In “Social Sustainability: towards some definitions,” McKenzie identifies several attempts to define social sustainability and concludes it generally to be, “a positive condition within communities, and a process within communities that can achieve that condition.” This definition is supplemented with a list of corresponding principles, including:
• equity of access to key services
• equity between generations
• a system of relations valuing disparate cultures
• political participation of citizens, particularly at a local level
• a sense of community ownership
• a system for transmitting awareness of social sustainability from one
• mechanisms for a community to fulfill its
own needs where possible
• political advocacy to meet needs that cannot be met by community action
Others attempt to capture its use for those working in agriculture (Harwood) or in the various functional units of business organizations (Morelli et al., “Sustainable Consumption”) Not surprisingly, environmental managers have identified “environmental sustainability” as a concept that has a professional meaning for them,” (Morelli and Lockwood).