Sustainability is often confused with the term ‘going green’. Broadly speaking, however, the capacity for continuance into the long-term (which is one of many sustainability definitions) is about more than the environment. Make no mistake, the environment should be of paramount concern to all of us for the simple reason that every business (and life) resource comes from it.

That being said, focusing only on the environmental aspects of sustainability is both shortsighted and partial -- not unlike claiming that good health is solely about vegetables. It is therefore important to note that sustainability embraces the legal, financial, economic, industrial, social and behavioural arenas as well as the environment. From a business viewpoint it can be argued that sustainability is about reducing expenses - including future expenses - in every conceivable form so as to facilitate longevity and competitiveness. These expenses consist of the costs of short-term thinking, the problems and costs associated with waste, the spiralling cost of raw materials and resource deficits (resulting from an increasingly affluent and growing population all of whom are competing for the world’s finite supply of resources), costs created or exacerbated by poorly designed products and production processes, the costs of climate change (e.g.: property damage and crop failure), and the costs of unemployment and nderemployment - to name just a few.