Most experts agree that sustainability's primary aim is to accommodate a growing number of people on a planet with finite resources. The precise definition of sustainability, however, garners numerous interpretations. In a recent ASU News article, the members of the ASU Wrigley Institute's directorate provide their personal definitions.

“It’s looking after the Earth as a system, people as a system, and trying to find ways we can both survive and thrive in the future,” says School of Sustainability Dean Christopher Boone. “That’s one definition. I don’t always use that definition. I use something more formal.”

According to Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer Rob Melnick, “Both the Brundtland definition and Gifford Pinchot’s encompass a rapidly growing, relatively new expression of ‘sustainability. That is, ‘intergenerational well-being.’ This works for me."

Gary Dirks, director of the ASU Wrigley Institute, simply defines sustainability as “universal, intergenerational human well-being.”