Sustainable development means different things to different people, but the most frequently quoted definition is from the report Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland Report): "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
Sustainable development focuses on improving the quality of life for all of the Earth's citizens without increasing the use of natural resources beyond the capacity of the environment to supply them indefinitely. It requires an understanding that inaction has consequences and that we must find innovative ways to change institutional structures and influence individual behaviour. It is about taking action, changing policy and practice at all levels, from the individual to the international.
Sustainable development is not a new idea. Many cultures over the course of human history have recognized the need for harmony between the environment, society and economy. What is new is an articulation of these ideas in the context of a global industrial and information society.
Progress on developing the concepts of sustainable development has been rapid since the 1980s. In 1992 leaders at the Earth Summit built upon the framework of Brundtland Report to create agreements and conventions on critical issues such as climate change, desertification and deforestation. They also drafted a broad action strategy—Agenda 21—as the workplan for environment and development issues for the coming decades. Throughout the rest of the 1990s, regional and sectoral sustainability plans have been developed. A wide variety of groups—ranging from businesses to municipal governments to international organizations such as the World Bank—have adopted the concept and given it their own particular interpretations. These initiatives have increased our understanding of what sustainable development means within many different contexts. Unfortunately, as the Earth Summit +5 review process demonstrated in 1997, progress on implementing sustainable development plans has been slow.
Around the world we see signs of severe stress on our interlocked global economic, environmental and social systems. As the United Nations Environmental Programme's GEO-2000 report points out, the "time for a rational, well-planned transition to a sustainable system is running out fast." And yet we continue to adopt a business-as-usual approach to decision-making, which increases the chance that our global systems will crack and begin to crumble. Already we are faced with full-scale emergencies through freshwater shortages, tropical forest destruction, species extinction, urban air pollution, and climate change.
How do we quickly reverse these trends? In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development recommended seven critical actions needed to ensure a good quality of life for people around the world:
- Revive growth
- Change the quality of growth
- Meet essential needs and aspirations for jobs, food, energy, water and sanitation
- Ensure a sustainable level of population
- Conserve and enhance the resource base
- Reorient technology and manage risk
- Include and combine environment and economics considerations in decision-making
These recommendations are as valid today as they were when first written. They are a call to change our actions and to do things differently.
Comprehension:
- Sutainable development is:
a. a new concept,
b. based on old ideas
- Sutainable development stresses upon:
a. the relationship between man and development,
b. a development that takes into consideration the needs of future generations. - action to implement the concept of sustainable development is:
a. slow,
b. already taking place at a reasonable pace.
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