ABSTRACT
First, what is ‘sustainability’? Wikipedia provides a readily available and helpful description, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability:
‘In ecology, sustainability is how biological systems remain diverse and productive.’ Wikipedia provides further details: ‘The world’s sustainable development goals are integrated into the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were established in 2000 following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations. Adopted by the 189 United Nations member states at the time and more than twenty international organizations, these goals were advanced to help achieve the following sustainable development standards by 2015:
1. To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger 2. To achieve universal primary education 3. To promote gender equality and empower women 4. To reduce child mortality 5. To improve maternal health 6. To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases 7. To ensure environmental sustainability 8. To develop a global partnership for development
According to the data that member countries represented to the United Nations, Cuba was the only nation in the world in 2006 that met the World Wide Fund for Nature’s denition of sustainable development, with an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 ha per capita, 1.5, and a Human Development Index of over 0.8, 0.855.’*,†
Crystallography most obviously is assisting with goal 6. Examples and case studies are cited in Appendix 8.B of this chapter.
