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A Statistical Definition of Sustainability (302816)

Keywords: Sustainability, Definition of Sustainability, Sustainability and Statistics

Many statisticians are involved in sustainability research and practice. Their main challenges are to learn, work with scientists in other disciplines, innovate and develop, and train others in their sustainability techniques. The first step, however, is to define the term sustainability. In ecology, sustainability describes how biological species survive. For the environment, it is assessing whether project outputs will have permanent and unacceptable changes in the natural environment. For humans, it is our long-term well-being. For mechanical systems, it is maximizing reliability while conserving resources and reducing waste. For an enterprise, it is the ability of the enterprise, its products, and systems to remain successful. The intent of this poster is to define sustainability as follows: An entity is sustainable if it possess (1) the availability of required resources, facilities, tools, and operational personnel; (2) the dependability of its products and services; (3) the capability to perform; (4) its life cycle cost affordability; and (5) the marketability of its proposed sustainable concepts to those who are resistant to change.