So, What Is Sustainability?
Let’s start with a generic definition of sustainability, not associated with any particular context:
The ability to keep something going for a prolonged period by nurturing it with a continuous provision of nourishment to ensure its growth and existence.
It gets specialized definitions and meanings when associated with our planet, society, economics, industrial processes, technology, transportation systems, and so on.
The Three Pillars of Sustainability
In 1983, the Brundtland Commission was formed to unite countries on sustainable development. In 1987, it published its report, “Our Common Future,” and gave a standard and easily relatable definition of sustainable development:
Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The commission also identified three pillars or dimensions of sustainable develop‐ ment, as shown in Figure 10-1: social equality, environmental protection, and eco‐ nomic growth.
Figure 10-1. The three pillars of sustainable development
Though they are shown here as distinct components, they overlap with dependencies between them—environmental limits, for example, are the primary constraint for social and economic growth.
The Brundtland Commission was previously known as the World Commission on Environment and Development, a suborganization of the United Nations. It was named after its chairperson, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway and a champion of public health.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) formulated its set of 17 Sus‐ tainable Development Goals (SDGs) as “A shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.” These goals are interlinked and touch every aspect of human life and the environment on this planet. For each one, 8 to 12 targets were identified and up to 4 indicators were defined to measure the progress of reaching each target.
The 17 SDGs are:
That’s a rather big-picture view of sustainability. So how does serverless fit in? Let’s take a look.
