75 Sustainability Quotes And Sayings Inspiring Sustainable Living

We are the generation with the power to change the world. Let's use that power to create a sustainable future for all.
- Isra Hirsi

The first rule of sustainability is to align with natural forces, or at least not try to defy them.
- Paul Hawken

Small actions can create big ripples. Each one of us has the power to make a difference in building a sustainable future.
- Xiuhtezcatl Martinez

Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved.
- Phil Harding

Going back to a simpler life based on living by sufficiency rather than excess is not a step backward.
- Yvon Chouinard

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead

No matter how complex global problems may seem, it is we ourselves who have given rise to them. They cannot be beyond our power to resolve.
- Daisaku Ikeda

Ordinary people can do extraordinary things that can change the course of history.
- Jonathan Dyer

Building a world where we meet our own needs without denying future generations a healthy society is not impossible, as some would assert. The question is where societies choose to put their creative efforts.
- Christopher Flavin

He that plants trees loves others besides himself.
- Thomas Fuller

Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm. It's about doing more good.
- Jochen Zeitz

Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.
- Stewart Udall

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
- Native American Proverb

Sustainability, ensuring the future of life on Earth, is an infinite game, the endless expression of generosity on behalf of all.
- Paul Hawken

Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so called scientific knowledge.
- Thomas Edison

The world is reaching the tipping point beyond which climate change may become irreversible. If this happens, we risk denying present and future generations the right to a healthy and sustainable planet – the whole of humanity stands to lose.
- Kofi Annan

When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, the last river is polluted and when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can't eat money.
- Alanis Obomsawin

The single biggest threat to our planet is the destruction of habitat and along the way loss of precious wildlife. We need to reach a balance where people, habitat, and wildlife can co-exist – if we don't everyone loses…one day.
- Steve Irwin

Forests and meat animals compete for the same land. The prodigious appetite of the affluent nations for meat means that agribusiness can pay more than those who want to preserve or restore the forest. We are, quite literally, gambling with the future of our planet – for the sake of hamburgers.
- Peter Singer

Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good action; try to use ordinary situations.
- Jean-Paul Richter

We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
- Howard Zinn

We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.
- Barack Obama

The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.
- Robert Swan

Participation — that's what's gonna save the human race.
- Pete Seeger

It is one world. And it's in our care. For the first time in the history of humanity, for the first time in 500 million years, one species has the future in the palm of its hands.
- David Attenborough

There is no such thing as ‘away.’ When we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.
- Annie Leonard

Buy less, choose well.
- Vivienne Westwood

We can't just consume our way to a more sustainable world.
- Jennifer Nini

If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.
- Pete Seeger

As consumers we have so much power to change the world by just being careful in what we buy.
- Emma Watson

If people are prepared to eat locally and seasonally, then they probably do pretty well in terms of environmental impact.
- Peter Singer

It is extremely important to me that the social and environmental issues associated with the production of fashion clothing are addressed.
- Bonnie Wright

Ethical and sustainable fashion is not a product. It's a practice everyone is invited to practice. There's no obligation to buy. And you can get started right now. Today.
- Elizabeth L. Cline

Solar power is going to be absolutely essential to meeting growing energy demands while staving off climate change.
- Ramez Naam

We have to use cars much more efficiently. We have to look at alternative technologies of cars such as biofuels or, even more importantly, electric cars.
- Fatih Birol

Solar power, wind power, the way forward is to collaborate with nature - it's the only way we are going to get to the other end of the 21st century.
- Bjork

Surround yourself with people trying to shape the future.
- Cathie Wood

Renewable energy could reduce emissions but also create jobs and improve public health.
- Paul Polman

We don't need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.
- Anne Marie Bonneau

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.
- H. G. Wells

We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity, belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, then we may begin to use it with love and respect.
- Aldo Leopold

Many people still believe that 'green' solutions are too expensive, but they are actually much cheaper when all of the costs to public health, social services, and waste handling are factored into the same equation.
- Majora Carter

Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense.
- Ronald Reagan

At its core, the issue of a clean environment is a matter of public health.
- Gina McCarthy

Since nature has the most sustainable ecosystem and since ultimately agriculture comes out of nature, our standard for a sustainable world should be nature's own ecosystem.
- Wes Jackson

Sustainable development is a fundamental break that's going to reshuffle the entire deck. There are companies today that are going to dominate in the future simply because they understand that.
- Francois-Henri Pinault

Global sustainability is now the only avenue to future inclusive progress that can deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement.
- Johan Rockstrom

Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract – sustainable development – and turn it into a reality for all the world's people
- Kofi Annan

Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
- Gro Harlem Brundtland

Many business leaders are seeing the relationship between long term success and sustainability, and that's very heartening.
- Jacqueline Novogratz

If we human beings are ever going to live in happiness and harmony with each other and with the natural world, we will have to rethink our economics — starting with downgrading the importance of economics in our thinking.
- Donella Meadows

The strongest governments on earth cannot clean up pollution by themselves. They must rely on each ordinary person, like you and me, on our choices, and on our will.
- Chai Jing

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
- R. Buckminster Fuller

Recycling, packaging, businesses are changing all of those things because that's what consumers want.
- Jerry Greenfield

We know markets can have a transformative effect on society and can build a better world, and investor focus on sustainability issues has never been greater.
- Michael Wilkins

Since most corporate competitors have the same problems with sustainability and social reputation, it's worth trying to solve them together.
- Simon Mainwaring

Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.
- Carl Sagan

Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.
- E.O. Wilson

The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.
- Gaylord Nelson

If we want to move towards a low-polluting, sustainable society, we need to get consumers to think about their purchases.
- David Suzuki

Every breath of air we take, every mouthful of food that we take, comes from the natural world. And if we damage the natural world, we damage ourselves.
- David Attenborough

Climate change is the single greatest threat to a sustainable future but, at the same time, addressing the climate challenge presents a golden opportunity to promote prosperity, security and a brighter future for all.
- Ban Ki-Moon

Sustainability makes good business sense, and we're all on the same team at the end of the day. That's the truth about the human condition.
- Paul Polman

Businesses have a profound opportunity to help build a more sustainable future, one born of our common concern for the planet we share.
- Tim Cook

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The sustainability revolution will, hopefully, be the third major social and economic turning point in human history, following the Neolithic Revolution – moving from hunter-gathering to farming – and the Industrial Revolution.
- Prince Charles

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Real human beings take precedence over partisan interests; however, legitimate the latter may be.
- Pope Francis

We can never have enough of Nature.
- Henry David Thoreau

The best way to predict the future is to create it.
- Peter Drucker

There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
- Marshall McLuhan

What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on.
- Henry David Thoreau

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle.
- Pope John Paul II

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
- Anne Frank