Sustainability

The word sustainable or sustainability has now become one of the biggest misunderstood and mis-used words related to environmental issues. Sustainability is defined on http://sustainabilitydictionary.com/ as "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Wikipedia defines Sustainability as the "capacity to endure".

Are we really doing this in our industry and have we really adopted processes and procedures and started building products that are sustainable? Have we evolved to the point were the projects we design and build have a zero landfill contribution or are we at least working towards this goal and more?

Bill McDonough said years ago "We still have people talking about 'sustainability'! Nothing is more boring. Are you proud if your marriage is 'sustainable'?"


There are many good people working hard to push environmental initiatives forward in our industry. It becomes very easy to be complacent and say, "we're sustainable" when most of the time saying we're green is a stretch.