Introducing the three pillars of sustainability
On this page I will talk about what sustainability is. You might be surprised it’s more than just caring for the planet, at least I was.
First, the word itself. It’s a word that is used more and more these days, but what does it mean? When looking at the dictionary meaning, sustainability is the quality of being able to continue over a period of time. Nowadays most people think about improving their way of living for the good of the environment. There are however more parts to sustainability than that.
Three pillars of sustainability
The term sustainability encompasses 3 categories or pillars of sustainability: social, economic, and environmental. The last one being the one that we hear most often. Some might know them as the 3 P’s, being people, planet and profit. I’ll shortly explain them below and conclude with what we do ourselves.
The United Nations have put several goals in place about sustainability. I think they are are fair representation of what sustainability is all about and fit in all three pillars, so I will mention them in each of the three sections.
Social
When put to social issues, sustainability is all about caring for the people. Often this is seen from a business perspective, but can also be seen from national/global structures and individual practices.
The United Nations goals for social sustainability include: no hunger, no poverty, health and wellbeing, quality education, gender equality, no inequality whatsoever, peace, justice, dignity and fair work.
Economic
From an economic perspective, sustainabilty is having long-term economic growth, including profit. This may sound somewhat controversial as not everything that supports economic growth is neccesarily good for people or the environment. Therefore in order to be sustainable, this growth should be reached without negatively impacting the other pillars. Some development is needed to e.g. fight world hunger, innovate for greener electricity and so on, and not enough could actually hinder the other pillars.
The United Nations have a few economic goals stated. These are economic growth (which includes the fair work already mentioned in social sustainability), and stimulating industrialisation and innovation. Fighting poverty is also both a social and an economic value.
Environmental
When put into the environmental pillar, the meaning of sustainability can be explained by caring for the planet itself. This mainly boils down to not using resources that cannot be replace and/or damage the environment.
United Nations goals that belong to this category are including: clean water, clean energy, responsible consumption and production, climate action, biodiversity, and sustainable cities.
What we do
Sustainability for us as a family, begins with acknowledgment. A lot of things are going great already, and a lot of things are not fitting into that ideal picture. Acknowledging that this is the case without feeling guilty, yet try to improve bit by bit, is key for us.
We try to focus on practical things while still enjoying the life we built. This results in the four R’s (refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle), going by bike or public transport when possible, consuming mainly plant-based, and putting our money in companies that have similar goals in mind.