CLEMSON DNA: Sustainability Code Endures!

 

President's Commission on Sustainability - Every other Tuesday, attendance encouraged.

Sustainability.  What is this exactly?    Have you ever heard any one utilize this word in a daily conversation.  "... My mom's sustainability in the kitchen really says it all!", "Grandma really is sustainable", or  "Wow, look how economically sustainable those Jones live!" How do we recognize it in practice?

According to The Columbia Dictionary, sustainability is the ability to continue over along time; To endure. While the words has a specific meaning.  Sustainability has become the phrase that conveys a set of beliefs or principles.  Specifically, our ability to hold up under pressure has been a question of environmental, economic and social implications.  

More recently, sustainability conveys the concern for future human conditions.  The most widely quoted definition is based on a United Nations report dated March 20, 1987, a document produced by the Brundtland Commission -

“Sustainable development
is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Arguably cultural literacy, the acknowledgment of the basic information is necessary to thrive in the modern world, is key in observing the sustainability culture at Clemson.  To see the effects through the exploration of the The Clemson University sustainability community, we can observe our collective historic knowledge in practice.   The emergence of Clemson's sustainable community may be a recycling of values.  

Let's submit the idea, while we recognize sustainability is perceived to be a modern concept.  It has been present within the Clemson University community. Historically resource challenged, Clemson has endured.  While external pressures have facilitated modern process challenges.  The "activity" of stewardship has and will continue it is recognized to be in Clemson DNA.  

In order to fully understand the sustainability community, you must be active!  Participation is key.  You must do something - Join a club, attend a meeting, read a blog, plan Earth day 2011, live sustainably, inform the public, publish a paper, plan a conference, view a film, recommend a change, challenge the status quo and ultimately DO SOMETHING!


Clemson is busy.  By educating, researching, addressing, practicing and exploring, the CU campus is home to students, faculty, staff and administration dedicated to making a difference. The diverse groups have come together so we don't have to ask  the question:  Exactly, how much life can the Earth support? Get started so we don't find out!