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Definitions

Sustainability has many different definitions. The UC Regents define sustainability as:

Meeting our own needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, particularly with regard to use and waste of natural resources. Sustainable practices support ecological, human, and economic health and vitality. Sustainability presumes that resources are finite, and should be used conservatively and wisely with a view to long-term priorities and consequences of the ways in which resources are used.

Other definitions include:

Meeting our own needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs...

"Sustain - to cause; to continue (as in existence or a certain state, or in force or intensity); to keep up, especially without interruption diminution, flagging, etc.; to prolong."
Webster's New International Dictionary. (Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster Inc., 1986)

"Sustainable development...[is] the process of building equitable, productive and participatory structures to increase the economic empowerment of communities and their surrounding regions."
Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115, 212-870-2295

"Sustainable society - Society whose long term prospect for continuing to exist are good. Such a society would be characterized by an emphasis on preserving the environment, developing strong peaceful relationships between people and nations, and an emphasis on equitable distribution of wealth."
Co-op America Quarterly, No. 37 Summer 1995.

"To be sustainable, a living system must have an (at least) adequate capacity to learn, otherwise it will fail to learn from its mistakes, or about its own environment, and will thereby be prone to taking action on the basis of either incomplete or false information. Thus, true or close to true information is tightly coupled to the viability of a living system."
Mark McElroy

UCSB uses the UC Regents' definition of sustainability. However, they also look towards other definitions to help remind us of the broader spectrum of sustainability and other perspectives.

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