Learn About Sustainability | US EPA (2024)

FAQs

How does the EPA define sustainability? ›

Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment.

Sustainability is commonly characterized in terms of the interdependence among three broad dimensions—environment, economy, and society—while considering both present and future generations.

Sustainability's three main pillars represent environmental concerns, socially responsible practices, and economic cooperation. These three pillars are also informally referred to as people, planet, purpose, and profits. It's useful to understand the terms sometimes used in place of the three pillars.

Sustainability is an essential part of facing current and future global challenges, not only those related to the environment.

In the broadest sense, sustainability refers to the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. In business and policy contexts, sustainability seeks to prevent the depletion of natural or physical resources, so that they will remain available for the long term.

Climate action: Acting now to stop global warming. Life below water: Avoiding the use of plastic bags to keep the oceans clean. Life on land: Planting trees to help protect the environment. Responsible consumption and production: Recycling items such as paper, plastic, glass and aluminum.

Sustainability is our society's ability to exist and develop without depleting all of the natural resources needed to live in the future. Sustainable development supports this long-term goal with the implementation of systems, frameworks, and support from global, national, and local entities.

President Biden's Executive Order 14057 on catalyzing American clean energy industries and jobs through Federal sustainability and accompanying Federal Sustainability Plan (collectively referred to as "The Federal Sustainability Plan") sets out a range of ambitious goals to deliver an emissions reduction pathway ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for the protection of human health and the environment. EPA: Provides technical assistance to support recovery planning of public health and infrastructure, such as waste water treatment plants.

The “5 Ps” of the UN Sustainable Development Goals – People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnerships – represent the foundation of Agenda 2030, an aspirational plan to build a more equal, more just, more sustainable and more prosperous world for future generations.

Why is sustainability important? ›

Being committed to sustainability will reduce your carbon footprint and the amount of toxins released into the environment, making it safe. When we focus on sustainability, the entire world benefits and gets to live in clean, more healthy living conditions.

We just need to harness its power through a simple mantra of collection, coordination, and collaboration.

Sustainability is often represented diagrammatically. The figure at the top of this page suggests that there are three pillars of sustainability – economic viability, environmental protection and social equity.

The 3Ps of sustainability are a well-known and accepted business concept. The Ps refer to People, Planet, and Profit, also often referred to as the triple bottom line. Sustainability has the role of protecting and maximising the benefit of the 3Ps.

"Sustainability means meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In addition to natural resources, we also need social and economic resources. Sustainability is not just environmentalism.

CERCLA section 101(8) defines "environment" as "(A) the navigable waters, the waters of the contiguous zone, and the ocean waters of which the natural resources are under the exclusive management authority of the United States under the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, and (B) any other surface water, ...

Environmental sustainability definition

Environmental sustainability is the ability to maintain an ecological balance in our planet's natural environment and conserve natural resources to support the wellbeing of current and future generations.

In 1987, the United Nations Brundtland Commission defined sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”