Sustainability defined

This chapter presents ASCE's definitions of sustainability and sustainable development and explains how these relate to engineering sustainable and resilient infrastructure projects, systems, and communities. The five capitals model-which comprises natural, human, social, manufactured, and financial capitals-illustrates how the built environment fits into sustainability. It shows how changes in the built environment (manufactured capital) can restore, sustain, or degrade other capitals. The production-consumption model illustrates the flows between manufactured (produced) capital and natural capital. The resilience of nations, communities, businesses, and infrastructure systems is a vital attribute of their sustainability. A recent study from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, entitled Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems, is useful for planning for the resilience of infrastructure systems and the communities they serve.