What is a sustainable society?

A sustainable society is one that persists and thrives.  It provides a high quality of life for all of its inhabitants without harming the integrity and productivity of the natural systems and resources upon which all life depends.  Humans' needs and desires are met within the limits of what nature can provide. People are a part of nature and depend on its capacity to provide food, water, energy, fiber, and life-support services such as the pollination of crops and creation of soils.  We also depend on nature’s capacity to detoxify our waste.  Sustainability means achieving satisfying lives for all within the means of nature - now and in the future.

Sustainability isn’t just about the environment.  A sustainable society must be just and equitable, and provide opportunities for each member of the community to reach his/her potential.  A sustainable society provides access to work, play, health care, education and so on, for each of its members.  Without access to the basic needs of life, there will be strife and conflict among the world’s communities. 

A sustainable society values diversity because it provides strength and resilience to the human community, just as it does in nature.  A sustainable society resolves the inherent conflicts among its members through peaceful, respectful and non-violent means.

A sustainable society recognizes that its economy must operate within the limits of nature, and in a manner that provides the greatest good for the greatest number.  Significant inequality in the sharing of the planet’s resources among human populations is inherently unstable, inequitable, and unsustainable. 

Sustainability is about respect—for our neighbors, for nature, and for those yet to be born.  Sustainability is inclusive. 

A sustainable society is one in which the adults place their highest priority on the needs and welfare of all the world’s children. 

Communities should be the primary locus of responsibility for creating a sustainable society.  This is because most of the individual behaviors and governmental policies that support sustainability are best nurtured at the local level.  The human species has an innate inclination to care about our neighbors and our community, and the beauty of the natural environment in the place which we happen to call home. 

An unsustainable society does not arise solely out of ignorance, irrationality or greed. It is largely the collective consequence of rational, well-intended decisions made by people caught up in social, political and economic systems that make it difficult or impossible to act in ways that are fully responsible to all those affected in the present and in the future.

Kirvil Skinnarland