How Sustainability Is Defined: An Analysis of 100 Theoretical Approximations

Arturo Luque González, Jesús Ángel Coronado Martín, Ana Cecilia Vaca-Tapia and Francklin Rivas
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Arturo Luque González: Facultad de Ciencias Humanísticas y Sociales, Universidad Técnica de Manabí, Ave. José María Urbina and Che Guevara, Portoviejo 130105, Ecuador
Jesús Ángel Coronado Martín: Facultad de Educación, Ciencia y Tecnología, Universidad Técnica del Norte, Av. 17 de julio 5-21 y Gral, José María Cordova, Ibarra 100105, Ecuador
Ana Cecilia Vaca-Tapia: Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales, Universidad UTE, Rumipamba y Bourgeois, Quito 170147, Ecuador
Francklin Rivas: Departamento de Informática, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, Av. España 1680, Valparaíso 2340000, Chile

Mathematics, 2021, vol. 9, issue 11, 1-20

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 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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