Overview


The Three-Dimensions-Model

The central aspects of sustainability are the mutual reciprocal effects of the three dimensions. It is not possible to consider the individual factors separately as they are merged into one single system and do work, as represented in the following graphic, mutually one on the other.[1]

 

The Three-Dimension Model

 

           

Graph 1: The three dimensions of sustainability and their interdependences[2]

 

A goal is it to keep the system with its different reciprocal effects stable. The estimations of risks of possible feedbacks, which develop due to the interdependences, play a central role. The condition for the system to remain stable, is that the individual dimensions must be able to adapt themselves in each case to the changes in the today's dynamic surrounding field. This sustainability concept therefore demands from the single ranges a high adaptability.

The concept of the sustainability sets the human beeing into the center. In this connection different conceptions of how the satisfaction of the today's respectively the future generation to understand is flow into the definition. The present sustainability concept is not static, but rather has to be to be adapted again and again due to social changes.[3]

 

  

 

[1] vgl. Volrad Wollny: Nachhaltige Entwicklung Sustainable Development. Eine kleine Einführung in ein komplexes Thema, Darmstadt, 1999, S. 26

[2] Modell: OECD: Sustainable Development. Critical Issues. Paris 2001, S. 37

[3] vgl. Ulrich Petschow, Kurt Hübner, Susanne Dröge, Jürgen Meyerhoff: Nachhaltigkeit und Globalisierung. Herausforderung und Handlungsansätze. Berlin, Heidelberg 1998, S. 21