Sustainability - Tweed Shire Council
Sustainability is a concept that has emerged over the last 20+ years as a result of worldwide recognition that our environmental problems and solutions are closely linked with the state of the economy and the health of our community.
Sustainability has three core components:
- Balanced decision making based on environmental, social and economic goals;
- The focus on equity and fairness and the recognition that we cannot ignore the effects of our actions on others in an interdependent world; and
- Recognition that while a strong economy is necessary to meet the needs of today, it must not be at the expense future generations to meet their own needs.
It is important to recognise that sustainability is a journey, not a destination. It’s about government, industry, business, institutions, households and individuals making informed decisions for the benefit of the natural environment, social equity and economic resilience.
If the guiding principles of sustainability were distilled into a single sentence, a candidate would have be the Native American proverb:
‘We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children’.
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