People here at Ecoworks are fundamentaly involved with Sustainable design.

Sustainable design is the art of producing objects using only renewable resources, and which themselves, in operation, deplete only renewable resources.

Such designs are called 'sustainable' because they serve human needs without destroying the resource base on which human civilization is based. Thus, they can be used into the indefinite future.

Whilst such an approach would be easy if our core business was growing willow and making baskets which we took to market on the back of a donkey, all would be well. However, since our core business is involved with technology it has proved to be extremely difficult. We are, in essence, having to re-invent the wheel (a page on our 2watt computer will follow soon).

Sustainable design fits into the broad all-encompassing term, Sustainability.

Here we go then . . .

Sustainability is an economic, social, and ecological concept. It is intended to be a means of configuring civilization and human activity so that society and its members are able to meet their needs and express their greatest potential in the present, while preserving biodiversity and natural ecosystems, and planning and acting for the ability to maintain these ideals indefinitely. Sustainability affects every level of organization, from the local neighbourhood to the entire globe. It is inevitably a controversial topic.

In recent years the word sustainability has been used in reference to how long human ecological systems can be expected to be usefully productive. In the past, complex human societies have died out, sometimes as a result of their own growth and associated impacts on ecological support systems. The implication is that modern industrial society, which continues to grow in scale and complexity, will also collapse.

Put in simple terms, sustainability is providing the best for people and the environment both now and in the indefinite future. One of the first and most oft-cited definitions of sustainability and almost certainly the one that will survive for posterity (should there be posterity), is that created by the 1987 Brundtland Report:
"Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs."

The popularity of the term 'sustainability' has led to competing definitions and much confusion. However the word has a reasonably agreed-upon meaning, as a plain, English-language word, and in its environmental usage it is used to refer to the ecological longevity of human support systems.

We at Ecoworks know a fair amount about sustainability because we have been involved in it for over twenty years, from Permaculture and The Natural Step through to Agenda 21 and beyond.

Sustainability is not just an idea to be banded about, it is an ideal to be lived. However it appears to have been hijacked by politicians and scientists who seem to have their own agendas, so the time to be concerned is now.