Sustainability

Imagine you get a fixed amount of pocket money every week. If you spend a little less than you receive, you never run out. But if you spend more than comes in, you go broke at some point. It is exactly the same with the Earth and its resources. Sustainability means managing things so that supplies are not used up faster than they can renew.

The ecological footprint

Every person uses land and resources: for food, clothing, housing, transport and electricity. If you convert all of that into area, you get the ecological footprint. It tells you how much land and sea are needed to support your way of life. If everyone lived like the average person in Germany, we would need around three Earths. But we only have one.

Renewable or finite

Some resources grow back if you give them time: wood, clean water or fish. Others are finite and used up at some point: oil, coal and many metals. Energy makes a difference too. Sun, wind and water power supply electricity without running out. Coal, oil and gas, on the other hand, exist only once and release greenhouse gases when burned. Electricity is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh): a 100 watt lamp uses exactly 1 kWh in 10 hours.

Thinking in cycles

Nature knows no waste: a dead leaf becomes soil from which new plants grow. The economy can adopt this cycle thinking too. Instead of using things once and throwing them away, they are repaired, passed on or their materials are recycled. Old drinks bottles become new plastic, waste paper becomes new paper. The tighter the loop, the fewer new resources are needed.

What you can do yourself

Sustainability starts with small decisions. Taking the bike instead of the car, switching off the light, repairing things instead of throwing them away, wasting less food. No single action saves the world, but millions of people together move a lot. And anyone who lives mindfully makes others want to join in too.