Sustainability isn't a movement, it's common sense.

I think there is a reason every firm's website has a page on their "sustainable" practices. While some may actually be committed to creating sustainable designs, other just see it as a check in the box to say they did something beneficial to humanity. Sustainability is not about this new movement that has been sweeping the architectural world for a decade or so, it is about the thought process, and really should be common sense. That is what any architect with any real understanding of sustainable design(in my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt) would tell you. Instead of thinking about the technology and recycling of material, etc, zoom farther out and think of sustainability as a process and as an idea. Sustainable doesn't begin with 100% recycled brick, or slapping a green wall on your building, it starts with studying the site and even seeing if there is a need to build, its thinking about what your design will do to not only the ecological environment, but the social one as well. It's thinking about the life cycle of each material, and of the building itself. How are the building materials created? Extracted? What happens after it's outlived its use? LEED and Green Globes and all other "checklist" sustainable rating systems are only the beginning. While I'm not sure its as polarizing as Global Warming, sustainability and its ideas just seem like common sense. If we are able to design for better environments, socially, economically, and naturally, then why not? What is the harm in trying a little harder to make the world a better place to live and work? Is your design something that makes a positive impact? Or is it just there to serve a need and negatively impact everything else? Sustainability should not just be a movement, and I believe as time goes on, it will (and already is) just become common practice, and the rating systems would soon disappear.