Most current suggestions for operationalizing sustainability can be characterized as indicator-
based management rules for achieving this goal. Although these rules may be of some practical
usefulness, they narrow the general idea of sustainability considerably. We want to contrast this
indicator-based type of sustainability with two successively more comprehensive approaches to
sustainability: circular and evolutionary sustainability. Each type describes aspects of
sustainability which become observable on different time scales. Our aim is to draw attention to an
inevitable trade-off: The more concrete and operational the approach to sustainability, the
narrower is its scope and the shorter is the time scale on which it is relevant. From our analysis we
draw conclusions on how to achieve sustainability in the political process.