The Three Pillars of Sustainability (2024)

The Three Pillars of Sustainability

Sustainability is often defined using three interconnected categories: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and social sustainability. Together, these are called the "three pillars of sustainability," or "three pillars of sustainable development." The three pillars of sustainability are a framework for defining and evaluating sustainable decisions and issues.

The three pillars of sustainability are widely used around the world by organizations like the United Nations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and numerous other universities, companies, and government agencies. The three pillars of sustainability originate from international sustainable development thinking, literature, and frameworks popularized in the 1970s and 1980s.

Defining Sustainability and Sustainable Development

There are many different definitions of sustainablity. Most are centered around themes of balance, life, longevity, and the surrounding environment. According to Forum for the Future:

Sustainability is a dynamic process which enables all people to realize their potential and to improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth's life support systems

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland defined sustainability and sustainable development in the "Brundtland Report" from the UN World Commission on Environment and Development, as:

Address[ing] the needs of the present moment without compromising current and future generations to meet their own sustainable lifestyles

Indigenous communities, who have lived sustainability on Earth for centuries, typically define sustainability around principles of relationality, community-based governance, quality of life and health, and communal recognition of nature and external, non-human entities as life-givers and enablers.

Sustainability clearly exists to find balance between economic, social, and environmental needs, both now and in the future, which makes the three pillars a logical grouping system. The three pillars of sustainability help us recognize everything's connected, actions and impacts must be balanced, and no individual, organization, or nation operates by itself.

Environmental Sustainability

All life is ultimately regulated by natural systems, which makes environmental sustainability the first of the three sustainability pillars. Environmental sustainability focuses on the well-being of the environment. This pillar includes air quality, clean water, and biodiversity. As we see with climate change, it's impossible to have social and economic sustainability without environmental sustainability as well.

From a sustainable development perspective, at least six of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals focus on environmental sustainability:

However, as we mentioned before, the three pillars of sustainability aren't distinct: they're interrelated. Nature and the environment provide thousands of natural medicines like aspirin (from willow tree bark) and the painkiller morphine (from opium), and research even shows spending time in forests is good for your health.

Similarly, the environment provides us immense natural resources that can promote economic sustainability - wood, water, stone, agricultural crops, and, of course, fossil fuels. When our economic resource extraction and usage are kept in balance with environmental and social sustainability pillars, we can promote long-term economic sustainability and well-being for all.

On the other hand, prioritizing economic growth and resource extraction at the expense of environmental and social considerations is the cause of the climate crisis we currently find ourselves in.

Social Sustainability

Social sustainability includes public health, happiness, human rights, equity, education, and other important factors for community well-being. Within the three pillars of sustainability, social sustainability focuses on ensuring everyone's basic rights and needs are met.

For communities and governments, social sustainability maintains peace and protects people from sickness, poverty, hunger, homelessness, violence, oppression, and other social failings. For businesses, efforts to generate social sustainability include focusing company efforts on creating a positive, diverse, inclusive, and equitable company culture, and making sure every worker is kept safe, treated fairly, and paid a living wage.

From a sustainable development perspective, nine of the UN SDGs - including the first five - focus on social sustainability:

As the SDGs reinforce, social sustainability and human rights are closely connected. Until everyone's human rights are protected and basic needs are met, it is very difficult to achieve social sustainability in the world, within a specific country, or even at the community level.

Social sustainability is also closely interconnected with environmental and economic sustainability. Healthier, natural, plant-based eating not only creates social benefits by improving public health, but it also generates big environmental benefits. Similarly, as we recently saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping people safe and healthy reduces healthcare costs and allows people to safely participate in the workforce, thereby producing economic benefit.

Economic Sustainability

Economic sustainability includes economic development, job creation, fair compensation, labor rights, and sustainable, economic circularity. Within the three pillars of sustainability, economic sustainability allows society to innovate, prosper, solve problems, and improve standards of living, but should be pursued in harmony with environmental and social goals.

For communities and governments, social sustainability maintains peace and protects people from sickness, poverty, hunger, homelessness, violence, oppression, and other social failings. For businesses, efforts to generate social sustainability include focusing company efforts on creating a positive, diverse, inclusive, and equitable company culture, and making sure every worker is kept safe, treated fairly, and paid a living wage.

From a sustainable development perspective, four of the UN SDGs directly focus on economic sustainability:

Just like the other pillars of sustainability, economic sustainability has important environmental and social impacts. Research shows that bringing people out of poverty, eliminating resource scarcity, and meeting everyone's economic needs significantly improves overall social well-being. However, at the same time, as people and societies become wealthier, they consume more products and services like meat and airplane travel, which has a higher, negative environmental impact.

A fundamental challenge of modern sustainable development is how to create economic prosperity and raise standards of living, without raising greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and overconsumption of natural resources.

A Fourth Pillar of Sustainability?

In recent years, organizations like UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) have advocated to include culture as a fourth sustainability pillar within this framework. This pillar describes cultural heritage, art, social cohesion, and human traditions, social norms, solidarity, and collective understanding.

While we agree that culture shapes and guides our collective approach to practicing sustainability, our view is culture is part of the existing "social" pillar of sustainability and doesn't merit its own.

How You Can Use the Three Pillars of Sustainability

The exact meaning and usage of the three pillars of sustainability are subject to different interpretations, but one way to think of the three pillars is like a checklist for sustainable decision-making and analysis across:

For example, say we're urban planners thinking about creating a new curbside recycling program in our city. Using the three pillars of sustainability lets us ask and analyze important questions, considerations, and impacts:

Inside companies, the three pillars of sustainability can also be used to guide corporate social responsibility (CSR), social impact, ESG (environment social governance) and sustainability strategy, prioritization, and decision-making.

Ultimately, governments, organizations, projects, and other sustainable development initiatives are more durable, resilient, long-lasting, and successful when they achieve and balance all three pillars of sustainability. Sustainable living is all of our collective responsibility, and the three pillars of sustainability can be a helpful framework for making the right, sustainable decisions, as well as asking and analyzing the right questions about what's truly sustainable.