Sustainability became a familiar word based on the UN’s campaign for sustainable development. Hence, the most popular definition of sustainability is derived from the UN World Commission’s definition of sustainable development as quoted: “sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”Thus, the word sustainability tends to instigate the thoughts of environmental protection, reducing carbon emissions, renewable energy/fuel sources, and balancing the ecosystems of the earth.

Meanwhile, sustainability is broad and encompasses the process of protecting the natural environment, human and ecological health and increased innovations without prejudice to lives either now or in the future.It supports the ecological systems, human lives, economic growth and social developments. Therefore, sustainability balance between, economy, environment and social life or equity.

Sustainability also presumes a conservative approach to using resources, prioritising the long-term goals and keeping in mind the consequences of how the resources are used. Simply put, sustainability does not concern itself only today, but the world we leave for next generations.

The process of achieving sustainability is further broken down into three pillars, six factors or twelve practices of sustainability.

The pillars of sustainability include 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 discussing the factors that influence achieving sustainability. Some schools of thought highlight the factors to be optimising of current fossil fuel usage, eliminating waste, recycling, recovering energy, saving time and reducing or eliminating pollution. These are targeted toward manufacturing companies. The six factors we will focus on are climate change, environment, people, ethics, innovation, and technology.

In 1998, Paul Anastas and John Warner formulated the framework for achieving greener chemicals, processes and products. These twelve principles have been applied in different disciplines to achieve sustainability. The principles include prevention of waste, atom economy, use ofless hazardous chemicals, designing safer chemicals, safer solvents and auxiliaries, design for energy efficiency, use of renewable feedstocks, reduce derivatives, catalysis, design for degradation, real-time analysis for pollution prevention and inherently safer chemistry for accident prevention

Our publication on environmental sustainability will be helpful for things you can do to achieve sustainability.

References

• https://www.sustain.ucla.edu/what-is-sustainability/
• https://www.environmentalscience.org/sustainability
• https://www.greenmatters.com/p/six-factors-of-sustainability
• https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/100515/three-pillars-corporate-sustainability.asp
• https://www.foundrymag.com/opinion/article/21924600/six-key-factors-for-achieving-sustainable-manufacturing
• https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/greenchemistry/principles/12-principles-of-green-chemistry.html