About Sustainable UF > What is Sustainability?
What is Sustainability? Why does it matter?
Simply defined, sustainability is meeting contemporary needs without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their needs.
More comprehensively, it means looking at the issues and problems facing our world with a new perspective - one that focuses on three interdependent areas of concern: ecological preservation, economic viability, and social justice.
To be sustainable, therefore, a practice must preserve rather than destroy its ecological base, ensure rather than undermine long-term economic benefits, and advance rather than retard matters of fairness, equity and diversity.
The University of Florida has a special
obligation to meet the challenges of sustainability for three
interrelated reasons. First,
as educators we play a leading role in training the scientific,
social, political and cultural leaders, professionals and
policy-makers who will
make a difference in the world. Second, we consume significant
resources here on campus. Third, whether the world is a better
or worse place when
our students become its citizens, parents, and leaders will
be, in no small part, a function of the values, knowledge
and skills they receive here.