Guest Blog Entry: Sustainability

Today's Guest Blog Entry comes to us courtesy of Tom Persing of Discovery Dynamics, talking about a topic that we have heard quite a bit about lately: sustainability.  Check out below for the very interesting info.  Also, if you are a Chamber member and want to write a Guest Blog Post, just E-mail me at mikes@lehighvalleychamber.org.
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Sustainability has become an imperative and current concept for businesses and for organizations of the 21st Century. According to a Washington State University Website, "sustainability embodies stewardship and design with nature. The most popular definition of sustainability can be traced to a 1987 United Nations' Conference. It defines sustainable developments as those that meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. What this means for businesses is the requirement with today's EPA standards to conserve such resources as light, water, and paper without compromising goals such as growing and maintaining a loyal customer base and developing the capacity of its employees.

The following definitions are more specific in terms of clarifying specific human and environmental  parameters for modeling and for measuring sustainable developments:

A. "Sustainable means using methods, systems and materials that won't deplete resources or harm natural cycles." (Rosenbaum, 1993).
B. Sustainability "identifies a concept and attitude in development that looks at a site's natural land, water, and energy resources as integral aspects of the development." (Vieira,1993)
C. "Sustainability integrates natural systems with human patterns and celebrates continuity, uniqueness and place-making." (Early, 1993)

In review of the plurality of these definitions, the site or the environmental context is an important variable to most working definitions of sustainability. This emphasis is expressed in the following definition:
Sustainable developments are those which fulfill present and future needs (WECD, 1987) while [only] using and not harming renewable resources and unique human-environmental systems of a site: [air], water, land, energy, and human ecology and/or those of other off-site sustainable systems (Rosenbaum 1993 and Vieria 1993).

These fundamental human-environmental exchanges of a business’s "site" are found to be very useful in developing critical "input - output" modeling techniques or indicators which directs the community's regenerative process. This selected network of a community’s human and environmental interrelationships were measured and placed in balance by the selected set of integrated design and planning strategies, which Discovery Dynamics provides for various organizations and businesses.


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