What is Sustainability?

Sustainability is a broad concept that interlinks to all aspects of society and environment. Sustainability is widely discussed topic in today’s world, and it is extremely likely that you have heard about it. In recent years, sustainability has become a “trendy” word that is frequently used by politicians, companies, and universities alike (plus many more). Anyway, who wouldn’t like to have a “better and more sustainable future”?

The reality today is that the term sustainability can mean many things and the answer to “what is sustainability” depends a bit from who you are asking the question. For instance an energy systems engineer, biologists and social scientist might have quite different perspectives to the idea of sustainability and what they see as the most important challenges to solve in our contemporary world. Being able to communicate and discuss about these topics with individuals coming from different backgrounds is extremely important. Being able to do that, it is important that everyone of us would have at least a basic understanding about the essential concepts relating to sustainability and resilience. The following presentation gives an introduction to some of the key concepts that relate to sustainability and sustainable development: