Sustainability = Efficiency

Recently, I was asked to do a paper on what sustainability had to do with me. Writing about it, and using the EPA's article on sustainability to help write it, made me think about how to define sustainability. Ultimately, my definition was a mere paraphrase of the EPA's definition, made for the purpose of using a scholarly source to figure out how sustainability impacted me. My teacher calls for a more personal definition. So if I had to define sustainability, it would go like this: sustainability is the efficient use of resources.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has this among its definitions of efficiency:  "effective operation as measured by a comparison of production with cost (as in energy, time, and money)." In other words, the best possible outcome is achieved with the least possible expenditure of necessary materials. This seems to be the ultimate goal of sustainability, really. The idea is to conserve resources and protect the environment for future generations, and sustainability is a solution that calls for the use of as few of our current resources as possible. If that isn't efficiency, then I don't know what is.