How Sustainability Is Defined: An Analysis of 100 Theoretical Approximations

Luque González, Arturo; Coronado Martín, Jesús Ángel; Vaca-Tapia, Ana Cecilia; Rivas, Francklin

doi:10.3390/math9111308

Open AccessArticle

How Sustainability Is Defined: An Analysis of 100 Theoretical Approximations

by

Arturo Luque González

^1,2,*

,

Jesús Ángel Coronado Martín

³

,

Ana Cecilia Vaca-Tapia

⁴ and

Francklin Rivas

⁵

¹

Facultad de Ciencias Humanísticas y Sociales, Universidad Técnica de Manabí, Ave. José María Urbina and Che Guevara, Portoviejo 130105, Ecuador

²

Escuela de Administración-Grupo de Investigación en Dirección y Gerencia, Universidad del Rosario, Calle 12C, 6-25, Bogotá 111711, Colombia

³

Facultad de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Av. 17 de julio 5-21 y Gral, José María Cordova, Ibarra 100105, Ecuador

⁴

Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad UTE, Rumipamba y Bourgeois, Quito 170147, Ecuador

⁵

Departamento de Informática, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Av. España 1680, Valparaíso 2340000, Chile

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Mathematics 2021, 9(11), 1308; https://doi.org/10.3390/math9111308

Submission received: 1 April 2021 / Revised: 1 June 2021 / Accepted: 3 June 2021 / Published: 7 June 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Business and Industry: Mathematical Analysis, Sustainability Assessment Instruments and Methods)

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Abstract

Sustainability processes are imperfect, hence there is a need to analyze their construction, evolution and deployment. To this end, a sample of one hundred sustainability constructs was taken, together with their conceptual approaches, in order to gauge their impact and to ascertain the dimensions to which they belong. A frequency count and categorization were carried out using Google, which saturated in seven dimensions: economic, social, environmental, legal, political, ethical and cultural. A higher-order association of these hierarchies was then proposed, establishing a triad model that indicated only the most representative combinations of dimensions resulting from the extraction of the most significant definitions. From these definitions and in accordance with their frequency of use in Google, it is inferred that the current concept of sustainability is based on the economic-social-ethical category. This highlights the distance between what, a priori, seems to implicitly allow any definition of sustainability and the existing reality.

Keywords: sustainability; google; common benefit; ecological factors; ethics

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MDPI and ACS Style

Luque González, A.; Coronado Martín, J.Á.; Vaca-Tapia, A.C.; Rivas, F. How Sustainability Is Defined: An Analysis of 100 Theoretical Approximations. Mathematics 2021, 9, 1308. https://doi.org/10.3390/math9111308

AMA Style

Luque González A, Coronado Martín JÁ, Vaca-Tapia AC, Rivas F. How Sustainability Is Defined: An Analysis of 100 Theoretical Approximations. Mathematics. 2021; 9(11):1308. https://doi.org/10.3390/math9111308

Chicago/Turabian Style

Luque González, Arturo, Jesús Ángel Coronado Martín, Ana Cecilia Vaca-Tapia, and Francklin Rivas. 2021. "How Sustainability Is Defined: An Analysis of 100 Theoretical Approximations" Mathematics 9, no. 11: 1308. https://doi.org/10.3390/math9111308

APA Style

Luque González, A., Coronado Martín, J. Á., Vaca-Tapia, A. C., & Rivas, F. (2021). How Sustainability Is Defined: An Analysis of 100 Theoretical Approximations. Mathematics, 9(11), 1308. https://doi.org/10.3390/math9111308

Note that from the first issue of 2016, this journal uses article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

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