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• Sustainable: Causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time. Cambridge Dictionary
• Sustainable: Able to last or continue for a long time.  Merriam Webster
• Sustainable: Pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse. Dictionary.com
• Care for the environment,  Waste,  Moderation,  Balance,  Harmony,  Excess,  Greed

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The environment is the greatest challenge facing mankind today

• The fate of the living planet is the most important issue facing mankind. Gaylord Nelson
• The great challenge of the twenty-first century is to raise people everywhere to a decent standard of living while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible. Edward O. Wilson
• The supreme reality of our time is …the vulnerability of our planet. John F. Kennedy
• The future will be green, or not at all. This truth lies at the heart of humankind’s most pressing challenge: to learn to live in harmony with the Earth on a genuinely sustainable basis. Sir Jonathon Porritt
• Care for the environment

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In little over 50 years, we’ve consumed more natural resources than in all previous human history …

• It is a stark and arresting fact that, since the middle of the 20th century, humankind has consumed more natural resources than in all previous human history. Margaret Beckett
• …our culture’s frenzied and mindless assault on the last shreds of nature may not be the wisest course… We’re melting the ice caps, ripping up the rainforest, and vacuuming the oceans of everything that wriggles. George Meyer
• Put simply, the crises we face is that we are too many people consuming too many of the natural resources available to us. Drew & Lorimer

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… driven by greed and gluttony…

• A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs. Mark Twain
• The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed. Mahatma Gandhi
• Consuming three planets’ worth of resources when in fact we have one is the environmental equivalent of childhood obesity – eating until you make yourself sick. David Miliband
• Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites. William Ruckelshaus
• Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. Cree Indian Proverb
• Greed,  Gluttony

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… driven by population growth

• One always returns to the fact that there are just too many of us, the population continues to rise and it’s unsustainable. Jeremy Irons
• When my parents were growing up the world’s population was under three billion. During my children’s lifetime, it is likely to exceed nine billion. You don’t need to be an expert to realise that sustainable development is going to become the greatest challenge we face this century. Tony Blair, March 2001

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As a result, the earth’s resources that are becoming increasingly limited

• The era of ‘abundance’ is over. The future will see our natural resources, from oil to food, having some level of restriction placed on them. Andy Bond
• We’ve embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of oil. Mike Bowlin, Chairman
• In a race for limited resources, it is the energy efficient that will win the race. David Cameron

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Sustainable living and development is the most important thing we can do for ourselves and future generations

• Do we have to wait until a disaster overwhelms us before we make the radical changes necessary to protect our world for future generations? That is the vital challenge of sustainable development. If we act now there is much that can be saved which will otherwise disappear forever. John Gummer
• I feel that our planet is in peril and that creating a sustainable planet for my children and my children’s children is the most important thing I can do in this lifetime. Kyra Sedgwick
• Sustainable development is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Gro Harlem Brundtland
• Sustainable development: Enjoying the Earth’s resources without jeopardising the welfare of future generations. James Jones

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We need to treat nature as a capital asset to preserve, not a credit card to sponge off

• After all, sustainability means running the global environment – Earth Inc. – like a corporation: with depreciation, amortization and maintenance accounts. In other words, keeping the asset whole, rather than undermining your natural capital. Maurice Strong
• It seems to me self-evident that we cannot have capitalism without capital and, very importantly, that the ultimate source of all economic capital is Nature’s capital. HRH Prince Charles
• Nature shrinks as capital grows. The growth of the market cannot solve the very crisis it creates. Vandana Shiva
• The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired in value. Theodore Roosevelt
• Humanity is living off its ecological credit card and can only do this by liquidating the planet’s natural resources. Mathis Wackernagel

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We need to live and develop in a more sustainable way …

• Having enough for now, while not harming the future. Adam Werbach
• If something is sustainable, it means we can go on doing it indefinitely. If it isn’t, we can’t. Jonathon Porritt
• Sustainable development is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Gro Harlem Brundtland
• Sustainable living on the planet: We have to learn to live simply to allow others to simply live.
• Sustainability is treating ourselves and our environment as if we are to live on this earth forever. Arron Wood
• Sustainable development: Enjoying the Earth’s resources without jeopardising the welfare of future generations. James Jones
• We cannot hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls. Derrick Jensen
• I think when sustainability begins to drive business practices instead of greed, we’ll evolve as a species. Tom Kay

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… not just people, but businesses too

• Marketing needs to define what sustainability means for their company and then decide how to express those values in their offerings. Companies should stop trying to appeal to green consumers by building green myths into the products they have and start creating something real—products that tell their environmental story for them. Steve Bishop
• I think when sustainability begins to drive business practices instead of greed, we’ll evolve as a species. Tom Kay
• Who are businesses really responsible to? Their customers? Shareholders? Employees? We would argue that it’s none of the above. Fundamentally, businesses are responsible to their resource base. Without a healthy environment there are no shareholders, no employees, no customers and no business. Yvon Chouinard

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Sustainability can bring great benefits to economies and businesses …

• Far from being a drag on growth, making our energy sources more sustainable, our energy consumption more efficient, and our economy more resilient to energy price shocks – those things are a vital part of the growth and wealth that we need. David Cameron
• I always make the business case for sustainability. It’s so compelling. Our costs are down, not up. Our products are the best they have ever been. Our people are motivated by a shared higher purpose — esprit de corps to die for. And the goodwill in the marketplace — it’s just been astonishing. Ray Anderson
• If you are clever, you make sustainability the first factor for your growth. This gives you years of advantage over other economies. Philippe Joubert

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… but the real reason to do it is it is the right thing to do

• It’s not just the business case you need to focus on; it’s the moral case. Al Gore
• The battle we have fought, and are still fighting, for the forests is a part of the eternal conflict between right and wrong. John Muir
• A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. Aldo Leopold
• Right action

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We need to wean ourselves off our dependence on fossil fuels …

• Coal, oil and gas are called fossil fuels, because they are mostly made of the fossil remains of beings from long ago. The chemical energy within them is a kind of stored sunlight originally accumulated by ancient plants. Our civilization runs by burning the remains of humble creatures who inhabited the Earth hundreds of millions of years before the first humans came on the scene. Like some ghastly cannibal cult, we subsist on the dead bodies of our ancestors and distant relatives. Carl Sagan
• Unless we free ourselves from a dependence on these fossil fuels… we are condemning future generations to global catastrophe – President Barack Obama
• We can either save the planet from catastrophic warming, or protect fossil fuel CEOs. Not both. Do the maths. Bill McKibben
• We must rapidly wean ourselves off our dependence on coal and fossil fuels. Richard Branson
• What we can be scientifically certain of is that our continued use of fossil fuels is pushing us to a point of no return – President Barack Obama
• We need to profoundly revise all of our taxes and charges. The aim is to tax pollution – notably fossil fuels – more, and tax work less. Nicolas Sarkozy

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… by making more efficient use of energy …

• In a race for limited resources, it is the energy efficient that will win the race. David Cameron
• We can create a more sustainable, cleaner and safer world by making wiser energy choices. Robert Alan Silverstein
• Far from being a drag on growth, making our energy sources more sustainable, our energy consumption more efficient, and our economy more resilient to energy price shocks – those things are a vital part of the growth and wealth that we need. David Cameron

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… and looking to renewable sources of energy like solar energy

• I have no doubt that we will be successful in harnessing the sun’s energy… If sunbeams were weapons of war, we would have had solar energy centuries ago. Sir George Porter
• I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait ’til oil and coal run out before we tackle that. Thomas Edison
• The 21st Century is likely to become the solar-hydrogen-energy efficiency century. Charles Secrett
• The sun is the only safe nuclear reactor, situated as it is some ninety-three million miles away. Stephanie Mills
• The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the oil industry does not own the sun. Ralph Nader
• There are jobs, money and survival in renewable energy. Our only safe future is sun power. Dave Hampton
• We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind, and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. Thomas Alva Edison

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One of the environment’s greatest problems is our unsustainable consumption…

• If we are concerned about our great appetite for materials, it is plausible to decrease waste, to make better use of stocks available, and to develop substitutes. But what about the appetite itself? The major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized countries. John Kenneth Galbraith
• Living in an orgy of unrestrained consumption and economic growth accompanied by population expansion that ignores the carrying capacity of local environments will lead to disaster. Phil Harding
• It’s no secret that the present rates of consumption are unsustainable, and it will come as even less of a surprise that fashions are widely out of kilter. Lucy Siegle
• Consumerism,  Materialism

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… driven in large part by our obsession with consuming and possessing …

• In our rich consumers’ civilization we spin cocoons around ourselves and get possessed by our possessions. Max Lerner
• If the hole we’ve dug ourselves into is consumerism, it doesn’t particularly help that your shovel is a fashionable shade of green. Earon Davis
• I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise, for the sake of cell phones and Jet Skis. George Carlin
• I’m not afraid of a world with less consumerism, less ‘stuff’ and no economic growth. I’m far more frightened of the opposite. Rob Hopkins

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We need to break the treadmill of consumption and live more sustainably…

• Innovation is premised on force-feeding people more junk; on fuelling artificial needs for super- size meals, Hummers, and a new pair of sweatshop-produced fast-fashion jeans every weekend. Sustainability, on the other hand, is premised on helping people finally step off that creaking treadmill of consumption. Umair Haque
• My hope is that we come to see consumption as slightly naff, something you only do when you have to. Chris Goodall

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… by re-examining our values and lifestyles …

• There is a great need for the introduction of new values in our society, where bigger is not necessarily better, where slower can be faster, and where less can be more. Gaylord Nelson
• Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle. Pope John Paul
• Values

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… and no longer defining personal success by how much we consume and own

• How are we going to stop defining ourselves by how much stuff we consume? Ben Tuxworth
• Is consumption our primary purpose? Are we consumers or citizens? Do we live to shop or do we shop to live, in order to fulfil our individual purpose. Aldersgate Group
• Reducing our levels of consumption will not be a sacrifice but a bonus if we simply redefine the meaning of the word ‘success.’ David Wann
• Success

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Appreciate that you, yourself, can make a real difference to the planet

• No one person has to do it all but if each one of us follow our heart and our own inclinations we will find the small things that we can do to create a sustainable future and a healthy environment. John Denver
• Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. William James
• Nobody made a bigger mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. Edmund Burke
• What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. Jane Goodall
• One person can make a difference, and everyone should try. John Fitzgerald Kennedy
• If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito. Bette Reese
• Making a difference

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Resolve to make changes to the way you live

• The most patriotic thing you can do is to take care of the environment and try to live sustainably. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
• Each and every one of us can make changes in the way we live our lives and become part of the solution to climate change. Al Gore
• To tackle climate change you don’t have to reduce your quality of life, but you do have to change the way you live – Ken Livingstone

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Resolve to consume less, share more

• If we use less, if we consume less, we’re going to have more. Colin Baker
• How to be green? Many people have asked us this important question. It’s really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills. Here’s the answer. Consume less. Share more. Enjoy life. Derek Wall
• It’s unselfish and really quite ‘cool’ to care for the environment with a ‘less is more’ lifestyle.
• You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need. Vernon Howard
• Live simply that others might simply live. Ghandi
• My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. Brotherton
• There must be more to life than having everything!
• You can never get enough of what you don’t need to make you happy. Eric Hoffer
• Consume less; share better. Hervé Kempf
• The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous and enduring and thus more intelligent, even competitive. Paul Hawken
• We are such spendthrifts with our lives, the trick of living is to slip on and off the planet with the least fuss you can muster. I’m not running for sainthood. I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer, who puts back into the soil what he takes out. Paul Newman
• We have to cultivate contentment with what we have. We really don’t need much. When you know this, the mind settles down. Cultivate generosity. Delight in giving. Learn to live lightly. In this way, we can begin to transform what is negative into what is positive. This is how we start to grow up. Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
• The scale of our homes should be derived from the real needs of our daily lives, not from vanity, insecurity, or a need for public display. Home should be the setting for life, not the measure of it. James Gauer
• The most patriotic thing you can do is to take care of the environment and try to live sustainably. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
• Simple living,  Frugality

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Make more conscious choices about what you consume and where you spend your money

• I feel more confident than ever that the power to save the planet rests with the individual consumer. Denis Hayes
• Making conscious choices about what we eat, based on what the earth can sustain and what our bodies need, can help remind us that our whole society must begin to balance sustainable production with human need. Frances Moore Lappé
• I try to be environmentally responsible in everything I do and everything I bring into my life. Every time I make a decision, I think, “How is this going to affect the environment? Alicia Silverstone
• Living consciously

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Use water efficiently

• There are tiny choices that everyone can make that profoundly affect our collective water use. Like not having the tap on while brushing your teeth, not starting your shower ten minutes in advance, not doing laundry until you have a full load. In this particular issue, education really is power. Kristen Bell
• Water

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Recycle religiously

• To achieve true sustainability, we must reduce our ‘garbage index” – that which we permanently throw away into the environment that will not be naturally recycled for reuse – to near zero. David Korten
• Listen up, you couch potatoes: each recycled beer can saves enough electricity to run a television for three hours. Denis Hayes
• The case for recycling is strong. The bottom line is clear. Recycling requires a trivial amount of our time. Recycling saves money and reduces pollution. Recycling creates more jobs than landfilling or incineration. And a largely ignored but very important consideration, recycling reduces our need to dump our garbage in someone else’s backyard. David Morris
• You can tell how high a society is by how much of its garbage is recycled. Tahanie
• To achieve true sustainability, we must reduce our ‘garbage index” – that which we permanently throw away into the environment that will not be naturally recycled for reuse – to near zero. David Korten

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Use recycled products

• If you’re not buying recycled products, you’re not really recycling. Ed Begley, Jr.

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Reuse products

• The purpose – where I start – is the idea of use. It is not recycling, it’s reuse. Issey Miyake

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Prevent waste wherever you can

• I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use. Mother Teresa
• Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. New England proverb
• Waste is a tax on the whole people. Albert W. Atwood
• Waste not the smallest thing created, for grains of sand make mountains, and atomies infinity. Knight
• Why do we send valuable items like aluminium and food waste to landfill when we can turn them into new cans and renewable energy? Why use more resources than we need to in manufacturing? We must now work together to build a zero-waste nation – where we reduce the resources we use, reuse and recycle all that we can and only landfill things that have absolutely no other use. Hilary Benn
• Waste

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Eat less meat, or better still, become a vegetarian

• Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet – for the sake of hamburgers. Peter Singer
• In order to satisfy one human stomach, so many lives are taken away. We must promote vegetarianism. It is extremely important. The Dalai Lama
• Vegetarianism

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• The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them. Paul Hawken
• If something is sustainable, it means we can go on doing it indefinitely. If it isn’t, we can’t. Jonathon Porritt
• Sustainability is treating ourselves and our environment as if we are to live on this earth forever. Arron Wood
• We cannot hope to create a sustainable culture with any but sustainable souls. Derrick Jensen
• I think when sustainability begins to drive business practices instead of greed, we’ll evolve as a species. Tom Kay
• Our challenge, our generation’s unique challenge, is learning to live peacefully and sustainably in an extraordinarily crowded world. Our planet is crowded to an unprecedented degree. It is bursting at the seams. It’s bursting at the seams in human terms, in economic terms, and in ecological terms. Professor Jeffrey Sachs
• Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved. Phil Harding
• Many unsustainable behaviours are locked-in and made ‘normal’, not just by the way that we produce and consume, but by the absence of easy alternatives. Margaret Beckett

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• Environmentalists say that every day an area the size of Wales is destroyed. Why is it never Wales?   Jimmy Carr
• We humans do not need to leave Earth to get to a hostile deadly alien environment; we already have Miami. Dave Barry
• Women dream of world peace, a safe environment, and eliminating hunger. What do men dream of? Being stuck in an elevator with the Doublemint twins.
• A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation. Adlai E. Stevenson
• Plenty of people believe in energy conservation – mainly their own. Alfred E. Neuman

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