It is good that sometimes somebody will ask the question the answer to which is too obvious to be spoken.

Every place, every time exists within its own set of standards and complexity. In order for sustainability to exist, every place, every time must be carefully studied and evaluated for potential systems that will help in the decision making process. True sustainability can never exist. Systems evolve. So anyone attempting to standardize sustainability risks unbalancing the system, which happens in nature all the time. For us (humans) we must create “actions and constructs” that will have adaptability.

Resources are not static. Most of the time we don’t ask ourselves what resources we need to acknowledge when attempting to create sustainable “actions and constructs”. More often than not most sustainability professionals only talk about three resources: people, planet and profits. The triple bottom line is simply “too simplistic”.

Let’s list resources (still rather general): natural (both renewable and non-renewable), environmental, economical, cultural, social, civic, political, educational, spiritual, etc. Sustainable models will address each of these resources on a case to case basis and remember that we should not only look forward, but backward. By recognizing trends we can then create adaptable sustainable models.

Hoping to sound not too trite: sustainability is thus holistic.

http://www.semiosiscommunications.com/report-sustainability-rule-challenge/