Applied sustainability

Applied sustainability is the application of science and innovation, including the insights of the social sciences, to meet human needs while indefinitely preserving the life support systems of the planet.

Note that this is a significant difference from the standard definition of sustainability that normally is encapsulated by some version of the Brundtland Commission's concept: “development that meets the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

A more refined definition would be called just applied sustainability: the just and equitable application of science and innovation, including the social sciences, to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the future whilst living within the limits of supporting ecosystems. This comes from the definition of Just Sustainability, which is “the egalitarian conception of sustainable development"(Jacobs, 1999:32). It generates an improved definition of sustainable development as “the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of supporting ecosystems” (Agyeman, et al., 2003:5). This new form of sustainable development prioritizes justice and equity, while maintaining the importance of the environment and the global life support system.

The relationship between applied sustainability and sustainability (or sustainability science) is analogous relationship between applied science (engineering) and basic science. Whereas science is the effort to discover, understand, or to understand better, how the physical world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding. Applied science is the application of knowledge from one or more natural scientific fields to solve practical problems.

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