A recent online article is aptly titled: “Sustainability – confusing term for a clever concept“. This nicely summaries both the beauty and challenge in dealing with this important concept. The idea of  sustainability first emerged with regards to forestry,  where  it  means  never  harvesting more  than  what  the  forest  yields  in  new  growth. The  word “Nachhaltigkeit”  (the  German  term  for sustainability)  was  first  used  with  this  meaning  in  1713. Since then the concept of sustainability has come a long way.  In general terms, sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. However, this is not restricted to the natural environment but also extends to social and economic resources. Thus, sustainability goes beyond environmentalism and also encompasses social equity and economic development. Sustainability can also be understood as a movement which has its roots in social justice, conservationism or internationalism. By the end of the 20th century, many of these ideas were united under the roof of “sustainable development” and found their most prominent expression in the Sustainable Development Goals (SGD) as the current global agenda for reducing poverty and raising the quality of life. Sustainability as a political and strategic concept has its origin in the Brundtland Report “Our Common Future” of 1987. The report was concerned with the tension between the aspirations of mankind towards a better life on the one hand and the limitations imposed by nature on the other hand.

The presentation traces the history of the concept of sustainability and critically discusses its many dimensions.