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sustainability

UK/səˌsteɪnəˈbɪlɪti/US/səˌsteɪnəˈbɪləti/
nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,583 of 15,258mostly written

Sustainability is living and producing in ways the planet can bear forever. Environmental sustainability, a sustainability report, questions of sustainability.

The standard definition is meeting present needs without preventing future generations from meeting theirs, which came from a United Nations report in 1987. The word is now used so loosely in marketing that it means very little without evidence.

Purvis, B., Mao, Y. & Robinson, D. Three pillars of sustainability: in search of conceptual origins. Sustain Sci 14, 681–695 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Definitions of sustainability

  1. 1nounsustainabilityLiving and producing in ways the planet can bear forever.B2+

    “The café switched to local food and reusable cups to improve its sustainability.”

sustainability is a quality.

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *ten-

  2. Latin

    sustineō — to uphold

  3. Old French

    sustenir

  4. Middle English

    susteinen

  5. English

    sustain

  6. English, today

    sustainability

Built from

  • sub- · Latin — from below, up
  • teneō · Latin — hold

From sustain + -ability. sustain comes from Middle English susteinen, sustenen, from Old French sustenir (French soutenir), from Latin sustineō (“to uphold”), from sub- (“from below, up”) + teneō (“hold”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Nature & Weather

Practise this word

sustainability in the wild

  • Equitable health access is a pillar of social sustainability.

    Sustainable development

  • Sustainable development overlaps with the idea of sustainability which is a normative concept.

    Sustainable development

  • Sustainability metrics and indices are measures of sustainability, using numbers to quantify environmental, social and economic aspects of the world.

    Sustainability metrics and indices

  • While sustainability indicators, indices and reporting systems gained growing popularity in both the public and private sectors, their effectiveness in influencing actual policy and practices often remains limited.

    Sustainability metrics and indices

  • For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of stewardship and responsible resource management.

    Outline of sustainability

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the teneō family

maintainentertain

sustainability — used about once every 54,060 pages · #14,583 · point at the bar for the others

  • sustainably
  • unsustainable