Sustainability is a concept that has been in the resource management literature for over 60 years. It has taken many forms. Some of the concepts are:

Types below

Links

• Maximum sustainably yield (MSY), maximum economic yield (MEY), and maximum social yield (MScY, also OY), Fisheries and forestry experience with sustainable yield management
• Carrying capacity - the achievement and management in perpetuity . . . of renewable natural resources without permanently impairing long-term productivity, ecosystem integrity, or the quality of the land, air, and waters and their environmental values . . . Similar to "steady state" or "ecolibrium". (Pacific Northwest River Basins Commission, 1973, Ecology and the Economy: A concept for Balancing Long-Range Goals, The Pacific Northwest). Compare population and quality of life projections and actual. Population is about what was predicted. Quality of life, at least in income terms is well below, approximately half the prediction.
• sustainable development - United Nations Committee on Environment and Development. For sustainable development links

• sustainable development - Earth Summit, United Nations Committee for Environment and Development, 1992, The Global Partnership for Environment and Development: A Guide to Agenda 21. Geneva: UNCED.
• 27 principles
• 7 themes
• The Prospering World - sustainable development, integrating environment and development
• The Just World - poverty, consumption, health
• The Habitable World - settlement, water, waste, health
• The Fertile World - water, energy, agriculture, forests, fragile ecosystems, biodiversity
• The Shared World - oceans and atmosphere
• The Clean World - toxic and hazardous wastes
• The Peoples' World - education, gender, youth, indigeneous peoples, business, industry, labor
• implementing sustainable development
• sustainable progress & green taxes - Worldwatch Institute, 1991, State of the World, 1991, New York, W.W. Norton.
• total capital - Some ecological and neo-classical economists tend to define sustainability in terms of capital (Castle et al. 1994; Costanza and Daly 1992; Ervin and Berrens 1993; Pearce 1993; Solow 1991, 1992). A broad definition (Ervin and Berrens 1993) of total capital (TK) is the sum of nonrenewable resource capital e.g., oil or minerals; renewable resource capital, e.g., fish and forests; human-made capital, e.g., a manufacturing plant and equipment; and human or intellectual capital, e.g., education and acquired knowledge. To this could be added cultural capital, e.g., art and music, and institutional or social capital, e.g., legal principles and regulatory rules. A debate among ecological and neo-classical economists over the sustainability of biosocial systems is the relationship between natural and human-made capital. Solow (1991, 1992), for example, says that as long as TK is equal or greater in the next generation the system is sustainable. Costanza and Daly (1992) argue that sustainability only occurs when there is no decline in natural capital. Ervin and Berrens (1993) call these weak and strong criteria for defining sustainability. The crux of the argument is whether natuaral and human-made capital are seen as complements of one another or substitutes (Folke et al. 1994). Ecological economists see natural capital as becoming more and more limiting for the further development of human society. Classical economists take the view that human ingenuity will find new forms of natural capital and adopt ways to save and more effectively use natural capital.

• index of sustainable economic welfare - Herman Daly and John B. Cobb, Jr., 1989, For the Common Good, Boston, Beacon Press.
• Biosphere II - not so much sustainable as nearly closed system with very limited inputs. Oriented toward space and biotechnology in food, waste disposal.
• sustainable biosphere initiative - Jane Lubchenco and 15 others, 1991, The Sustainable Biosphere Initiative: An Ecological Research Agenda, Ecology, 72(2):371-412.
• Oregon Solutions sustainability initiative. Bringing economy, environment and community together. Governor Kitzhaber's executive order says, "Sustainability means using, developing and protecting resources at a rate and in a manner that enables people to meet their current needs and also provides that future generations can meet their own needs. Sustainability requires simultaneously meeting environmental, economic and community needs." - Definition of 'Sustainability', Executive Order No. EO-00-07

References:

Costanza, R., Daly, H.E. (1992) Natural capital and sustainable development. Conservation Biology. 6, 37-46.

Ervin, D.E., Berrens, R.P. (1993) Critical economic issues in ecosystem management or a National Forest. In: Jensen, M.E., Bourgeron, P. (eds.) Ecosystem Management: Principles and Applications. Volume II of Eastside Forest Ecosystem Health. USDA-Forest Service, Missoula, MT.

Folke, C., Hammer, M., Costanza, R., Jansson, A. (1994) Investing in natural capital--why, what, and how? In: Jansson, A., Hammer, M., Folke, C., Costanza, R. Investing in Natural Capital. Island Press, Washington, DC.

Pearce, D.W. (1993) Economic Values and the Natural World. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 129 p.

Solow, R.M. (1991) Sustainability: an economist s perceptive. Woods Hole, MA, J. Seward Johnson Lecture, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Marine Policy Center.

Solow, R.M. (1992) An almost practical step toward sustainability. Resources for the Future 40th Anniversary Lecture, Washington, DC.

World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, Our Common Future, New York: Oxford University Press