What is sustainability?

HISTORY OF THE CONCEPT

From the dictionary, sustainability is "Quality or property of what is sustainable, of what is necessary to the conservation of life" (DICIO, 2016), however, several authors prefer the definition of the Brundtland Report 1987 (EDWARDS, 2008; AGOPYAN, 2011; KWOK, 2013), which defines sustainability as: "The ability of a generation to provide for its needs without compromising those of future generations" (BRUNDTLAND 1987, p.16, our translation). The report goes further by informing that in the sustainable development aspect, the concept imposes limits, based on the technological and social relationship that we currently have with nature, in addition to the biosphere's capacity to absorb the impacts of human effects. Finally, the report indicates and concludes that sustainable development, in fact, is a process of change, and not a fixed and harmonious state; in this process, the exploitation of resources, technological and institutional orientation, as well as the investment of capital, are taken in a way that is conscious of future responsibilities, as well as of present needs (BRUNDTLAND, 1987).

The aforementioned definition is from 1987 and continues to be adopted in current books, but the concept of sustainability has been developed over the past few decades. It is not known precisely where sustainability started to be thought of. Some authors like Brian Edwards do a thorough review of the origins of sustainability, but give great emphasis to reports and world meetings on the environment such as the Rio 92 summit and the Kyoto Protocol (EDWARDS, 2008). Others like Marian Keeler, give greater attribution to environmental movements, even those that did not have environmentalism as a premise, but indirectly carried its banner, such as the spiritual rites of the Hindu Bishnoi sect, which was dedicated to protecting the environment, or the literary and philosophical texts of Ralph Emerson and Henry Thoreau, until arriving at the ecological movement of the twentieth century (KEELER, 2010). Others like Alison Kwok and Tulio Tiburcio believe that sustainability is already a well-defined concept for civil construction, owing this largely to the dissemination of certifications that have given credibility and spread the use of the term "sustainable" for buildings (KOWK, 2013 ;TIBURCIO; SILVA, 2008; TIBURCIO; ZANDEMONIGNE 2012).

The cornerstone of all the divergence around the term sustainability is perhaps its generic, broad and highly subjective constitution, as already mentioned by the Brundtland report. Perhaps this is why some authors prefer to use the term "ecological" or "green" in their publications, because while sustainability is subjective and can vary depending on the historical period in which one lives, the concept of Ecology, or "Green" is simpler, and more tangible to designers (KWOK, 2013). Ecology derives from the Greek "oikos "+"logos", meaning "house" and "study" and can therefore be interpreted as the "study of the house". The term was proposed in 1869 by Ernst Haeckel, and is therefore of recent origin (ODUM, 1988, p.1). Vitruvius defined architecture as being constituted of order, disposition, eurythmy, commensurability, decorum and distribution (POLLIO, 2007). In this way we can understand that the Ecological Architecture is nothing more than "the order of things in relation to the study of the house".

In fact, some authors add to the classical Vitruvian architecture pillars that prized by firmitas, utilitas, venustas, also the concept of energy efficiency, so an ecological architecture, or "efficient" architecture should prize for the concepts of solidity, utility, beauty and also energy efficiency (LAMBERTS, 2004). However, there are authors who prefer to look at the ecological architecture under the aspect of a new trinity, this time constituted by the social, environmental and technological (EDWARDS, 2008; AGOPYAN, 2011). In fact the concept of ecology can be embedded within the pillars of Utilitas forcing the designer to rethink the utility of the project offering, therefore, a new reflection on classical architecture.

Such reflection would be nothing more than the consequence of the current human need to rethink his role in his environment. While several authors differ on what sustainability is, there is an almost general consensus that human beings started thinking about their impact on the environment after the First Industrial Revolution (EDWARDS, 2008; KEELER, 2010; AGOPYAN, 2011; KWOK, 2013). During the industrial revolution societies experienced great advancement in virtually every area of knowledge. The steam engine was responsible for improving the quality of life, increasing life expectancy, daily tasks began to rely on electricity and comfort, and societies worldwide experienced an improvement in productivity, both agricultural and urban (MCDONOUGH, 2013).

However, it was precisely this advance that brought socio-environmental damage in its opposite direction. The literary movement of novelists was the first to indicate the effects that this Revolution caused in their society, having as its primary analogy the monster of Dr. Frankenstein, who was both a product of modern science and its victim (KEELER, 2010); just like the society of that time. Masses of workers were forced to long working hours allied to low pay, as an example of the industrial revolution can be cited the city of New Lanark, where workers could not complain about the wages, working hours, noise or dirt of the factories. The companies of the city had only machines and managers, and some machines were people (MAXIMIANO, 2012), the factories had little or no lighting, and housed from children to the elderly. Outside, what could be seen was the inconsequent disposal of waste, contaminating rivers, lakes, and seas, and the use of natural resources in an exacerbated manner, without worrying about the scarcity of these resources.

It was during the Industrial Revolution itself that the role of human beings in their environment began to be rethought. The first to look at this aspect were managers and administrators, whose principle was to improve production. In this aspect, the work done by Robert Owen in New Lanark, in a factory he bought, deserves to be highlighted. Owen believed that man was a product of the environment, and therefore could be improved. So he offered his workers housing, free education, and a warehouse of their own (MAXIMIANO, 2012), and in return he obtained great advances in his production lines. Indirectly, Owen demonstrated that the production capacity and the very well-being of individuals is intrinsically linked to the relationship that this being has with the environment in which he is inserted.

Another important movement that was also a consequence of the industrial revolution and that took to the streets in a large part of southern England was the Luddist movement, led by Ned Ludd, which was based on the destruction of machines and industrial complexes. Although this movement is seen by many as an anarchist movement, or simply a movement against industry and mechanized technologies, in fact the Luddists were concerned with the economic sustainability and welfare of societies that considered themselves threatened by the industrial revolution (KEELER, 2010).

Today, we still live with the infrastructure and legacy left by the Industrial Revolution, both for positive and negative aspects, in the words of Vahan Agopyan (2011, p.20):

"[...] despite all the development, almost 50% of the world's population lacks basic sanitation, about 1/4 of the world's population still lives in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day, and about 26% of children under 5 living in developing countries face problems of malnutrition. As a result, there is also consensus that sustainable development must seek to resolve social demands.

Added to this is the development of modern chemistry in the twentieth century, which brought with it all the transformation generated by the development of modern chemicals (KEELER, 2010). The development of chemistry outlined a new look on sustainability, now going to an assessment of the constituent elements of products and their lifetime or permanence in the environment. Within this premise there are basically two possible models, described by Michael Braungart (2013), the model created in the Industrial Revolution, Cradle-To-Grave (from cradle to grave) or the Cradle-To-Cradle (C2C- cradle to cradle) model. Such a model does not view sustainability through environmental impact but rather in means of how one can contribute to the environment (VET, 2011). Instead of trying to minimize the problem and going for a mushy speech that our presence in this world is a mistake, the authors try to show us that we should actually think about how to coexist with the environment that surrounds us. The cradle to cradle strategy is, for Michael, "a supportive strategy" that is best applied when one has a general idea of the whole process (MCDONOUGH, 2013).

C2C tries to analyze the life of a given product and its impact on the environment. In this analysis there is no good or bad product, just the right and wrong product to be allocated to that particular solution. As an example, the first North American edition of the book Cradle to Cradle had plastic pages, precisely for the readers' questioning. When the authors created such an assessment, they thought the analysis in terms of eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness, which can be drawn as a parallel to the concepts of efficiency and effectiveness of the General Management Theory, in which the former has an emphasis on the process and the latter an emphasis on the result (MAXIMIANO, 2012). The term eco-efficiency was initially coined by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and was used to show how much companies had to lose in terms of competitiveness if they did not make their processes eco-efficient (MCDONOUGH, 2013), thus being more of a commercial appeal than really a concern for the environment. Eco-effectiveness, on the other hand, is to think the product in ecological terms, but with a view to the end result, the utility, the aesthetics, and the user's comfort when using the product. It is therefore the attempt to be effective in relation to various aspects, considerations and desires (MCDONOUGH, 2013). Finally they sought for the analysis to have only eco-effectiveness.

Among the most celebrated attempts to rethink the architectural study and propose a more intelligent design in environmental and social terms, there is the International Style movement, which has as exponents the architects Walter Gropius, Mies Van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. These architects sought to give their works a "cleaner" format free of what was superfluous and useless, they wanted architecture to be something accessible, inexpensive and that would eliminate unhealthy housing (MCDONOUGH, 2013). Unfortunately, few professionals were able to replicate the techniques in their work, and today the style is used as an excuse for easy and cheap architecture, almost always endowed with unnecessary exuberances and that leave aside the ideal of "brotherhood" originally thought by the movement (MCDONOUGH, 2013,p.35).

In fact, Walter Gropius himself regrets the directions that the Bauhaus, or New Architecture took, even citing that " [...] became fashionable in many countries. Imitation, snobbery and mediocrity have falsified the fundamental purposes of innovation which were based on sincerity and simplicity" (GROPIUS, 2011, p.98). In fact one of the premises of Gropius when he created the Bauhaus school was to offer the designer a possibility of harmonious training, which respected the totality of the process, and free from human dependence on the machine. In this way the technology would not be the function of architecture, but its auxiliary, the function would have the primacy to understand the process, and this Gropius included the knowledge of economics, philosophy, technique, and social perception and aesthetic language, in an intrinsic and harmonious way to the works of design (GROPIUS, 2011).

Odum deciphers the principle of emergent properties by contextualizing: "the problem with hierarchical organization is that as components or subsets combine to produce larger functional systems, new properties emerge that were not present at the previous level" (ODUM, 1988, p.3). Perhaps this is why sustainability is so difficult to define, because we have always looked at it under a certain type of hierarchy that we know, and as our technology increases we are able to look beyond and go deeper and deeper. Perhaps a more adequate sustainability study would be one that uses non-reducible properties, that is able to decipher the user's needs in a simple and elegant way, and apply them without compromising any other external factors.

Sustainability is still a developing concept, and there are many different approaches and viewpoints on what is sustainable. More than just thinking of a check-list that ensures sustainability, it is necessary to understand that this concept is complex, and encompasses several points of our relationship as a society and our interaction with the environment around us. Sustainability is nothing more than being aware of the role played by you or your work, and trying to make your impact as harmonious as possible with your surroundings.

Text extracted and adapted from the Book: Lesa- Green Building, final course completion work presented to the Federal University of Viçosa.