Sustainability means meeting today’s needs without using up the resources or harming the systems future generations will depend on. In investing it means weighing a company’s environmental and social impact alongside its profit. Real sustainability is measurable and specific.
inaam is an ASIC-regulated impact investing app for Australians, and it attaches impact data to every holding so the claims can actually be checked. General information only, not financial advice. Consider the PDS and TMD before investing.
Sustainability is one of those words that gets used so often it stops meaning anything. It is on coffee cups and corporate reports and Instagram bios. Brands put it on products the way they used to put natural on things that were 90% chemicals. So it is worth going back to what the word means, where it came from, and why it matters well beyond your keep cup.
what sustainability means
The most cited definition comes from the 1987 Brundtland Commission, a UN body that spent four years studying the relationship between economic development and the environment. They landed on this: meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The core idea is balance across time. Can what we are doing right now keep going without breaking something that matters later?
The UN Sustainable Development Goals carry that framework forward with 17 goals for 2030, covering everything from clean water to gender equality to responsible consumption.
the three dimensions of sustainability
Most people hear sustainability and think environment. The concept has always had three dimensions that need to work together. Address only one and you have not solved the problem.
| the question it asks | what failing looks like | |
|---|---|---|
| environmental sustainability | Are we using resources faster than they regenerate? | Deforestation, ocean acidification, species extinction, carbon overshoot. |
| social sustainability | Are the benefits and costs shared fairly? | Exploitative labour, displacement of communities, health inequity, cultural erasure. |
| economic sustainability | Can this system keep running without collapse? | Short-term extraction, debt-fuelled growth, industries that cannot survive without subsidies. |
A solar farm that displaces Indigenous communities is not sustainable. A fair-trade company that goes bankrupt every two years is not either. Genuine sustainability sits where all three dimensions overlap. That is harder to reach, which is why so many things labelled sustainable only manage one dimension.
the test that matters
all three, at the same time
Environmental, social and economic. A project that clears one and fails the other two is a project with good marketing. The overlap is the part worth checking, and it is the part most claims quietly skip.
where your money fits in
You might cycle to work, bring your own bags, eat less meat. Those choices matter. But the biggest sustainability decision most Australians make is in their bank account and their super fund.
The money in your savings account, your super and any investments you hold is all being used. Banks lend it and super funds invest it. Where it goes shapes which industries grow and which ones do not.
daily choices, and the bigger one
the keep cup is not the whole job
Cycling, reusable bags and eating less meat all count, and none of it is wasted. But the account your pay lands in moves more money in a year than your shopping does, and almost nobody asks you to think about that one.
what the big four banks fund
Market Forces, an advocacy group, tracks what Australia’s big four banks provide to fossil fuel companies. Its November 2025 count put the total at $43.4 billion to the world’s major coal, oil and gas companies since the Paris Agreement in 2015. The numbers are worth seeing.
| what the 2025 count found | |
|---|---|
| ANZ | Over $15.9 billion in the decade, the most of the four |
| Westpac | $3.8 billion since 2022, the second most in that time |
| Commonwealth Bank | Lending to oil and gas producers down 75% in three years |
| NAB | Named with Commonwealth Bank as moving away from companies out of line with global climate goals |
That count covers loans and bonds between 2016 and September 2025, and Market Forces says it should not be compared with its earlier reports.
None of that means you need to leave your bank tomorrow. Where your money sits is still a sustainability decision, whether you think about it that way or not.
three things you can do
Sustainability as a concept is huge. As a set of personal actions it is simpler than it looks.
1. check your super
It is probably your largest single investment and you have probably never looked at what it is invested in. Most super funds now offer an ethical or sustainable option, and switching takes ten minutes online. A 2024 analysis by Market Forces found more than $150 billion of Australian retirement savings could be invested in companies fuelling climate change. Yours might be part of that. MoneySmart’s super comparison guide helps you weigh up the options.
2. question what sustainable means on any product or fund
The word has no legal protection. Anyone can use it. When a fund calls itself sustainable, check what that means in practice. What does it exclude? What does it actively seek? Is there a published methodology? The RIAA independently certifies funds that meet genuine responsible investment standards. An uncertified fund might still be good, but you will have to verify the claims yourself.
3. start small, and start on purpose
You do not need to overhaul your entire life. Pick one financial decision and put it through the three-dimension test: is this good for the environment, fair to people, and viable over the long run? If you are starting to invest, our beginners guide to sustainable investing walks through the options.
Two words worth having straight while you read a fund page: greenwashingSpending more effort on looking sustainable than on being sustainable. Vague words, no published numbers, one good product in front of a much larger habit. and certificationAn independent body checking the claim against a standard, on a schedule. Without one, the claim is the company marking its own homework..
sustainability and investing
why this sits here
the money is already working
This article sits on an investing app because your super, your savings and your investment account are already funding something today. The only open question is whether they are funding the future you want or the one you are trying to avoid.
RIAA publishes benchmark research on responsible investment funds set against conventional peers over one, three, five and ten year periods. The idea that you automatically give something up by investing sustainably is not what that research has tended to show. Past results are not a guide to future ones, and every fund carries risk where you may lose some or all of your capital.
how inaam screens for it
At inaam we screen every holding across five themes: health and wellbeing, renewable energy, waste and recycling, sustainable agriculture, and sustainable consumption. Each theme maps to specific UN Sustainable Development Goals. You can see exactly how on how it works, and the themes themselves are set out on investment areas.
Those five are customised by you, not by us, and you can change them. The subscription is $10 a month, which is $120 a year, and it is separate from the money you invest. The minimum to invest in the fund is $100. Sign-up happens in the app, not on this website. SMSFs and family trusts are welcome.
If you are not sure which sustainability themes matter most to you, the money values quiz takes about two minutes, and compare puts inaam beside the other ways of doing this.
