There are lots of lists of ‘required but insufficient’ conditions of Planetary Sustainability. This isn’t really surprising, considering that Sustainability is the broadest topic of human study that can exist on the planet. It is much easier for a single person (or even a team of people) to describe the bits that would be required for any one aspect of Sustainability, than for someone to put them all together to cover the whole topic.

This is my effort at a list of ‘required and sufficient’ system conditions of Planetary Sustainability at a Community scale.  I would expect that any smaller scale would have to be consistent with this list. Thus corporate, individual, or project Sustainability (as examples) could be considered in isolation of the rest of the system if the effort was consistent with any parts of this list, without being in opposition to the rest of the list.

 

1. Each community must have a non-declining portion of their landmass that is protected as ‘wilderness’. Therefore, it must be prevented from being a source of resources or a sink for waste.

2. Each community must have an Ecological Footprint that is no larger than the Biocapacity of that community, for each biome.

3. Each community must not import resources or export waste to meet their needs. If trade for needs is required, then co-management agreements significantly beyond purchase and sale arrangements would be required.

4. Each community must be able to meet the needs of their entire population in less than 24 hours per day per capita.
To have Sustainable Development:
a) No fraction of a community can receive a greater burden of the costs associated with development than the benefits they receive, measured in the time required to meet needs, while considering all future time costs and time penalties.
b) Any given Development initiative must increase the time available to the community for activities other than those required to meet their needs, as if all needs were met, when considering the resource consumption in excess of what is available to the community in perpetuity.

This is simplified by:
Φ Reducing disparity of consumption between the segments of the population with the highest and lowest per capita consumption.
Θ In technologically rich communities, focusing on identifying and removing the obstructions within the self, family, or community that prevent people from meeting their needs.

To have Corporate Sustainability, for example, one would have to demonstrate that the business improves any of the first 4 conditions, without worsening any of the rest.  All CSR must be able to demonstrate the impact of their efforts with respect to these conditions.  Green vertical or horizontal infrastructure initiatives, such as LEED, CEQUAL, and Envision, must be able to show that they are improving some conditions for the community they are part of, without impeding any of the conditions.  Otherwise, they may be making things “less un-sustainable”, without actually improving quality of life of the community in a meaningful way.