INTEGRATING POLICY TO ACHIEVE A HARMONIZED SUSTAINABILITY MODEL

While the concept of environmental sustainability has steadily grown over the past thirty years, little progress has been made in unifying the efforts of the entities most involved: society, the environment, the economy, and governmental policy. This synthesis integrates across disciplines to outline the need for a harmonized sustainability model to align disparate environmental objectives. Specifically, this study highlights the disconnect between policy and capitalistic economies regarding environmental sustainability using sociological theory. We then provide a framework for an updated sustainability model and offer pathways toward an improved state of environmental sustainability. Notable contributions include the development of a dynamic, harmonized sustainability model rooted in sociological theory and derived from basic supply and demand curves that functions for both the consumption and disposal of resources at multiple scales.