Nattrass, Brian F. The Natural Step for Business. New Society Publishers. Gabriola Island. 1999.

Cited in:

Natural Step Overview

At the library

PDF ebook

Original Idea

Sustainability Handbook

Natural Step for Communities

Natural Step Society

Karl-Henrik Robert

Sustainability is the capacity of our human society to continue indefinitely within the capacity of the natural cycles within the biosphere and between the biosphere and lithosphere. Sustainable development is development towards the state of sustainability.

Sustainability involves addressing four unsustainable behaviours.

Unsustainable behaviours:

  • Extracting relatively large flows of materials from the earth's crust and allowing these materials to accumulute in the biosphere
  • Allowing large quantities of materials human society generates to accumulate in the biosphere faster than Nature can cope with
  • Physically inhibiting Nature's ability to run cycles
  • Creating in our society barriers to people meeting human needs worldwide