The principle of environmental sustainability is the principle of avoiding activities that will definitely reduce the future ability of the environment to provide for the needs and wants of the next – and subsequent – generations.
The principle of resilience is preparing a society to handle events which may have devastating consequences for the unprepared. In the case of sustainability, unless you are sustainable, the long term consequences will be dire. In the case of resilience, a community might get away with not being resilient, but, with life being what it is, some adversity is inevitable and, without proper planning, some form of disaster is almost certain to occur.
Examples of resilience would be stockpiling PPE in preparation for a pandemic, having a contingency plan in place in the event of an internet or Power Grid failure or looking at prevailing weather conditions and thinking about how they may affect crops and infrastructure. Is the community located on a flood plain? If so, put struts on the building to ensure they are above the water and buy boats that are capable of evacuating people. Is the community in an Earthquake zone? Build to code. Is the community in a cold climate? Could the electricity power lines fail? Ensure there’s enough fuel to keep people warm, have a wood burning electricity generator on site – and so on and so forth.
Disaster preparedness is key to avoiding death and injuries. Death and injuries that could cause tragedy, result in expensive lawsuits, and destroy the company’s brand.