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Question
When people talk about sustainability, there are many things that come to mind. What does sustainability mean to you?
- Aug 19, 2021 2:29 pm GMT
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Sustainability means you never create pollution and you don't depleat a resource. This is best done with Renewable Energy. Building very efficient buildings using all passive and active Solar is a great start. Then using only very efficient and long lasting LED lights is a great next step. They are?also very long life lights.
In my opinion, sustainability means, not to repeat all the failures of the industrial age by exhausting all available resources and leaving devastation behind when "the job" is done. Continued use, repurposing, transformation of all available assets for future value generation is key for a comprehensive sustainablity approach.
Resilience is when there is confidence in the future. Yes, a lot comes to mind, depending on the month of the year, and on the problems that have to be solved. For me personally, sustainability means that everything is going according to plan.
For example, at work, it means that all the necessary work on the prevention of equipment and auxiliary means is performed perfectly. As a heating manager for the housing stock, as well as education and medical institutions, sustainability is needed 24/24 during the entire heating season. How stable the service we are presenting was seen in the spring after the end of the heating season. I can assure you that there have been no supply disruptions over the 15 years of the company’s management.
While sustainability can be quite elastic in perception ranging from recycling waste to solving world hunger, for me it is about 4 broad pillars - energy, water, material and controlling temperature rise. Everyone has a stake in managing each of these in their won context - corporations, citizens and governments. While everyone has jumped to the bandwagon the approach to contribution and path to sustainable living is still unclear - the journey has just started.
I think about sustainability in the context of the fact that for the moment the human race has only one place to live. Anything that we do collectively that consumes resources that can not be replaced is the opposite of sustainability. At some point in the far distant future the sun will go out. Until then the sun is the closest thing that we have to an unlimited power source. Solar and wind are creatures of the sunlight that hits the Earth. Using that sunlight and using the wind are the best things that we can do for now to ensure that the Earth will remain a place where the human race can live. It is also the reason to always make the sustainable choice when possible in whatever we chose to do. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Your great grandchildren and beyond will thank you.
Sustainability, or operating sustainably, is the notion of operating a venture with as little waste as possible. In this sense we are talking waste that results in air emissions, water discharges, or solid/liquid waste to landfill. All of these wastes represent inefficiencies in the venture that are also potentially harmful to the local community (e.g. hazardous solids) if not the world (e.g. greenhouse gases). The notion of sustainability extends beyond ones own perimeter; it strives to reduce all the waste inefficiencies in the products and services a venture buys from its suppliers. Such waste inefficiencies are determined through a life cycle assessment. By extending the notion of sustainability beyond one's own perimeter, we call attention to the waste we create through purchasing decisions, realize the depletion of resources and concentration of wastes that result geographically from unsustainable purchases, and realize the value of buying products and services locally. This is what it means to operate sustainably.
Sustainability is being able to do something without creating pollution or using up the resources. Renewable Energy is a great example.
Some think Nuclear Energy is sustainable since it doesn't produce carbon dioxide pollution. They don't consider all the deadly waste it makes or the water it uses. Or that uranium is a finite resource.
So you need to consider the entire system and all the input and output.
One thing that comes to mind for me when talking about sustainability and energy is energy security. In addition to those comments provided, sustainable energy will require security from inception and the ability to be agile and adjust as future risks and threats are identified. Sustainable energy that introduces new vulnerabilities and risks to our energy sector will be of little value if it cannot operate securely, be protected from threats or have resiliency as part of its core structure.
For an organization (company) to be sustainable means to operate in a manner that permits the firm to proper over the long term. It requires the holistic balance of innovation, customer satisfaction, employee motivation, shareholder returns and understanding and working within the constraints of our climate and environment. It is a difficult and broad challenge but one all of us must face.
It is better to use the adjective to describe a subject rather than the noun. To me, it is the sustainable energy required to achieve the sustainable development of the society, which will be monitored by the seventeen goals of sustainability issued by the United Nations Organization UN. In summary, it is Sustainable Energy. But how to achieve energy sustainability? This includes the rational use of energy resources to extend the lifetime of depleted resources such as fossil fuel and maximize utilization of renewable resources.
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