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‘Sustainability’

The Brundtland report (named after Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, the youngest person and first women ever to hold the office of Prime Minister of Norway, who spearheaded the initiative which ultimately led to the earth Summit in 1992), published in 1987 by the United Nation’s World Commission on Environment and Development, defined sustainable development as “Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Sustainability has been used more in the sense of human sustainability on planet Earth. At the 2005 World Summit it was noted that this requires the reconciliation of environmental, social and economic demands - the "three pillars" of sustainability. This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing. (Definitions of sustainability often refer to the "three pillars" of social, environmental and economic sustainability)
(A representation of sustainability showing how both economy and society are constrained by environmental limits)
Rapid growth of industrial activities in the past has led to natural resources being depleted at a rate that is faster than the rate of restoration. If this trend continues, most globally admired companies will be out of business. Growth of businesses will always be dependent on the resources available. And if there is no planet, there really will be no business to do anywhere. Sustainability is thus about doing business keeping the environment in mind and showing real progress in terms of return on investment.
The United Nations is also getting serious about sustainability as it has already ratified the “Triple Bottom Line” approach, which requires business to measure their performance against metrics that take

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