‘Sustainability’ has become a general catchword, be it in science, politics or the society at large. The concept of sustainability was likely adopted into common parlance through the United Nations’ report Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, in 1987. Yet the exact meaning of sustainability remains unclear, which makes it possible to utilise the concept in a variety of ways. It is clear that law has a role to play in sustainable development but what type of a law should (or could) we imagine for a sustainable society? This special issue of Retfaerd contains five articles that approach sustainability from different legal perspectives. This introductory article first briefly recaptures the problems of ‘sustainability talk’. Next, it surveys what the authors of this special issue mean by ‘sustainability’. Last, it introduces each of the articles and attempts to draw out an interesting conclusion or paradox regarding the possibilities of sustainability from each article. Keywords sustainability law sustainability sciences sustainability paradoxes
Tomi Tuominen* (Tue,) studied this question.