Report: EPA should push ‘sustainability,’ track ‘social’ policy outcomes

The National Research Council (NRC) has released a report laying out a framework for the Environmental Protection Agency to incorporate sustainability into its policies this week. The report advises the EPA to make policy decisions using a three-pillar system, examining environmental, economic, and social impacts. Using the 1969 definition of sustainability from the National Environmental Policy Act and, it notes, a 2009 Executive Order, the framework aims to help the EPA track its progress creating and maintaining “conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, [and] that permit fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations.”...more