A Glossary of Sustainability Terminology

Carbon footprint: A carbon footprint is a measure, expressed in carbon dioxide equivalent units, of the direct (primary) and indirect (secondary) impact that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activities have on a particular area.

Climate change: Climate change is a change in the average distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time. The term “climate change” nowadays is frequently used in the meaning of “global warming”.

Corporate social responsibility: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of corporate self-regulation in which companies behave as good corporate citizens by adhering to approaches that are mindful of social, cultural, environmental, and ethical values as well as economic ones in the conduct of their business and relations with their stakeholders. “Advanced CSR” goes beyond compliance with mandatory requirements and involves investing in socially-beneficial goods.

Ecological footprint: The ecological footprint is a measure of the impact of human activities expressed as the area of biologically productive land and water required to produce the goods that are consumed and to assimilate the wastes that are generated.

Ecosystem: An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit.

Energy density: Energy density is the amount of energy stored in a system or region of space per unit volume or mass. In common use, energy density only refers to the useful or extractable energy available in the system.

Energy efficiency: Energy efficiency means doing the same thing with less energy or doing more with the same energy. Energy efficiency may be improved or worsened not only through technology that changes the amount of energy needed to produce a good or a service but also through non-technological measures that lead to organizational, managerial, and/or behavioral changes.

Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act: The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) is a United States federal law requiring United States persons (including those living outside the US) to have yearly reported themselves and their non-U.S. financial accounts to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It also requires all non-US (foreign) financial institutions to search their records for suspected US persons for reporting their assets and identities to the US Treasury.

Fossil fuel: A fossil fuel is any fuel that is formed by naturally-occurring processes acting on carbon-based materials such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms over millions of years. Fossil fuels contain high percentages of carbon and include coal, petroleum, and natural gas.

Global Reporting Initiative: The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is an international independent standards organization founded in 1997 in Boston and headquartered in Amsterdam that pioneered and sets out international recognized principles and approaches applicable to sustainability reporting.

Global warming: Global warming refers to observed rises in average atmosphere, sea, and land temperatures. The chief cause of global warming is believed to be changes in climate caused by human activities that upset the chemical composition of the atmosphere through the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and butane.

Greenhouse gas: Greenhouse gases (GHG) are gases such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons among others whose presence causes atmospheric heat to be trapped rather than released into space.

GRI G4: GRI G4 is the most recent set of sustainability reporting guidelines that were announced at an international conference held in Amsterdam in May 2013.

LEED certification: Leadership in Energy and Efficiency Design (LEED) certification is one of the most commonly-accepted building certification programs used worldwide. It was originally developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and aims to help building owners and operators to be environmentally responsible and to use resources efficiently.

Natural resource: A natural resource is any useful thing that exists in nature in and of itself without the need for any human intervention. Examples are air, water, land (including minerals), vegetation, animal life, sunlight, geothermal energy, etc. Some natural resources are renewable, others are not. Some natural resources are readily available everywhere, others may only be available locally.

Renewable energy: Renewable energy is energy that comes from resources which are naturally replenished on a human timescale. Examples of renewables are sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, geothermal heat, and biological processes.

Sustainability: Sustainability may be defined as managing economic, environmental, and social resources in such a way as not to deplete them so that they may be used by future generations as well.

Sustainable development: Sustainable development is a process for meeting human development goals while maintaining the ability of natural systems to continue to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services upon which the economy and society will depend in the future no less than it does today.