What is Sustainability?
Sustainability is to provide the needs of the present generation while not compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainability integrates social, environmental, and economic systems.
The term originated from ecology as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions and productivity into the future. To be sustainable, nature's resources must only be used at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. In recent years, scientific evidence has shown that humanity is living in an unsustainable way, by consuming Earth's limited natural resources faster than being replaced by nature.
Today, a collective human effort to keep human use of natural resources within the sustainable development aspect of the Earth's finite resource limits is an issue of great importance to the present and future of humanity. Sustainability has also become a vital asset in education, business and technology (architecture, agriculture, engineering, etc.)
Here is what UHM students say about "Sustainability":
Danielle Herman Fisher, Zoology
“Sustainability is creating buildings, clothing, food, jobs, etc., even lives in ways that can be maintained for generations to come without depleting the natural resources of our planet or damaging any of its fragile ecosystems, it's a system in which everyone profits.”
Tamara Armstrong, Interdisciplinary Studies focusing on Sustainability
“Sustainability is a concept: it is a way of thinking about society that considers the delicate balance between ecological, social, and economic stability.”
Vance Araki, Business
“Sustainability is our ability to sustain social, economic, and ecologic well-being; it is a value system of zero resource waste, including human and financial capital. This overarching value system seeks to design socio-economic systems that coexist harmoniously within the larger ecosystem it’s housed.”
Tamara Armstrong, Interdisciplinary Studies focusing on Sustainability
“Sustainability is marked by taking action to resolve problems by addressing their root causes. It is the implementation of systems that do not rely on people to "do the right thing" to lower their environmental impacts, but rather facilitate these behaviors through intelligent design.”
Isao Kaji, Traditional Medicine
“Sustainability is the ability to support ones self and encourage the environment and yourself to function at its highest potential.”
Shanah Trevenna, Urban Planning
“Sustainability cultivates a prosperous economy, vibrant society, and health environment.”
Don Peele, Urban and Regional Planning
“Sustainability is intergenerational, interdisciplinary, interactive, and intercultural education.”
Jessica Milne, Interdisciplinary Studies focusing on Sustainability
“Sustainability is a theory that can apply to any field of study, in which a process can continue whether it be an ecosystem or an economic system without deterioration or a decrease in value and productivity; it is a theory in which a process, any process, can be self-sustained.”
Tamba Iquino, Political Science
“Sustainability=Stewardship with a Sense of Place.”
Dylan Butterbaugh, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Saunders
“Sustainability is our ability to coexist with the environment in complete rapport leaving behind no damaging ecological footprint on our natural surroundings which sustain us all.”
The Sustainability web feature is a joint venture between
CDSE,
Sustainable Saunders, and
DURP
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