Chapter two The Essence of Sustainability
Abstract Chapter two provides an outline of the wide and multi-facetted field of sustainability, it's origin, definition, interpretations and key global implementation initiatives. Defining the field is essential to provide a common understanding of the construct and to allow for a deeper level of inquiry into the essence of sustainability This offers an opportunity to pinpoint key themes and issues which make the subsequent discussions of development models, utopian thinking, case stories and barriers in the next chapters more relevant as I return to these key themes throughout the book. There has not been a common understanding of what sustainability is or means as many people believe that it deals with environmental problems in general and with climate change in particular. However, this only covers a fraction of the wide spectrum of its reach. Education in sustainability has been lacking and is still not an inherent ingredient in the educational framework. A lack that has left the field open to all manner of interpretations many of which have added to peoples' resistence to implement the principles and aims of sustainability. The aim of the first chapter is therefore to address the original definition of both sustainability and sustainable development, set the context of their emergence and chart the first official initiatives that were taken to further the sustainability agenda globally.