The three essential pillars of sustainability are economic development, social development and environmental protection. This also applies to the cooperate world where it can be rephrased as social, economic and environmental impacts of the organisation’s activities or informally referred to as people, planet and profits.

There are many approaches to social development and they include legislation and awareness for human health protection, sustainable housing, social equity, and so on. Therefore, governments should take responsibility for the health of their people. Corporate organisations and businesses can also contribute greatly to social developments by treating employees fairly, prioritising employees’ welfare being good to neighbours and community members sometimes through corporate and social responsibilities locally and globally. Employees’ or citizens’ welfare should be prioritised.

The economic pillar of sustainability refers to incentives, markets and financial commitments to achieving sustainable development. While most focus will be on money, profit or economic development, access to sustainable products without compromise to life should be achievable, especially in developing countries. Sustainable economic development, therefore, includes providing incentives or reducing the financial burden of practising sustainability. for businesses, economic development means increased income but also include compliance, proper management or governance, and risk management. Through sustainable strategies, companies can survive or counterweigh the extreme measure of adopting sustainable practices. An example of such measure is abandoning fossil fuels or chemical fertilisers instantly rather than making changes to them.

Environmental development or protection measures the impact of our activities on the environment. This includes the protection of the ecosystems, air quality, sustainability of natural resources, pollution prevention and low carbon emissions. For businesses environmental protection involves reducing carbon footprints, reducing and recycling waste, reducing water usage, decreasing the number of materials used in packaging, having a sustainable source of raw materials and reducing or eliminating activities of negative environmental impacts.