ABSTRACT
The capacity for continuance into the long-term is about more than the environment. Focusing on the environmental aspects of sustainability – particularly in a business context – is both short-sighted and partial. It is therefore important to note that business sustainability also embraces the legal, financial, economic, industrial, social, material and behavioural arenas. The core of sustainability is comprised of waste elimination and resource extension. To understand sustainability it is essential to begin by first comprehending the big picture – i.e. to acknowledge that sustainability is about well-being and longevity and to develop an awareness of what that encompasses before analytic thought does its necessary reductive work. Preservation encompasses two areas: internal and external. To be sure, there is so much overlap amongst the different fields and categories that comprise sustainability that it can often be quite difficult to determine where one category or field begins and another ends.
