Pollution Prevention and Sustainable Development

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Important Links

Introduction

Sustainable practices are designed to eliminate reliance on finite resources and maximize efficency. That means everything from sustainable development that conserves land around cities to using sustainable energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal or biofuels.

Sustainable development not only conserves resources (including land), but also reduces long-term costs associated with maintaining infrastructure and supplying essential services. Efficient development also maximizes the availability of human resources to businesses. That translates into long-term economic viability that is less subject to the volatility associated with fluctuating energy and raw material prices.

Sustainable development helps to guarantee that a community will be viable for many years to come. Sustainability is not only good public relations, it also makes good business sense.

Pollution prevention (P2) technologies and regulatory practices can help communities and businesses implement sustainable development plans and sustainable production methods.

Important Definitions

Sustainable development - A framework under which communities can use resources efficiently, create efficient infrastructures, protect and enhance quality of life, and create new businesses to strengthen their economies. Sustainable development mimizes sprawl and overconsumption and promotes long-term security.

Sustainability - Sustainability is the [emerging] doctrine that economic growth and development must take place and be maintained over time, within the limits set by ecology in the broadest sense - by the interrelations of human baings and their works, the biosphere and the physical and chemcical laws that govern it...It follows that environmental protection and economic development are complementary rather than antagonistic processes." -- William D. Ruckelshaus, "Toward a Sustainable World", Scientific American, September, 1989.