Sustainability

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Sustainability is a vision of achieving simultaneous human and ecosystem well-being, with a goal of ‘parallel care and respect for the ecosystem and the people within’. Sustainability is made up of three strands – social, economic, and ecological (or environmental).

You can think of sustainability as being a three-legged stool, with each strand making up a leg.

Social Sustainability
Western society has previously viewed the world as a pool of resources for its unconstrained use. This is unsustainable. Part of the problem is our human-centred world view, rather than an eco-centric world view which focuses on the ecosystems that sustain us.

Willoughby’s Cultural Policy consultations and other research have shown that people are also withdrawing from being part of the community, and that connections within and across the community are increasingly fragile. Yet to solve the environmental crisis and reach sustainability, we will need social cohesion to work together.

Within our overall sustainability framework, Willoughby sees social sustainability as being about working for equity and social justice locally and globally, thus reaching a society which can live in balance with the world and its ecosystems - a world at peace, both between people and between people and nature.

Economic sustainability
This is not just continuing business as usual. Economic sustainability is creating an economy that is sustainable over the long-term, not just a short-term growth economy. This means not damaging the ecosystem services that underpin our society.

Environmental economics has now become the cutting edge of economics, and in many ways is integrating ecology and economics through environmental accounting. This takes into account the essential importance of the ecosystem services that maintain the planet’s health. The Stern Report in the UK is an example of environmental economics examining climate change, which showed that the economic costs of not acting were far greater than the costs of taking action now.

Ecological sustainability
This is taking action to control the Earth’s environmental crises to support the ecosystems (and ecosystem services) that support us. In practical terms it means sustainably conserving and restoring our native vegetation, rather than clearing it. It means not degrading our soils. It means not polluting our rivers and air. It means not over-using our water resources. It means monitoring all these so we know what is happening. It means not using non-renewable resources if we can switch to renewable ones. It means only using renewable resources in a sustainable manner. It means reducing the amount of waste, reusing as much remaining waste as possible, and recycling the rest. It means increasing our understanding of environmental science and using it to guide our actions. And in terms of urgent challenges, it means substantially reducing our carbon footprint by controlling our greenhouse gas emissions.

Willoughby City Council is aware that not everyone will agree with our definitions. Certain interests worldwide seek to shift the focus of ‘sustainability’ to an economic and social focus so they can continue business as usual - which may not be ecologically sustainable. While we accept that sustainability is made up of three strands, we believe the priority focus should be to restoring the balance by focusing on the long overlooked side: ecological sustainability. When we speak of ‘sustainability’ it is ecological sustainability that is our major focus.