SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH

Reuse, recycling, and resource management have been key sustainability concepts and project-focuses. The Triple Bottom Line (TBL), three pillar approach, in sustainable development considers a balance between environmental, social, and economic aspects (Elkington, 1994). In sustainability terms, actions that promote this balance, with an understanding of variation to location and time, stress a concept called full cost accounting.  Supplemental to United Nations standards, TBL thinking, within a full cost accounting perspective, integrates aspects of natural and human capital as measurable ends and is not solely economically focused (i.e. as prioritized in most countries' measurement profiles). Advantages to economic growth can fund new technologies, improve quality of life and ration the use of natural resources. Conceptually, sustainability research promotes balance and fosters present and future generations; it strives to add knowledge base by innovation and, when necessary, replicative confirmation of previous researchintrospective of the scientific method.