Environmental vs Economic vs Social Sustainability: Comparison, & Differences

Sustainability generally has three key areas/pillars – the environmental, economic and social pillars.

Some may consider natural resources a fourth pillar, whilst some may include it under the environmental pillar.

In the guide below, we explain each pillar, consider how they might relate to each other, and also give examples of each.

Summary – Environmental vs Economic vs Social Sustainability

What Is Sustainability In General?

A general definition of sustainability might be:

– The ability to maintain something at a certain level, whilst also taking into account the needs of present generations, but not compromising the needs of future generations

It might involve environmental, economic, and social factors and pillars.

We’ve written more about what sustainability might be, and the different considerations for general sustainability in this guide.

We discuss the practical factors, and potential tradeoffs and limitations involved with sustainability too.

Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability might generally take into consideration:

1. Environmental and ecosystem degradation, along with consideration for wild life, micro organisms, and biodiversity

2. The sustainable management of resources, and resource depletion

Economic Sustainability

Economic sustainability might generally take into consideration the ability to sustain economic/financial, market based, and business goals at:

1. The macro level i.e. on the level of an entire economy, and entire industries

2. The micro level i.e. on the level of individual businesses and individuals

Social Sustainability

Social sustainability might generally take into consideration the ability to support certain social goals or social criteria at:

1. The macro level i.e. for wider society

2. The micro level i.e. for individuals and specific groups of people

*Separate to social sustainability, is social responsibility, or corporate social responsibility.

How Each Area & The Different Factors Relate To Each Other

The reason that each of these factors are important are that …

Firstly, societies are composed of a collection of individuals and groups.

Economies are systems that allocate scarce resources between individuals within a society, and groups

The economy depends on natural resources as the basis for a lot of economic production (which humans derive some of their needs and wants from, and use to live their everyday lives)

And finally, the natural environment is not only something that humans use and live in, but, is something that has a lot of key functions and processes that are important to all areas of life (like supporting ecosystems, dictating weather and climate, and so on)

Because of the relationship between the three factors, each one requires consideration when making decisions regarding sustainability

There can be incentives, tradeoffs and dependencies between each factor

One of the thousands of examples of these tradeoff based questions, is whether economic growth can be environmentally sustainable i.e. is there a sustainability tradeoff to economic growth?

What Is General Sustainability?

What Is Environmental Sustainability?

Environmental sustainability might involve managing two key issues:

1. The pollution or degradation of the natural environment and it’s ecosystems

An activity might be environmentally sustainable from a degradation perspective as long as it doesn’t lead to degradation of any one area of the environment (such as land, water, air, etc) past a certain critical point.

There’s usually also consideration for wildlife and biodiversity when looking at environmental ecosystems

The concept of planetary boundaries is one concept that looks at different areas of environmental degradation

2. The sustainable management of resources, and the depletion of natural resources

We’ve put together a guide on the sustainable management of resources here.

Generally, a task involves the sustainable management of resources when natural resources can be renewed or replenished at an equal or greater rate than the consumption rate (so that a particular natural resource doesn’t reach depletion or scarcity levels)

The concept of ecological foot-printing also looks at resource use, and there are also other ways to look at resource depletion levels both now, and also into the future

Examples Of Environmental Sustainability

There are many different areas/indicators of environmental sustainability.

There’s also many ways to measure each environmental sustainability indicator.

As just one example:

Air pollution is an indicator of environmental sustainability, but, there’s multiple different types of air pollutants

A measurement of air pollution might involve the concentration of one of these pollutants in the air, in a specific geographic location, on a specific day.

An Air Quality Index is a way to measure air pollution and air quality in any one area

A few other examples of indicators of environmental sustainability might include water pollution, land degradation, levels of toxicity from general waste pollution, and more.

What Is Economic Sustainability?

Economic sustainability might generally take into consideration the ability to sustain economic and financial goals at:

1. The macro level i.e. on the level of an entire economy, and entire industries

At the macro level, there is consideration for the impact of sustainable practices on economic growth, level of unemployment, inflation, competition and free markets, and other macro economic factors

There may also be consideration for industries as a whole, such as which industries use the most water, use the most energy and electricity, and produce the most emissions

We’ve put together a guide specifically on whether economic growth might be sustainable or not

2. The micro level i.e. on the level of individual businesses and individuals

At the micro level, there is consideration for the impact of sustainable practices on factors such as business profitability, business risk, product and service quality and safety, labor, employees, and other factors

Examples Of Economic Sustainability

A few examples of economic sustainability goals could include:

– On the macro level this could involve maintaining a certain level of economic growth over a certain time period

– On the micro level, this could involve maintaining a certain level of revenue or profit for a business, OR, it could involve maintaining a certain level of wages or employment for an individual

A few examples of the different ways economic sustainability might be measured might include, but aren’t limited to:

– The level of employment (as a % of the population)

– The level of economic growth (GDP)

– Whether certain activities are profitable for businesses (when considering net revenue, subsidies and public funding schemes, and so on)

– Whether certain regulations or taxes disincentivize activity that contributes to a successful economy

What Is Social Sustainability?

Social sustainability might generally take into consideration the ability to support certain social goals or social criteria at:

1. The macro level i.e. for wider society and for larger groups

2. The micro level i.e. for individuals, and specific or smaller groups of people

Examples Of Social Sustainability

An example social sustainability on the macro level might be:

– A society may have a goal to maintain certain basic working conditions and basic working rights for all workers.

Laws and regulations might be one way of placing requirements on employers to give employees access to these conditions and these rights

An example of social sustainability on the micro level might be:

– An individual might have a preference to buy a product made in a specific way, that is important to their individual beliefs and values.

To make sure they do this, a consumer may choose to buy a product from a company that uses an independent third party certification that includes the necessary social criteria as part of it’s certification scheme

One example of this may be when a consumer buys organic cotton that has social criteria and other criteria as part of it’s certification, and another example might be when investors take into consideration corporate social responsibility in their investment decisions

Another common example might be the importance of certain animal rights and animal welfare to specific groups of people who look for a guarantee relating to animal welfare on the products they buy

Sources

1. Various ‘Better Meets Reality’ guides

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