Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 18381846

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Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

Envisioning sustainability three-dimensionally

Rodrigo Lozano*
B.R.A.S.S. Research Centre, Cardiff University, 55 Park Place, Cardiff CF10 3AT, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 12 July 2007
Received in revised form 25 February 2008
Accepted 26 February 2008
Available online 18 April 2008

Sustainability has arisen as an alternative to the dominant socio-economic paradigm (DSP). However, it is
still a difcult concept for many to fully understand. To help to communicate it and make it more tangible
visual representations have been used. Three of the most used, and critiqued, sustainability representations are: (1) a Venn diagram, i.e. three circles that inter-connect, where the resulting overlap that
represents sustainability can be misleading; (2) three concentric circles, the inner circle representing
economic aspects, the middle social aspects, and the outer environmental aspects; and (3) the Planning
Hexagon, showing the relationships among economy, environment, the individual, group norms, technical skills, and legal and planning systems. Each has been useful in helping to engage the general public
and raising sustainability awareness. However, they all suffer from being highly anthropocentric, compartmentalised, and lacking completeness and continuity. These drawbacks have reduced their acceptance and use by more advanced sustainability scholars, researchers and practitioners. This paper
presents an innovative attempt to represent sustainability in three dimensions which show the complex
and dynamic equilibria among economic, environmental and social aspects, and the short-, long- and
longer-term perspectives.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Sustainable development
Sustainability
Graphical representations
Venn diagram
Concentric circles

1. Introduction
During the last 30 years, there have been unprecedented advances in development and industrialisation, with results such as
increase of up to 20 years in life expectancy in developing countries,
infant mortality rates have halved, literacy rates have risen, food
production and consumption have increased faster than population
rates, incomes have improved, and there has been a spread in
democratically elected governments [14]. However, it is increasingly recognised that such activities have been detrimental to
economic, environmental, and social aspects. This has raised concerns that the resulting damage to the earths environment and
quality of life for future generations will be irreparable [13,5,6]. In
addition, conventional scientic traditions based on reductionistic
causeeffect relationships are failing to explain and address the
complex dynamic inter-relations among economic, environmental,
and social aspects, and the time perspective [79]. The concept of
Sustainable Development (SD) has appeared as an alternative to
help understand and restore the equilibria among these.
Although the roots SD concept can be traced back to the concept
of Sustainable Societies which appeared in 1974 [10], it was the
Brundtland Report [3] which brought it to the mainstream

* Tel.: 44 (0) 29 20 876562, 7981900984 (mobile); fax: 44 (0) 29 20 876061.

E-mail address: lozanorosr@cardiff.ac.uk.
URL: http://www.brass.cardiff.ac.uk
0959-6526/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2008.02.008

international political agenda by creating a simple denition that

became widely quoted worldwide [6]. The WCEDs [3] denes SD
as: .development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs [3].
Many other authors have sought to dene SD, with at least 70
different denitions that were compiled by 1992 [11]. Some denitions have focused only on environmental sustainability, e.g. see
Refs. [1221], principally through the use of natural resources
without going beyond their carrying capacities and the production
of pollutants without passing the biodegradation limits of receiving
system. These denitions have been usually developed by scientists
from countries and seldom consider the importance of social aspects (e.g. human rights, corruption, poverty, illiteracy, and child
mortality) and their inter-relations with economic and environmental aspects. In societies and countries where the basic human
needs, such as food, shelter and security, have not been fullled the
environmental sustainability is often neglected.
It is possible to separate the different SD denitions into the
following categories: (1) conventional economists perspective; (2)
non-environmental degradation perspective; (3) integrational
perspective, i.e. encompassing the economic, environmental, and
social aspects; (4) inter-generational perspective; and (5) holistic
perspective. In some cases the boundaries between perspectives
may be blurred.
In the conventional economists perspective, sustainability
suggests a steady state [22], with normative characteristics,

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Fig. 3. Sustainability representation using non-concentric adjacent circles. Source:

adapted from Refs. [18,49,50].

Fig. 1. Graphical representation of sustainability using a Venn diagram. Source:

adapted from Refs. [2,40,4850].

and implying efciency, i.e. the choice of a feasible level of consumption [23]. According to Goldin and Winters [22] economists
have neither the theoretical nor the empirical tools to predict the
impact of economic activities on the environment. This perspective
sees SD as no more than an element of a desirable development
path [23]. It also confuses sustainability with economic viability, i.e.
sustained growth and self-sufciency [24]. Such perspective has
very limited scope, neglecting the impacts of economic activities
upon the environment and societies of today, and certainly in the
future. It attempts to simplify into economic terms natural and
social phenomena. Bartelmus [25] stated that the value of the environment cannot be expressed in monetary terms. Equally, the
value of societies and their individuals cannot be put in monetary
terms. It is not possible to price the life of a human being, even if
corporations and governments try to through compensation systems, e.g. the use of Pareto principle to changes in accidents and
fatalities [26].
The non-environmental degradation perspective, with environmental economics as its main discipline, came as an alternative
way to consider industrialisations negative effects on the environment. Two of the key authors of this group include Daly [27] and
Costanza [13]. The denitions in this group converge in remarking
that resources are scarce, consumption cannot be continued indenitely, natural resources should be used without surpassing

their carrying capacities, and environmental capital should not be

depleted [10,1317,1921,2732]. In the majority of the cases, SD
has primarily environmental connotations, e.g. see Refs. [1217,19
22,29,32,33]. Such connotations, in many cases come from individuals or groups from developed countries and do not consider
the importance of social aspects, such as the interrelation between
the environment and human rights, corruption, poverty, illiteracy,
child mortality, and epidemics, amongst many others. A valid
argument to consider in relation to this is that when any individuals
and societies have not fullled their basic needs the long-term
safeguarding of the environment becomes relatively unimportant,
at least in the short-term. This perspective also fails to address the
inter-relations among the aspects. This is in part explained by difculties in analysing social systems [34].
Within the integrational perspective the key characteristic is the
integration of economic, environmental, and social aspects, and the
relations among them [2,5,30,33,35]. The following quote is a key
example of this perspective: Sustainable Development involves the
simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality,
and social equity [35]. There are many overlaps among the aspects
[33], but they are not necessarily balanced [30]. This perspective is,
comparatively, more complete than the previous two. Nevertheless,
it lacks continuity, the interactions among the short-, long-, and
longer-term, focusing mainly on current activities.
The inter-generational perspective main focus is on the time
perspective, by taking into consideration the long-term effects of
todays decisions, as the Brundtland Report [3] indicates of

Fig. 2. Graphical representation of sustainability using concentric circles. Source:

adapted from Ref. [48].

Fig. 4. The systems of SD underscoring the relationships among the local, national and
global levels and underscoring the need to integrate the social, economic and the
environmental in a more holistic manner. Source: adapted from Refs. [2,40].

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R. Lozano / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 18381846

Fig. 5. The Planning Hexagon: relations among economic/money trade, individual/personal beliefs, group norms/culture society, technical/administrative skills, legal/political
systems, and physical/biological sources. Source: adapted from Refs. [51,52].

Fig. 6. Equalizing and merging economic, environmental, and social aspects (1Vd ).

satisfying the needs of todays societies without compromising the

needs of tomorrows societies. Some of the authors taking this
perspective include Goldin and Winters [22], the WCED [3], Hodge
et al. [36], Langer and Schon [30], Stavins et al. [23], Hussey et al.[37],
Reinhardt [32], Bhaskar and Glyn [38], Atkinson [12], Diesendorf
[33], and Stavins et al. [23]. Although this perspectives forte is its
focus on continuity, in some cases it does not explicitly integrate the
other aspects. Sometimes this perspective is critiqued as being too
broad and vague, and difcult to ground in practical activities [11].
The holistic perspective explicitly combines the integrational
and inter-generational perspectives. Some of the authors taking
this perspective include Elsen [39], Lozano-Ros [40], and Lozano
[24,41]. This perspective proposes two dynamic and simultaneous
equilibria: the rst one amongst economic, environmental and
social aspects,1 and the second amongst the temporal aspects, i.e.
short-, long- and longer-term perspectives.
Although it is common to nd the terms Sustainable Development and Sustainability used interchangeably, they are inherently different. Reid [6], Lozano-Ros [40], and Martin [42] state
that the difference lies in SD being the journey, path or process to

Stakeholder participation is part of the social aspects.

achieve sustainability, i.e. the .capacity for continuance into the

long-term future [42] or the ideal dynamic state.
2. Envisioning sustainability
Different authors have appealed to the use of images, graphical
representations, and models to help explain, raise awareness, and
increase understanding and diffusion rates of complex concepts, as
in the case of sustainability [12]. The use of images can improve
learning and understanding of new or complex concepts, such as
sustainability, especially when images are carefully selected and
constructed to complement written text and not substitute it [43
47]. In many cases, images are easier to remember than non-image
data. They can also help to make the text more compact or concise,
concrete, coherent, comprehensible, correspondent and codeable
[sic] [43,44]. Visual representations can help to communicate,
generalise and make more tangible concepts that are difcult to
express clearly and succinctly with words, such as sustainability.
However, even those professionally designed may not be perfect,
instead of helping in the learning and understanding processes,
they may have the opposite impact [44].
Among the different sustainability graphical representations
used two stand out: (1) the Venn diagram (see Fig. 1) [2,40,4850],

R. Lozano / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 18381846

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Fig. 7. Integrating the economic, environmental, and social aspects to achieve full interrelatedness (2Vd ).

Fig. 8. Transformation towards the First Tier Sustainability Equilibrium. Interactions among economic, environmental, and social aspects from the Venn diagram (FTSE).

Fig. 9. Continuous interrelatedness among economic, environmental, and social aspects through concentric circles (1CC ).

where the union created by the overlap among the three components of economy, environment and society are designed to represent sustainability; and (2) concentric circles, where the outer
circle represents the natural environment, the middle one represents society, and the inner one represents economic aspects (see
Fig. 2) [48]. Some authors propose a model with embedded circles

but no concentricity or common middle point, e.g. Refs. [18,49,50]

(see Fig. 3). These representations are mainly based on the integrational perspective.
Dalal-Clayton and Bass [2] complement the Venn diagram representation by adding local, national, and global perspectives,
which encompass four societal inuences: politics, peace and

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R. Lozano / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 18381846

Fig. 10. Transformation towards the First Tier Sustainability Equilibrium. Interactions among economic, environmental, and social aspects from concentric circles (FTSE).

Fig. 11. Intergenerational sustainability, designed to safeguard the rights and abilities of future generations to also meet their needs. Source: adapted from Ref. [40].

security, cultural values, and institutional and administrative

arrangements. Lozano-Ros [40] incorporates technology as an
additional societal factor (see Fig. 4).
Another lesser known graphical model is the Planning Hexagon
[51,52] (see Fig. 5), which is designed to model the relationships
among economy, environment, the individual, group norms, technical skills, as well as legal and planning systems.
These representations provide basic sustainability understanding, especially of the interaction of the three aspects. They
are helpful in raising awareness for the general public. However,
they suffer from different drawbacks.
In the Venn diagram sustainability is represented by the overlapping area of the three circles, shown as full (F) in Fig. 1. The
areas lying outside of this are considered either as partial sustainability (P), the union of two circles, or not at all related to

sustainability. This implies that sustainability is only those aspects

where the three aspects are united. This is awed since it considers
sustainability to be compartmentalised and disregards the interconnectedness within and among the three aspects. Another aw
of this representation is being a mere snapshot of a moment in
time, which lacks the ability to represent the dynamic processes of
change over time.
The concentric circles model, Fig. 2, depicts a large circle or
system, the natural environment, with a subsystem society,
which has a further subsystem, the economy. Here, society is
a part of nature, and the economy is a part of society. Nonetheless,
the delimiting of the three aspects by the use of circles does not
really reect the complex inter-connectedness that actually exists
among them. An example of such interrelatedness is presented by
Hart [53] who argues that a conict appears when a population
starts invading natural reserves to obtain food and other short-term
subsistence resources, such as re-wood. In this case, humans take

Fig. 12. The Natural Step framework funnel. Adapted from Ref. [62].

Fig. 13. Integrating the time dimension into the rst tier equilibrium (3D-Sust).

R. Lozano / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 18381846

Fig. 14. Disequilibrium in the time dimension. Lack of long-term perspective.

resources from the environment, breaking out of the social circle.

It might be argued that in a sustainable society there would be no
need to take resources outside of natural resources that are
assigned for the use of the social system, but this implies that
there are sufcient resources with no external factors (e.g. climate
disasters, or political and military conicts) leading to reductions in
supply for the subsistence of a society. This has proven to be ever
more difcult, especially in recent decades when economic and
social activities are increasingly expanding and destroying the
natural environment throughout the entire Earth; in the process
humans, with a population of over 6.3 billion, are rapidly overwhelming the natural environments carrying capacities [5456].
This helps to show that the concentric circles model is highly anthropocentric, implying that economy is at the centre of sustainability; typical in Western countries. This conicts with the idea of
balance among the three components. As with the Venn diagram it
compartmentalises each of the aspects and lacks the dynamics of
process change over time.
The Planning Hexagon provides explicit relationships among
economy, environment, the individual, group norms, technical
skills, and legal and planning systems; opposite to the previous
where the last four elements are included in the social aspects. As
with the other representations it compartmentalises the relationships, and does not address the dynamic time dimensions. As with
the Venn diagram and concentric circles, the Planning Hexagon can
also be considered to belong to the integrational perspective.
It is evident that these approaches seek to illustrate the complex
concept of sustainability in a simple manner through graphical
representations. Each representation has its strengths, such as ease
of understanding and power of depiction to reach the general
public. However, they all suffer from issues of scale; being centred
on one point in time, being highly anthropocentric and compartmentalised;
and
lacking
conceptual
coherence,
interconnectedness among the aspects, completeness, trans-disciplinarity, and dynamic time dimensions. These drawbacks have
reduced their acceptance and use by more advanced sustainability
scholars, researchers and practitioners.
Representing the sustainability concept fully and accurately
through graphical means is more difcult than it appears, but it is
also clearly an important task to achieve. The following section
focuses on an innovative attempt to represent sustainability in
three dimensions, which is aimed to show the complex and
dynamic equilibria among economic, environmental and social
aspects, and the short-, long- and longer-term.
3. Envisioning sustainability three-dimensionally
Useful tools for envisaging concepts rarely arrive fully formed;
usually they are developed though an evolutionary process. The

1843

following paragraphs explain the mental process that the author

went through to develop a new way of envisioning the vastness and
complexity of sustainability.
Modern societies that follow the dominant socio-economic
paradigm (DSP), neo-liberal capitalism, are based on the importance and centrality of economic aspects, and a tergiversated Free
Trade, which are raping the Earth for natural resources and societies [2,54,57]. History has shown that capitalism has not been
alone in these processes. Socialism and communism also disregarded the impacts of industrialisation on the environment, as
the Aral Seas shrinking dimensions and increasing salinity bear
witness [58,59]. In all cases, the central importance has been given
to economic aspects, under the names of development2 and
industrialisation, while impacting or disregarding the environment
and societies. This is shown in the left side of Fig. 6, which could be
considered as a precursor of the Venn diagram and concentric
circles models.
The rst step (1) in the quest for sustainability would be help to
equalize the importance and integrate the three aspects, where the
relative importance and impact of the economic aspects should be
equal to that of the environmental and social ones. In other words,
to pass from the conventional economics perspective to the integrational one. Two different trajectories are proposed depending on
the model used: Venn or concentric circles. To avoid further confusions, the morphology of the circles is used with the following
note of caution3: most of the literature does not state what the
circles represent. Usually they are referred to as aspects, dimensions or pillars. Do they represent economic, environmental
and social capitals? Or do they represent the impacts that each has
upon the other two? This author is inclined to believe that they
represent a difference between the capitals and the impacts that
the other circles have upon a particular circle. For example the
economic circle should be the sum of all the different economic
aspects, e.g. sales, prots, and revenues, among others, minus the
negative impacts the economic activities have, in the short- and
long-term, upon the natural environmental and social spheres.
Some examples negative impacts include natural disasters, epidemics, union strikes, corporate greeds deforestation of tropical
rainforests to replace them with mono-cultures, and the global
devastation created by the military industry that continues to
enrich some through fostering wars.
The rst trajectory is comprised of three steps. The rst step
(1Vd ) depicts the change towards more balanced inuence and
power of the three aspects, i.e. reducing that of the economic aspects while increasing those of the environmental and social aspects (Fig. 6). In the graphical representation this is reected by
making the circles have the same area. The aspects must be integrated to reect achievement of sustainability as the interaction
of the three, as in the Venn diagram (Fig. 1). The second step (2Vd )
is to further unite the three aspects (see Fig. 7) to reect that the
economic, environmental and social aspects are interacting. Once
this has been achieved, the circles need to continuously rotate so
that the different parts of each aspect are dynamic contact with all
the issues in the other two aspects. This means that each part is
inter-connected to others in the same and the other aspects (e.g.
carbon emissions are connected with energy which in turn is
connected to production, and so on). The further fusing of the

2
It should be noted that in many occasions the term development is used to
indicate economic growth, even though they are inherently different. The former
being improvements in well beings, quality of life and the environment, the latter
being an increase in GNP/GDP.
3
I would like to thank Prof. Peattie for making me reect upon this particular
topic. The reections have helped clarify many of my deep thoughts about the
circles and helped me to arrive at an interesting way of seeing their interactions.

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R. Lozano / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 18381846

circles results in the First Tier Sustainability Equilibrium (FTSE), see

Fig. 8.
The second trajectory results from the concentric circles model.
It should be noted that Hart [18] proposed progressing from the
Venn diagram to the three concentric circles, but this shows little
interaction among the aspects and no longitudinal perspective. This
would indicate retrogression to a time in history where economic
activities had little impact on society and the environment, one that
does not represent the status of modern societies. It also does not
differentiate about economic activities that improve the environment or society and those which reduce them. In this trajectory the
economic aspects expand and inter-connect with the social subsystem, where the economic aspects are related to social ones
(1CC ) and go beyond economic theories that disregard the effect of
social aspects upon economic ones. In the graphical representation
this is equivalent to enlarging the economic circle and spinning it
continuously so that each of its parts is in contact with each of the
social aspects (Fig. 9). An example of this is prots, which are not
directly linked to personnel. Typically, in calculating prots, the
different costs are subtracted from revenues. One of the costs is that
of labour; a problem with this is that labour is just another part of
the equation and disregards motivation, culture and human needs
amongst others. In many cases employees are considered to be liabilities instead of assets [60].
Similarly, the social aspects, including the economic ones, expand and rotate in ways that interact with all dimensions of the
natural environment. As a result each aspect is interrelated with
every part of the other two aspects. In the representation this could
be viewed as only one circle, which is composed the dynamic interactions of all three primary dimensions. This creates the First Tier
Sustainability Equilibrium (FTSE), see Fig. 10.
As discussed, the Venn and concentric circles representations
lack the ability to show the dynamic time dimensions. They appear
only as snapshots, not fully representing sustainability. To address
this, the time perspective, also referred to as the inter-generational
aspect [3], is incorporated, into the three spinning circles. This
means moving from the integrational towards the inter-generational perspective. Fig. 11 shows an example of a prior attempt to
show this perspective. However, this does not show the interrelatedness of each aspect with the others, as in the case of the
Venn diagram.
Another representation aiming to include the time perspective
is offered by the Natural Step (TNS) framework [61], presented in
Fig. 12. The framework works in four phases: the rst phase,
awareness, involves aligning around a common understanding of
sustainability and the whole-systems context. The second phase,
baseline mapping, is designed to provide an analysis of todays
activities and how they relate to sustainability principles. The third

phase creates a vision of how a sustainable society would look like.

From this vision a strategy and action plans can be developed.
These are based on backcasting from principles. Phase 4 consists
of advising and supporting the execution of specic initiatives by
providing appropriate training, techniques, and tools for implementation, followed by measuring progress towards goals and
suggesting modications as needed [61,62]. The funnel provides
a comprehensive framework on how to move towards Sustainable
Societies through backcasting. However, as a representation, it does
not portray the interactions of economic, environmental and social
aspects. Furthermore, it implies that sustainability can be achieved,
while as previously mentioned, it is an ideal dynamic state.
A better way to graphically incorporate the time perspective is
to project the FTSE with no deviation through time, which would be
equivalent to exploding it into the third dimension (3D-Sust), thus
creating a perfect cylinder (Fig. 13). When there are deviations the
3D-Sust changes its shape from a cylinder to two types of cones.
The rst one is when too much emphasis is put on the present, e.g.
using discounting methods, and little or no attention is given to the
needs of tomorrow, then, instead of a cylinder, the shape takes the
form of a cone with its wider side in the present (Fig. 14). In an
extreme case this would make the 3D-Sust regress to the FTSE. The
second is when too much emphasis is put on the future but limited
emphasis is given to satisfying todays needs, then the cone would
have its wider base in the future.
The nal step involves the interactions of both equilibria into
a Two Tiered Sustainability Equilibria (TTSE). This is achieved by
inter-relating the FTSE in dynamic change processes through time,
passing from the inter-generational to the holistic perspective. In
this case the FTSE may not be the same today and in the future. In
the TTSE all aspects including the time perspective interrelate, for
example the economic aspects of today with the economic aspects
of the future, but also with the environmental aspects of the
present and the future, as well as with the social aspects of the
present and the future. These interactions occur with all the other
aspects of the present and the long-term, which make the cylinder
suffer a metamorphosis into a doughnut shape by imploding in the
direction of the time axis (Fig. 15), for this to occur time needs to
bend. In the TTSE sustainability issues lie inside the doughnut and
are in perennial movement inter-relating with other issues, continuously rotating in the two axes shown in the gure. This is aimed
at helping to represent sustainability more clearly and completely.
4. Conclusions
Modern ideologies that rely on short-term economic prots, and
scientic traditions based on reductionistic causeeffect relationships are failing to explain and address the complex dynamic inter-

Fig. 15. Two Tiered Sustainability Equilibria (TTSE). Interactions between the First Tier Sustainability Equilibrium, i.e. among economic, environmental, and social aspects; and the
Second Tier Sustainability Equilibrium, i.e. the short-, long- and longer-terms.

R. Lozano / Journal of Cleaner Production 16 (2008) 18381846

relations among economic, environmental, and social aspects and

the time perspective. The concepts of Sustainable Development
(SD) and sustainability have appeared as alternatives to help to
understand, address and reduce current, and potentially future,
economic disparities, environmental degradation, and social ailments. However, these concepts are still unfamiliar to, or are misunderstood by many individuals and societies worldwide. In order
to achieve real change it is necessary to facilitate greater awareness
and understanding within and throughout societies.
Although graphical representations, such as the Venn diagram,
concentric circles, and the Sustainability Hexagon, can help the
general public grasp the different aspects of SD and sustainability,
they suffer from several drawbacks, such as the depiction of sustainability as a steady state, a lack of full integration and interrelatedness amongst the different aspects, and a lack of
consideration of the dynamic time perspectives. These drawbacks
have been recognised by a number of sustainability scholars, researchers and practitioners, who have challenged their accuracy
and power to depict sustainability.
This author proposes a new way of depicting sustainability, the
Two Tiered Sustainability Equilibria (TTSE), where the issues in each
aspect (economic, environmental and social), interact with each
other, with issues in other aspects, and through time. The TTSE shows
the complex inter-linkages and inter-relations between the First and
Second Tier Sustainability Equilibria. It is hoped that the TTSE visual
model will help people to more effectively understand that in order
for us to achieve societal sustainability we must use holistic, continuous and interrelated phenomena amongst economic, environmental, and social aspects, and that each of our decisions has
implications for all of the aspects today and in the future. This author
welcomes your feedback and suggestions for further improvements.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to Miss Frances Hines, Prof.
Don Huisingh, Prof. Francisco Lozano and Prof. Ken Peattie for their
critiques and comments, and excellent recommendations for ways
to improve this document.
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