Friday, December 30, 2011
What is the difference between sustainability and sustainable development?
There are some notable differences that make sustainability and sustainable development separate ideologies. Sustainability attempts to approach issues with an environmentalist aspect whereas sustainable development attempts to approach issues with a business aspect or infrastructure aspect. Sustainability is focused on reducing consumption and changing our lifestyles to save the environment. On the contrary, sustainable development focuses on establishing infrastructure that will in effect induce a steady incline of economic growth while keeping the environment clean. There is a major issue when trying to define either of these terms because there is not a correct definition or criteria that defies what a need is.
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ReplyDeleteEthan, your conceptualisation of sustainable development is fairly narrow — you are in essence describing the dominant paradigm of "green growth" or "ecological modernisation", which is far from the only definition of sustainable development. Furthermore, your description of sustainability is actually an alternative version of sustainable development. Sustainability is in fact a system property (the ability of the system to continue existing in its present regime for an extended or indefinite period of time), while sustainable development is the process of attempting to achieve this goal.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, the distinction is not all that important anyway as the two terms are often used so flippantly to be essentially meaningless.
p.s. Sounds like you had a great time in Malawi. I have spent some time there myself—absolutely stunning.