What is Sustainability, Anyway???
The concept of sustainbility is more than environmentalism. Economic and social concerns also matter. Essentially sustainability takes traditional environmental concerns and seeks to balance them with the good of the economy and community. The goal is to create an economy and society that is sustainable over time - that does not continue the syystematic degradations of our planet's only life support systems (air, soil, and water). How to live without polluting our air and water and creating mountains of waste is the environmental challenge. How to do it keeping a viable economy and healthy community is the sustainable challenge. Sustainability is a huge concept, affecting every aspect of our lives.
To be truly sustainable from and environmental point of view, we would use natural resources no faster than the rate at which they are being renewed. Our energy needs, for example, would be supplied by wind and sun rahter than coal and oil. In addition, all products manufactured and assembled would be able to be disassembled and either remanufactured or decomposed as waste. These two tenets are the antithesis of our "throw away" consumer society that buys and discards everything, much of it made of plastic and metal. Our society is so environmentally extravagant that to live otherwise, to cut back on our extravagance, takes time, self-direction and courage.
An excellent description of the many facets of sustainaibility is on the website of The Natural Step, a scientifically based international organization that has taken the lead in defining the issues and the fix.