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Recently, it has become a catchphrase that practically everyone uses. In advertisements, at corporate functions, in the news, and in speeches, everyone is "green" and everyone is "sustainable," but what does sustainability actually mean?

When you look it up in the dictionary, you will see that sustainability generally involves maintaining, providing and nourishing. Defined more specifically by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), sustainability is the ability to achieve continued economic prosperity while protecting the natural systems of the planet and providing a high quality of life for its people.

Defining the term is the easy part. The challenge is to actually do what is needed in order to truly sustain future generations and ensure that people will have the quality of life they need in order to prosper and thrive. This is the crux of sustainability: to identify which actions will ensure that a healthy future is achievable.

Acts of sustainability touch on practically everything that we do in life: how we build our houses, the cars that we drive, the fuel which we burn, the food we eat, the water we drink, the clothes we wear, the waste that we generate, and the list goes on.

In order to achieve a sense of sustainability as a society, we need to become more aware of our actions and more accountable for and pro-active about finding solutions. Achieving sustainable solutions requires that everyone take equal responsibility for solving the problems of today and tomorrow.

When examining each aspect of our lives, we must become more aware of what it takes to make sustainable options available to us. For example, let’s look at the cotton used to make clothing. If we follow it to its origin, most people would be shocked to learn about what goes into the actual cultivation of raw cotton. The amount of chemicals used in growing cotton is astounding. Conventional cotton farming uses approximately 3% of the world’s farmland, but consumes a disproportionate 25% of the chemical pesticides and fertilizers used across the globe. In the United States alone, approximately 600,000 tons of pesticides and chemical fertilizers are applied to cotton fields each season. Not only does this impact the cotton, but it also affects the soil, the air, the people handling the chemicals and the water table below the surface. To put it simply, finding a more sustainable alternative would mean finding a substance that has less of an impact on the environment when created and consumed.

What is more, if we look for a renewable resource, then we know that it will still be available for future generations. While cotton is a natural resource, most growers are doing irreversible damage to the environment in order to ensure that their current crop is bountiful. The irony here is that if the water table is polluted, the air destroyed and the soil depleted of nutrients, then a nice cotton shirt will be superfluous; no one will be around to wear it.

We could follow this course of thought for practically everything that we come into contact with on a daily basis. Some things have direct impacts on us, while others are less noticeable. The quality of the air that we breathe is one of the most important things to consider. Breathing city air has commonly been compared to smoking two cigarettes a day. Consider how many people nowadays have developed respiratory illnesses and asthma. The example of invisible, toxic air can be directly linked to what we unknowingly bring into our home and work environments each day. If we stop releasing noxious substances into the air, we will help preserve our air while improving our personal health. This is what is meant by a sustainable action. This is what sustainability is all about – being aware of our actions, what the consequences are of those actions and then doing something to change the way we act. If we exert a little effort now, then we create multiple benefits for generations to come.

Another major factor that is challenging our future with respect to sustainability is the amount of waste that we generate. From trash bags to plastic drinking bottles, the amount of waste that accumulates is astronomical. On a daily basis, more than thirty million plastic water bottles enter the waste stream, and that’s only in the United States. Plastic comes from petroleum, and it really seems a waste to use an oil-based bottle for a single serving of water, but we do it. This is something that we need to stop if we hope to leave a healthy planet to future generations.

In the building and construction industry, enormous amounts of materials contain toxic chemicals. When they are combined to form a new or renovated home, a toxic soup is created,which is not a place where we want our children to grow up. Where young brains are rapidly developing, we want conditions to be as healthy as possible, and this includes the air. We need to do this differently because the amount of waste that we currently generate is inexcusable. In building, we dump all of the waste into landfills, while up to 90% of it is capable of being recycled. Instead of bulldozing existing structures, they can be dismantled and the parts reused.There are endless opportunities in this industry to make significant improvements.

In fact, in any sector of society, there are many ways to do things a bit better, ways to make softer footprints, ways to minimize our impacts and uses of raw materials and resources. People just need to know that improvement is possible, and that it is not a monumental or in any way impractical task.

Really, what we can all do is demonstrate to people that it is not difficult to incorporate sustainable living practices into daily routines. By living sustainably, we ensure that the future generations of the world will be able to, in turn, pass on a bright future as well. This is summed up in the term “sustainabliving,” a value that we can all benefit from and incorporate into our lives.

So in the end, what is sustainability? Sustainability is awareness. Sustainability is transformation, action, and being accountable. Sustainability is doing what is right for the future of the planet and all that inhabit it. Sustainability requires starting today because each and every action is a step in the right direction.

Ricky Cappe founded Green Built Consultants, Inc., a firm that specializes in “sustainabliving” with special emphasis given to building and construction. Green Built Consultants assists homeowners and business owners find more sustainable solutions to their daily living requirements. Contact: (310) 749 5766 or http://www.greenbuiltconsultants.com

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