Sustainability United States Research Paper 2022

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY
SUSTAINABILITY
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

SUSTAINABILITY1
The term sustainability refers to maintaining a proper balance between the environmental
resources and the needs of the species belonging to the environment. It also refers to the ability
to meet the needs of the present generation as well as that of the future by maintaining a proper
balance between the resources and species of the environment. It is dependent upon three main
pillars that are the economic, environmental and social factors (Clayton & Radcliffe, 2018). The
global sustainability issues refer to different issues faced by the human beings globally such as
poverty, inequality, injustice, and others. Global sustainability is therefore aimed at achieving a
better balance between the biosphere, all the factors and the human beings in order to reduce the
impact on the environment. The main aim of the paper is to discuss about sustainability and the
various global sustainable issues and the steps taken to reduce the same.
What is Sustainability?
Sustainability refers to the coexistence of the human civilization and biosphere capacity.
It is aimed at meeting the present and the future needs of the people through exploitation of the
available resources making use of technological development for this purpose along with
institutional changes (Crane et al., 2019). It aims at maintaining a state of stability in a changing
environment. According to many people sustainability is dependent upon three main pillars-
social, environment and economic and it is dependent upon the system thinking principle. There
are various sub-domains of sustainability that includes- cultural, political and technological. On
the other hand sustainable development refers to the ability of the present generation to meet
their needs without compromising on the ability of the future generation to meet their needs as
has been defined by the Brundtland Report. The term sustainability can also be defined as a
process that is socio-ecological and is characterized by the achievement of some common ideal.
Although it is difficult to attain the common ideals however through persistent work a

SUSTAINABILITY2
sustainable system can be achieved. The ecological study is dependent upon achieving the proper
balance between the resources and the species existing in the environment. In order to reduce the
environmental and ecological impact the resources should not be deployed faster than the
resources being generated. The key theoretical principles on which the concept of sustainability
is dependent upon the three pillars of sustainability. The three pillars helps in understanding the
sustainability problems and if even one pillar is weak the system as a whole will be
unsustainable. These pillars are the economic, social and environment factors.
Figure 1: The three Pillars of
Sustainability
Source: (Purvis, Mao & Robinson,
2019)
Most of the problem solving
efforts of the international and
national bodies is aimed at focusing only at a one pillar at a time. For instance United Nations
environmental program (UNEP) and other national and international agencies NGO’s are aimed
at environmental pillar. Organization for economic cooperation and development or OECD and
the World trade organization are all aimed at the social pillar of sustainability such as justice,
equality and others. The United Nations is aimed to looking after the economic pillars as
economic growth its major objective.

SUSTAINABILITY3
Figure 2: The three pillars
Source: (Combemale et al., 2016)
Our practice and thinking of sustainability is influenced through indigenous knowledge
of Matauranga Maori because it involves knowledge storage and transfer, changing our goals and
aspirations with the help of the indigenous practice. The term Matauranga Maori refers to the
understanding, comprehension and knowledge of everything that has an existence whether it is
visible or not.