Meaning & use

sustainability

noun·Academic

The capacity to maintain a process, resource, or system over time without depleting it or causing lasting damage.

See it in a sentence

The company published a report detailing its progress toward greater sustainability in packaging and shipping.

Farmers are adopting new methods to improve the long-term sustainability of the soil.

A note on using this word

Sustainability is most often used about environmental and resource issues, but it also applies to economic or organizational practices that can be kept up indefinitely.

Words with a similar meaning

viabilitydurability

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

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