It has become fashionable to be sustainable: More and more companies try to aquire a green identity, products and labels rival for lucrative sustainable customer’s favour. A trendy image certainly accelerates things: More customers encourage companies to develop sustainable technologies, therefore, sustainability policies can be introduced faster. However, this process is also blurring the topic and the connected ideas because also people and institutions become part of the movement, that do actually not act sustainably. The main cause for this confusing state is nothing else but the complicated definition of sustainability itself. It is not that easy to define this term that is used so often (in this article I’ve made use of it already 7 times). In order to sharpen our image of the concept sustainability I dedicated this article to one famous, possible definition of sustainability and to the consequences that it implies. This is the definition:
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.