Purvis, B., Mao, Y. and Robinson, D. (2019) Three pillars of sustainability: in search of conceptual origins. Sustainability Science, 14 (3). pp. 681-695. ISSN 1862-4065
Abstract
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’.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
Keywords: | Sustainable development; Conceptual review; Historical origins; Triple bottom line; History of sustainability |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Architecture (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 Oct 2018 13:00 |
Last Modified: | 03 May 2024 15:02 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s11625-018-0627-5 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:136715 |
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