What is Sustainable Development?
Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract sustainable development and turn it into a reality for all the world’s people.
Kofi Annan
Secretary General of the United Nations, March 2001
Sustainable means that something is viable and can be continued in the long term in ways that do not harm people but benefit them equally. This can apply to anything from decisions about the school playground to issues relating to the national economy and global environment.
Development refers to the way in which the interaction between the environment, the economy and society progresses and changes. Development happens everywhere and involves everyone.
Sustainable development is about ensuring a better quality of life for everyone now and for generations to come. This means meeting four objectives at the same time, in the UK and the world as a whole social progress that recognises the needs of everyone, effective protection of the environment, prudent use of natural resources, and maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment.
Government Sustainable Development Strategy, July 1999
You can find a professional development activity exploring what sustainable development means in the professional development section of the site.
The concept of sustainable development emerged in the 1980s to address the growing concern that human activity was having such an impact on the ability of the Earth’s natural systems to support a growing human population that its future survival could be jeopardised. Critical thresholds were being approached, if not exceeded.
The concept of sustainable development gained world-wide currency with the publication of Our common future by the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) in 1987, and provided the main agenda item for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development or ‘Earth Summit’ held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Brundtland Commission, 1987
While recognising that increased development was necessary to meet the basic needs of much of the world’s population, particularly in the developing world, the Brundtland Commission suggested that development should occur in such a way that the capacity of the natural environment to meet present and future needs was not compromised.
It also suggested that economic, social and environmental considerations had to be integrated to address issues of poverty, equity, quality of life, and global environmental protection. At the ‘Earth Summit’ these principles were adopted and incorporated into ‘Agenda 21’, a comprehensive set of principles to assist governments and other institutions to implement sustainable development policies and programmes in the twenty first century. Agenda 21 was agreed by over 170 countries, including the United Kingdom. Many of the principles needed local action. Many local authorities, in the UK and around the world, have produced local action plans for sustainable development — ‘Local Agenda 21’.
During the 1990s, thinking about sustainable development has evolved further. Sustainable development is now closely associated with quality of life. The Government has identified local, regional and national indicators against which progress towards sustainable development is monitored.
Improving the quality of life while living within the earth’s carrying capacities.
World Conservation Union / United Nations Environment Programme / World Wide Fund for Nature, 1991
The concept of sustainable development has become an international benchmark for consideration of a broad range of economic, social, political, and environmental issues.
However, some people argue that there is no agreed definition of sustainable development and that there may be no need for one. They argue that sustainable development should be viewed as a process of change that is heavily reliant upon local contexts, needs and interests. Sustainable development is then seen as an ’emerging concept’, first because it is relatively new and evolves as we learn to grasp its wide implications for all aspects of our lives, and, second, because its meaning emerges and evolves according to local contexts.