Sustainability, in the environmental context, has been articulated several ways. The United Nations defines sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising future generations’ ability to meet their own needs.” The concept of the Triple Bottom Line of sustainability illustrates that, to be sustainable, the three areas in which humans exist must be balanced – our societies, economies, and environment.
For anything to be sustainable it must be able to last, continue, or function for a long period of time or indefinitely, generally without any added inputs. A process can only be sustained if the outputs of the process do not reduce or degrade the inputs. When this is applied to human societies and our physical environment, sustainability requires that we minimize degradation and damage to our natural resources in order to sustain outputs of society.