James Bassett, The Roi Of Sustainability, at Opportunity Green Business Conference 2009

Systems, Methods and Metrics

“Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

A good starting place Difficult to generate metrics

In a sustainable society, nature is not subject to systematic increasing:

◦ Concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust (e.g., heavy metals, fossil fuels)

◦ Concentrations of substances produced by society (e.g., dioxins, PCBs, and DDT)

◦ Degradation by physical means (e.g., over-harvesting forests, paving over critical wildlife habitat)

◦ And, in that society, people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs