The Ethical Principles of a Sustainable Lifestyle

Discuss the concept of sustainability. What ethical principles are parts of a sustainable lifestyle? Why should we consider sustainability as a guiding principle of our environmental philosophy?

Concept of Sustainability

We live in a beautiful world and have many valuable resources and beautiful views all around us almost everywhere we go. Our world supports not only us, but many creatures that are all interwoven and connected to each other in unique and important ways. The greatest binding point that all of us on the Earth have with one another is that world we live in sustains us in our existence. Without it, we wouldn't be here and we wouldn't be able to live. As we go through our daily lives we need to remember this as we make our choices, because if we affect our surroundings so much that their essence is changed or lost, eventually that change will come back to affect us; positively or negatively. In order to make sure that we can continue to enjoy this world, along for those that will come after us, is to work to live sustainably.

Sustainability is when something can be used and not be depleted, destroyed, or damaged past recovery. As we work to live sustainably, we are in effect making use of our resources in a fashion that doesn't eliminate them, and doesn't harm their source. Our resources come from the environment around us and we need to make sure that it is not harmed as we use it. According to the EPA, sustainability stems from a single principle that "Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment” (Sustainability Information). Considering this, it's obvious why we need to make sure we live sustainably and do not damage the source of our resources, our environment.

Ethical Principles of a Sustainable Lifestyle

There are many factors that play into our development and planning for growth. Ethical, economical, and political factors are three main focal points in society. We've realized that our growth as a civilization has wreaked havoc on many parts of the environment as we've expanded and are now seeking to right those wrongs that we can. Moving forward we're working to apply important ethics like Intergenerational Equity, Intragenerational Equity, and Ecological Justice.

Intergenerational Equity is what gets us to think about the needs of future generations. They have as much of a right to our resources as we do, and we need to make sure that they will have the same access to them when their turn comes around.