One of the key concepts in economics and business management is Sustainability.
Environmental scientists were the first to pay attention to the concept of Sustainability, and then this term gradually entered other industries and various management fields and became widespread.
Mark W. McElroy says in his book Corporate Sustainability Management that the concept of “sustainability,” or “Nachhaltigkeit,” in modern writing was raised for the first time by a German miner named Hans Karlowitz. He used this term in his first comprehensive treatise about forestry to describe the correct way of forestry.
In 1987, the United Nations Brundtland Commission defined Sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Today, we have reached the point where pollution and neglect have reached a historical peak, and after the corona pandemic, which according to Virginijus Sinkevičius (the Commissioner for Environment, oceans, and fisheries), was a “wake-up call,” Sustainability found its place in the mental model, language and discourse of humans.