This chapter explores the concepts and connotations behind the term ‘sustainability’, thereby highlighting the European history that has shaped the idea of this English term. From this starting point, it expands to include perspectives from other linguistic and cultural contexts. A central point of comparison is China—a country geographically and linguistically distant from Europe, yet one that has also developed its own terms and concepts related to sustainability. Particularly in the realm of sustainable development, the practical outgrowth of sustainability in the twenty-first century, there are striking overlaps and intersections. At the same time, Chinese academic work in the field of sustainability offers an important counterpoint to the politically driven emergence of sustainability science in ‘Western’ discourse. Overall, this chapter introduces the need for a plural understanding of sustainability—one that responds to the diversity of ways in which people experience and interpret the world.