Choosing our Future:
From Vision to Action
What is Sustainability?
Sustainability is a concept that became widely used in the 1990’s. It refers to the wise use of resources within a framework in which environmental, economic and social factors are integrated. This means using all the community’s resources efficiently, fairly and responsibly so that the needs of people on whom development has an impact – now and in the future - stand the best chance of being met.
While all North American urban areas are faced with declining ecosystem capacity (e.g. deforestation, soil erosion, toxification, resource depletion), demand on the ecosystem is increasing. Population growth, bigger cars and houses, urban sprawl, growing consumerism, and the amount of unrecyclable refuse we generate cause this demand.