“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet.” —William Shakespeare Or, perhaps, “that which we call ‘sustainable’ by any other name would be as green.” A question that occasionally occurs to me when writing these posts or other articles on the subject of...this blog is, what term should we be using to describe our topic? “Green?” “Environmental”? “Sustainable”? Admittedly, I use them a bit interchangeably—I use synonyms to keep from repeating the same words—and I acknowledge that there are subtle and not-so-subtle differences among them. “Sustainability” refers to more than just environmental issues, as we have seen before, and, let’s face it, “green” is wearing out its welcome; I use it more as a colloquialism or shorthand than as any serious, defining term, and would be just as happy to never use it again. Why do I bring this up? It turns out that I am not the only one who wrestles with the terminology. GreenBiz has a post that asks this same question:

When it comes to talking about what to call what we at GreenBiz.com write about every single day, terminology has long been a big variable. Are your company’s energy efficiency, supply chain management, green IT, zero waste or renewable energy projects “green,” or “sustainable,” or “CSR”-focused, or part of a “triple-bottom-line” initiative?

And you have to love the aesthetics of this linking:

It’s an issue that’s been up in the air for many many years, but it seems like we’re getting closer to a much-needed consensus.

That is, they asked companies what term they use. Turns out, the winner is “sustainability,” with “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) a close second. Both terms refer to more than just the environmental component, which is good in the sense that we should ideally be paying attention to all the pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and financial. But if we are only talking about the environmental component, should we be using “sustainable”? (GreenBiz mentions that the term “resilient” is starting to be used in certain quarters. Wha?) So here’s my question for the Going Greenosphere: what terms do you prefer for what we are talking about? What terms should be forever banned?