There is still no common definition of sustainability. The following derivation serves as a basis for overlook:
Sustainability finds its origin in literature in 1713 with the publication of the "Sylvicultura Oeconomica" by Hans Carl von Carlowitz, who called for equality between increment and increment in forestry. According to Carlowitz, only as much wood should be felled as can grow back, so that forestry can recover itself and a "continuous steady and sustained use" becomes possible. The Sylvicultura Oeconomica defines the most essential characteristic of sustainability: the pursuit of a long-term perspective with the aim of preserving crucial aspects of human life. The year 1972 marks the beginning of an internationally led environmental policy through the United Nations "Conference on the Environment" with the aim of launching a global initiative for more climate protection. 1987 saw the publication of the so-called "Brundtland Report". The "World Commission on Environment and Development" coined the term "sustainable development". In addition, the principle of sustainability is supplemented with social factors and intergenerational justice is addressed for the first time, which sets the goal of sustainable development to provide future generations with complete satisfaction of their needs. The "Brundlandt Report" makes clear the difference between the often synonymously used terms "sustainable development" and "sustainability". Sustainable development describes a process of change that should eventually reach the goal of sustainability, a steady state and the end of the process. The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro produces Agenda 21. With it, the member states commit themselves for the first time to common sustainable goals, which include effectively combating global poverty and preserving biological diversity. In Germany, the principle of sustainability finds broad access to the population in 1995 through the Enquete Commission "Protection of Man and the Environment" of the German Bundestag. One result of the commission is the three-pillar model of sustainability that is still often used today. In this model, the principle of sustainability is based in equal parts on economic, ecological and social factors. Sustainability is still not subject to a uniform definition and is often reduced to ecological factors in general linguistic usage. This becomes clear, for example, through the different use of the term in the German media. Nevertheless, the three-dimensionality is a much-used principle. Like Agenda 21, Agenda 2030, published in 2015, specifies concrete goals that are based equally on ecological, social and economic aspects. Many companies are currently committing to (individual) aspects of the 2030 Agenda (Sustainable Development Goals). The Agenda could therefore be extremely interesting for the development of overlook content. More information on the 2030 Agenda: https://www.2030agenda.de/de/publication/die-agenda-2030
In the corporate context, the three-dimensionality is often referred to as the "triple bottom line approach", in which the three Ps (people, planet, profit) are equally integrated into corporate activities. Sustainability has become a business case due to the increasing awareness of people (and thus also customers), in that companies use an enhanced ecological/social image to increase their market opportunities and generate sales. This is referred to as a triple bottom line economic approach. A triple-bottom-line approach, which is not only reduced to economic goals, can be realised with the help of three strategies: Dematerialisation (efficiency), nature compatibility (consistency) and the strategy of self-limitation/renunciation (sufficiency), which has so far been pursued rather rarely in industrialised countries. Pursuit of the first two strategies is based on the immediate economic successes that can potentially be generated, which are made possible both by an increase in efficiency and the demand for ecological goods on the part of customers. It is questionable to what extent sufficiency can be consistent with the characteristics of homo economicus (theory that humans maximise their own benefit exclusively). It can be assumed that companies today are not prepared to subordinate their own interests to the common good when it comes to ecological and economic co-benefits.
In order to reach the idealistic state of sustainability, a development is needed that creates an intrinsic motivation in companies to apply all three strategies mentioned. It is questionable whether such a development can be borne exclusively by companies or to what extent a conversion of the overall economic system is required. According to Feess and Seeliger, this becomes particularly clear in the ecological field and the allocation of public goods. For example, companies are responsible for damage to the environment through the consumption of resources, but these are transferred to people as external effects, e.g. in the form of poorer air quality. Feess and Seeliger therefore come to the conclusion that the existence of these external effects requires (stronger) environmental policy interventions so that an internalisation of the external effects takes place and an attribution of the effects to the respective decision-makers is possible.
A company can be interpreted as a system consisting of a multitude of subsystems (=subordinate system), such as departments, groups, etc.. If systemic thinking is linked to the developments of sustainability in historical observation, it can be deduced that sustainability is to be understood as "the preservation of essential properties or the general stability of systems designed for the long term". This can only be ensured if there is an optimal and holistic adaptation of the internal structures vis-à-vis the demands of the external world.
It means that a system can only be sustainable if its subsystems can be described as sustainable. As a result, a superordinate system is only sustainable if the (sub)system under consideration can demonstrate long-term stability. If an element endangers the stability of the system, it also damages the superordinate system. This makes it clear that every person, every company, etc. has a responsibility towards every higher-level system. Any instability can cause the collapse of one's own system as well as any system into which it is integrated. In the evaluation of sustainability, systemic thinking makes a decisive contribution. It first examines the functions of the individual elements and grasps their structure and interconnections with each other, in order to finally place them in a larger context.
The system perspective may sound a bit complex at first. The whole thing is summarised again in other, few words: