2120 Milvia Street, 2nd Floor, Berkeley, CA 94704
TEL: (510) 981-7439, TDD: (510) 981-7474
Office Hours: Mon-  Fri 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Email: Energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us

Sustainability:
Economics, Environment, and Social Equality 
A sustainable community is one that meets the needs of the present 
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

To understand what it means for an action to be sustainable, it should be examined using three basic criteria: Economic, Environmental and Social Equity..  These three criteria, or indicators, help in evaluating the sustainability of the action or process.  Degradation in any of these three areas indicates that the action is not sustainable, and corrective action is needed.

 Examples:   Economic indicators for a particular action, say the high tech industry, may include low overall unemployment rates as one indicator, but when linked to the Equality indicator, it may reveal that unemployment or wage inequity is concentrated unfairly in one sector of the population.  

Another Economic indicator may be a city that supports and encourages its small businesses, so that it creates local jobs, pays local taxes, and wages paid in the local economy stay in the local economy.  This creates a variety of job types, which helps the community weather economic changes.

 Another indicator may be an industry, say, telecommunications, which is able to provide inexpensive, disposable cell phones, affordable to nearly everyone.  While the Economic indicators are positive, the Environmental indicator would reveal that the metal ore (Columbite-Tantalite, or “coltan”) used in the batteries for these disposable cell phones, come primarily from mining activities in the Republic of Congo’s mountains.  Mining companies destroy the habitat of the endangered mountain gorillas by clear cutting, and killing the animals.  

Further, applying the Equality indicator reveals that money from the sale of this ore is funding the Rwandan army (about $20 million a month), which has been accused of slaughtering its citizens in their civil war.

It is possible to look at every human activity, from buying conventionally grown versus organic groceries, to choosing to air mail over ground service when mailing a package, and assess it using these indicators..

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