“Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Sustainability can be defined in myriad ways, and this definition from the 1987 Burndt Commission is the most widely accepted definition of sustainability. While this definition most directly relates to natural resource use, growing inequality and injustice also threaten future generations’ ability to prosper.
This past month, we celebrated Black History Month by sharing content from Black voices in the environmental movement. While February is over, our commitment to showing the intersectionality of environmental and equity issues is not. We saw how our commitment could go past sharing content to becoming a core capability of our product. In the coming months, we will be working on the inclusion of social and governance metrics to our API for recommendations to our clients. To truly gauge a company’s efforts towards sustainability, we must measure how the business affects people.
Improving business in any area one area of ESG (“environment,” “social,” and “governance”) will ultimately help all of them. Related issues have significant overlap, because underserved, minority communities most often bear the effects of environmental degradation—the same communities which will feel the effects of climate change first and worst. This intersection is why we’re advancing our model to include recommendations for more equitable workplaces and social initiatives—you can’t have the “E” without the “SG”!
