The social pillar of sustainability emphasizes the practices and meanings associated with the basic issues of social power as they pertain to the organization, authorization, legitimization and regulation of a social life held-in-common.

The cultural pillar of sustainability is defined as a social domain that emphasizes the practices, discourses, and material expressions, which, over time, express the continuities and discontinuities of social meaning of a life held-in-common.

The economic pillar of sustainability is defined as a social domain that emphasizes the practices, discourses and material expression associated with the production, use and management of resources.

The environmental pillar of sustainability is defined as the practices, discourses and material expressions that occur across the intersection between the social and natural realms, including the important dimension of human engagement with and within nature, ranging from the built-environment to the ‘wilderness’.