Well l think the main difference is that true sustainability accounts for ecological limits and long-term system balance, while dwarf sustainability narrows the concept to short-term, human-centered or economic fixes that ignore deeper planetary boundaries.

The main difference between sustainability and “dwarf sustainability” lies in their scale and longevity. Sustainability refers to meeting current needs without compromising future generations’ ability to meet theirs, typically through long-term, integrated social, economic, and environmental strategies (e.g., Uganda’s National Development Plan III promotes sustainable agro-industrialisation to improve food security and incomes). Dwarf sustainability, by contrast, is a more limited or short-term approach that maintains certain benefits or resources only at a small scale or for a limited period without embedding resilience or growth potential—such as donor-funded village water schemes that function well during the funding cycle but collapse after external support ends. In Uganda, dwarf sustainability may work better in pilot projects or emergency responses (like short-term refugee settlement support in West Nile), where quick, limited solutions are needed, while full sustainability is essential for national policies like renewable energy rollouts or forest conservation to ensure lasting impact.@Lucio Muñoz

Yeukai, thank you for commenting.

Keep in mind, sustainability is more than environmental sustainability and environmental sustainability is more than dwarf environmental sustainability, in both cases the main difference can be states either in term of the nature of cost accounting via either cost internalization theory or cost externalization theory.

Sustainability is about full cost accounting, environmental sustainability is about full environmental cost accounting. Dwarf sustainability is about no to partial cost accounting, and dwarf environmental sustainability is about no to partial environmental cost accounting.... you can use the sustainability right gram and the dwarf sustainability left gram to contrast them creating that way the sustainability cost accounting INVERSEGRAM

You can do the same to contrast environmental sustainability and dwarf environmental sustainability.

A short answer can be made in terms of cost internalization or in terms of cost externalization.

I appreciate your comment.

Lucio

Sustainability refers to meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs, balancing environmental, social, and economic dimensions. Dwarf sustainability, however, implies a narrowed or minimal approach that addresses only parts of sustainability often short-term or surface-level without fully tackling its broader, long-term challenges.

Mobalaji good day, let's assume that what you said there is sustainability, then WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT a la WCED 1987?. As you may know, sustainability IS NOT sustainable development. What is SD then?

The main difference between sustainability and dwarf sustainability is scale and completeness: true sustainability markets internalize environmental and social costs across the whole system and aim at long-run stability, while dwarf sustainability markets apply partial, localized, or symbolic fixes that manage symptoms but fail to close the broader sustainability gap.

In short Chuck, one is based on full cost internalization and the the other is based on partial to no cost internalization