For a system to succeed, certain needs must be met in order for progress to gain meaningful results. This ongoing process is the paradox of sustainability; to develop better tools with less and less resources. However, without defining sustainability, it is impossible for anyone to determine when any new development is actually sustainable. Interestingly, sustainability's definition resides hand-in-hand with its paradox. Sustainability is the ongoing effort to better the human condition through innovation without overly taxing the Earth's natural and physical resources by both gaining knowledge of more efficient systems and attempting to recreate natural systems present on the earth.

 Some Examples of Sustainability Include:

• Adding winglets to an aircraft, such as the Boeing 737, results in a 3%-5% fuel reduction. While Boeing 737's are hardly sustainable, the process through which they are improved is the essence of sustainability: to increase the net gain of a system, whether that be natural or man made. 
  
• The Cherokee Indian tribe, who would utilize every part of a hunted buffalo

General Principles of Sustainability:

• Net gains among mankind; to get more with less.   
• Sustainability is the concept of optimization, a concept too much forgotten in today's fast-past society, but remembered so many years ago. 

However quantitative the analysis of sustainability may be, the essence of sustaining anything is mindful usage of resources, as well as mindful design and conceptualization of new innovations that provide net gains. Positive human or physical results, combined with lesser amounts of environmental or natural degradation are both the paradoxes and the power of sustainability: to better the condition of the world using ever more efficient techniques.