A Shared Definition

Developing a shared language and understanding for sustainability

Many people in the sustainability movement talk about the triple bottom line (people, planet, profit or environment, economics, society), which is perfectly fine. But the triple bottom line does nothing more than explain important elements of sustainability, it does not actually provide a definition or establish a foundation to strategically design and plan for sustainability.

What is needed is a concrete definition of sustainability. Such a definition would be universal and applicable across disciplines. This definition should bring together decades of environmental and social research and be based on contributions from experts, scientists, business professionals, and community leaders from around the world.

To create this foundation and definition, we must understand what sustainability means at its most principle level, which is built upon the basic laws that govern both human and natural systems. From this, we can determine the four root causes of unsustainability and develop four principles that explain how we can contribute to sustainability. These are known as the Natural Step principles for sustainability. (The image below uses language from The Natural Step).

By defining sustainability through principles, New Leaf is able to bring people with vastly different expertise together around the same table and figure out what sustainability means in each of their unique fields (read more here). One conversation may focus on the carpet industry and how to incorporate sustainability into the manufacturing process, while another conversation may focus on education access for disadvantaged youth. And at the end of each conversation, they may walk away with a different explanation of what sustainability means for their work, but all of those explanations will be united by a common foundation created through the four sustainability principles. This means that once they leave New Leaf, they can still talk to one another, even if they are focusing on completely different areas (and that’s one of the most important things we can contribute to the world around us, learning to speak the same language).

Let’s recap a bit…

So to clear up the confusion out there – sustainability is not synonymous with environment. It’s not even synonymous with cultural change or pollution control or social transformation. Concepts like those are definitely important to sustainability, but they fail to illustrate the full picture. Without a shared understanding of what sustainability means at its most principle level, we’ll continue forward arguing over nuances and minor details that don’t benefit the larger picture. And sustainability is far too important to let those kinds of arguments get in the way!

In response to “What do we actually mean by sustainability?”, perhaps it’s best to illustrate sustainability as a bunch of pictures. Each picture could represent one of those different explanations of sustainability, but all of them must be framed by the same four principles for sustainability. As long as those explanations fall within the boundary of the frame, then we can be sure we are talking about the same thing, regardless if the specifics and details are slightly different from painting to painting.