Three pillars of sustainability: in search of conceptual origins

The three-pillar conception of (social, economic and environmental) sustainability, commonly represented by three intersecting circles with overall sustainability at the centre, has become ubiquitous. With a view of identifying the genesis and theoretical foundations of this conception, this paper r...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability science Vol. 14; no. 3; pp. 681 - 695
Main Authors: Purvis, Ben, Mao, Yong, Robinson, Darren
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Tokyo Springer Japan 01.05.2019
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Climate Change Management and Policy
Concepts
Developing countries
Earth and Environmental Science
Economic development
Economic growth
Economics
Environment
Environmental Economics
environmental impact
Environmental Management
Knowledge Management for Sustainability Science
Landscape Ecology
LDCs
Methodology
Original Article
Public Health
Schools
Sustainability
sustainability science and engineering
Sustainable Development
United Nations
Triple bottom line
Historical origins
History of sustainability
Sustainable development
Conceptual review
ISSN:1862-4065, 1862-4057
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The three-pillar conception of (social, economic and environmental) sustainability, commonly represented by three intersecting circles with overall sustainability at the centre, has become ubiquitous. With a view of identifying the genesis and theoretical foundations of this conception, this paper reviews and discusses relevant historical sustainability literature. From this we find that there is no single point of origin of this three-pillar conception, but rather a gradual emergence from various critiques in the early academic literature of the economic status quo from both social and ecological perspectives on the one hand, and the quest to reconcile economic growth as a solution to social and ecological problems on the part of the United Nations on the other. The popular three circles diagram appears to have been first presented by Barbier (Environ Conserv 14:101, doi: 10.1017/s0376892900011449, 1987 ), albeit purposed towards developing nations with foci which differ from modern interpretations. The conceptualisation of three pillars seems to predate this, however. Nowhere have we found a theoretically rigorous description of the three pillars. This is thought to be in part due to the nature of the sustainability discourse arising from broadly different schools of thought historically. The absence of such a theoretically solid conception frustrates approaches towards a theoretically rigorous operationalisation of ‘sustainability’.
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ISSN:1862-4065
1862-4057
DOI:10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5