The basic understanding of the term
“environmental sustainability” set forth in this
paper essentially expands our common perception
of human activity so as to more clearly connect it
with the ecological concept of interdependence,
thus delineating the boundaries of this use of
“sustainability” to correspond to the overlay
of human activity upon the functioning of the
supporting ecosystem. Environmental sustainability,
then, is limited to and, in fact, becomes a subset of
ecological sustainability. Broadly speaking, this
concept of “environmental sustainability” might be
seen as adding depth to a portion of the meaning
of the most common definition of sustainable
development, i.e., “meeting the needs of the current
generation without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their needs,” by taking
on the general definition “meeting the resource and
services needs of current and future generations
without compromising the health of the ecosystems
that provide them,” (“Our Common Future”).
More specifically, environmental sustainability
could be defined as a condition of balance, resilience,
and interconnectedness that allows human society to
satisfy its needs while neither exceeding the capacity
of its supporting ecosystems to continue to regenerate
the services necessary to meet those needs nor by our
actions diminishing biological diversity