins of the sustainability movement. The definition listed in the article is as follows

development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Simple, elegant, very little to argue with and the interpretation of this one sentence is pretty rock solid. No room for maneuver, so to speak.  And yet, the author concludes that “the sustainability movement continues to struggle.” The author, one Chris Moore, diagnoses this struggle

Why the disconnect? The main issue lies in the fact that most people perceive the goals of sustainability through different lenses. That is, we tend to focus on those features of SD that suit our needs while disregarding those that do not.

Now perhaps you see where I am going with this? Here are some other definitions I found for sustainable development via the United Nations:

1. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

2. The right to development should be fulfilled so as to meet equitably the developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations.

3. Sustainable development requires the promotion of values that encourage consumptions standards that are within the bounds of the ecological possible and to which all can reasonably aspire… At a minimum, sustainable development must not endanger the natural systems that support life on Earth: the atmosphere, the waters, the soils, and the living beings.

Trust me this is icing on the cake of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of definitions, of Sustainable Development.

We have groups all over the world, factions really, fighting their own battles without coordinated efforts by similar factions. And this is one way in which the struggle to bring about a more sustainablefuture constantly gets bogged down. Only by returning to pure definitions to we strip away the detritus.

There are many aspects and forms that sustainable developement takes. For developing nations, sustainable development is seen, and often used, as a way to achieve social equality, ecological balance or restoration as well as economic prosperity. Needless to say, sustainable development means something VERY different in Western developed nations.

But what disparate people, and their governments, do about sustainable development, is quite divorced from that original definition. The closer we hew to that definition, the hugher the chance of success we have of ulitmately achieving our goals.