sustainability

Noun

sustainability (countable and uncountable, plural sustainabilities)

1. A means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society, its members and its economies are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, planning and acting for the ability to maintain these necessary resources for future generations.
   • None of the processing happens out in the open ocean, said Gaurav Sant, an Equatic founder and professor of sustainability at UCLA, “this is important because it allows you to measure everything that you’re doing perfectly.”2024 April 21, Laura Paddison, “Can this ocean-based carbon plant help save the world? Some scientists are raising red flags”, in CNN
2. The ability to sustain a business in the long term, which is a state that is partly dependent on, but broader than, profitability today or in the short term; it involves aspects of a plausible path toward eventual profitability (as applies to a startup) and ecologic sustainability (for example, the long-term dependence of the timber/lumber industry on forest preservation and renewal, or of fisheries on viable fish stocks).
   • The making of buggy whips is the proverbial exemplar of a business without sustainability in the face of technological change.
   • In a war of words that has broken out between Khan and Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps, the Mayor was accused of sending revenue-raising proposals to Shapps some three weeks late, giving him little choice but to extend negotiations. Khan countered this by alleging that 'unfair'...2022 January 12, “Network News: Further extension to Transport for London emergency funding”, in RAIL, number 948, page 8
3. (civics) The ability to sustain a civic practice or process in the long term, such as democracy, entrepreneurialism, a war effort, or others.
   • universal primary and secondary education, without which the sustainability of innovation and entrepreneurialism seems questionable
4. The ability to sustain something.