Review of sustainability terms and their definitions

Peter Glavic

*, Rebeka Lukman

University of Maribor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Smetanova 17, SI-2000 Maribor, Slovenia

Received 13 December 2005; accepted 11 December 2006

Available online 27 February 2007

Abstract

Terminology in the field of sustainable development is becoming increasingly important because the number of terms continues to increase

along with the rapid increase in awareness of the importance of sustainability. Various definitions of terms are used by different authors and

organizations, for example, green chemistry, cleaner production, pollution prevention, etc. The importance of this topic has stimulated research

into the problems of clarifying ambiguity and classifying terms used in the sustainability field. This paper provides results of the literature survey

and summarizes the definitions of the terms, focusing on the environmental engineering field. In some cases, it proposes an improved definition.

A hierarchical classification of the terms and their relationships has been based on a layer format that is presented graphically.

2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:

Sustainability; Cleaner production; Terminology; Definitions; Classification

1. Introduction

The recent research and growth of knowledge about sustainable

development have increased interest in sustainable

development terminology, which has gained prominence

over the past decade. It embraces terms such as cleaner production,

pollution prevention, pollution control, and minimization

of resource usage, eco-design and others. These terms are

in common use in scientific papers, monographs, textbooks,

annual reports of companies, governmental policy usage, and

the media. Application of terms depends on their designation

and recognition, rather than on domain concept. Yet, some

of the terms are specific, permitting differentiation from the

others. Also, differences amongst term usages, based upon

geographical area, exist that often lead to imprecise definitions

of the terms and their usage.

The availability of various information sources increases

the spread of sustainability terms and their definitions, as

employed by different authors and organizations. As

a consequence, numerous new terms are emerging, or the existing

ones are being extended in the sustainability field, but

not enough critical attention has been given to the definitions

and their semantic meanings. The multitude of definitions

causes much confusion about their usage, since the meaning

of some terms is either sloppy or similar, or is only slightly

different from one another.

Another important issue is that most of the terms are multiword

units and, therefore, the definitions are unavailable in

dictionaries. To our knowledge, this topic has not been

analysed, yet. Semantics and content analysis enable the

researcher to better describe and understand sustainable development

concepts. Consequently, communications within the

scientific community, organizations, agencies and stakeholders

can be improved. A hierarchical classification and relationship

of the terms needs to be developed in order to achieve better

and easier understanding.

Much of this research was devoted to a survey of literature

and Internet sources, comprising the terms and definitions

associated with the sustainable development field. Therefore,

the terminology is based upon usage within the United Nations

Environment Programme (UNEP), the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency (EPA), the European Environmental

* Corresponding author. Tel.:

þ386 2 2294 451; fax: þ386 2 2527 744.

E-mail address:

0959-6526/$ - see front matter

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2006.12.006

Journal of Cleaner Production 15 (2007) 1875

peter.glavic@uni-mb.si (P. Glavic).2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.e1885www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro