Some believe that adopting a sustainable approach means increasing recycling, reducing waste, and selecting "green" products. While these are important steps, they fail to address the fundamental problems. Ecosystems do not, and cannot, expand their life-sustaining capacities in response to the expanding desires of cultures or exploding global populations. We must, instead, look within ourselves as we move towards a sustainable life. Hopefully, the following definitions, taken from a variety of sources will help you to determine your own view of sustainability:

"Sustainable design is the set of perceptual and analytic abilities, ecological wisdom, and practical wherewithal essential to making things that fit in a world of microbes, plants, animals, and entropy. In other words, (sustainable design) is the careful meshing of human purposes with the larger patterns and flows of the natural world, and careful study of those patterns and flows to inform human purposes."
-David Orr, Ecological Literacy

"A sustainable society is one which satisfies its needs without diminishing the prospects of future generations."
Lester R. Brown, Founder and President, Worldwatch Institute

"Sustainability is equity over time.": "As a value, it refers to giving equal weight in your decisions to the future as well as the present. You might think of it as extending the Golden Rule through time, so that you do unto future generations as you would have them do unto you." "
-Robert Gilman, Director, Context Institute

"A transition to sustainability involves moving from linear to cyclical processes and technologies. The only processes we can rely on indefinitely are cyclical; all linear processes must eventually come to an end."
-Dr. Karl Henrik-Robert, MD, founder of The Natural Step, Sweden

"Actions are sustainable if:

• There is a balance between resources used and resources regenerated.
• Resources are as clean or cleaner at end use as at beginning.
• The viability, integrity, and diversity of natural systems are restored and maintained.
• They lead to enhanced local and regional self-reliance.
• They help create and maintain community and a culture of place.
• Each generation preserves the legacies of future generations."

-David McCloskey, Professor of Sociology, Seattle University

"Clean air, clean water, safety in city parks, low-income housing, education, child care, welfare, medical care, unemployment (insurance), transportation, recreation/cultural centers, open space, wetlands..."
-Hazel Wolf, Seattle Audubon Society

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
-Aldo Leopold, A Land Ethic, from Sand County Almanac

"Leave the world better than you found it, take no more than you need, try not to harm life or the environment, make amends if you do. "
- Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce