Sustainable Development

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 is an organizing principle for human life on a finite planet. It posits a
desirable future state for human societies in which living conditions and resource-use
meet human needs without undermining the sustainability of natural systems and the
environment, so that future generations may also have their needs met.
Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural
systems with the social and economic challenges faced by humanity. As early as 1970s,
'sustainability' was employed to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic
ecological support systems." Scientists in many fields have highlighted The Limits to
Growth, and economists have presented alternatives, for example a 'steady state
economy', to address concerns over the impacts of expanding human development on
the planet.
The term 'sustainable development' rose to significance after it was used by
the Brundtland Commission in its 1987 report, Our Common Future. In the report, the
commission coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable
development: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
The concept of sustainable development has in the past most often been broken out
into

three

constituent

domains:

environmental sustainability,

economic

sustainability and social sustainability. However, many other possible ways to delineate
the concept have been suggested. For example, the Circles of Sustainability approach
distinguishes the four domains of economic, ecological, political and cultural
sustainability. This accords with the United Cities and local governments specifying of
culture as the fourth domain of sustainability. Other important sources refer to the fourth
domain as 'institutional' or as 'good governance.'

In 1987,

the United

Nations World

Commission

on

Environment

and

Development released the report Our Common Future, now commonly named the
'Brundtland Report' after the commission's chairperson, the then Prime Minister of
Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland. The report included what is now one of the most widely
recognised definitions: "Sustainable development is development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs." The Brundtland Report goes on to say that sustainable
development also contains within it two key concepts:

The concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to
which overriding priority should be given

The idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization
on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

The United

Nations 2005

World

Summit Outcome

Document

refers

to

the

"interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars" of sustainable development as

economic development, social development, and environmental protection. Based on
this 'triple bottom line', numerous sustainability standards and certification systems have
been established in recent years, in particular in the food industry. Well-known
standards include organic, Rainforest Alliance, fair trade, UTZ Certified, Bird Friendly,
and The Common Code for the Coffee Community.
Indigenous people have argued, through various international forums such as the
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Convention on
Biological Diversity, that there are four pillars of sustainable development, the fourth
being cultural. The Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity (UNESCO, 2001) further
elaborates the concept by stating that "... cultural diversity is as necessary for
humankind as biodiversity is for nature; it becomes one of the roots of development
understood not simply in terms of economic growth, but also as a means to achieve a
more satisfactory intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence". In this vision,
cultural diversity is the fourth policy area of sustainable development.

A useful articulation of the values and principles of sustainability can be found in

the Earth Charter. It offers an integrated vision and definition of strong sustainability.
The document, an ethical framework for a sustainable world, was developed over
several years after the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 and launched officially in 2000. The
Charter derives its legitimacy from the participatory process in which it was drafted,
which included contributions from hundreds of organizations and thousands of
individuals, and from its use since 2000 by thousands of organizations and individuals
that have been using the Earth Charter as an educational instrument and a policy tool.
Economic Sustainability: Agenda 21 clearly identified information, integration,
and participation as key building blocks to help countries achieve development that
recognises these interdependent pillars. It emphasises that in sustainable development
everyone is a user and provider of information. It stresses the need to change from old
sector-centered ways of doing business to new approaches that involve cross-sectoral
co-ordination and the integration of environmental and social concerns into all
development processes. Furthermore, Agenda 21 emphasises that broad public
participation in decision making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable
development.
According to Hasna Vancock, sustainability is a process which tells of a development of
all aspects of human life affecting sustenance. It means resolving the conflict between
the various competing goals, and involves the simultaneous pursuit of economic
prosperity, environmental quality and social equity famously known as three dimensions
(triple bottom line) with the resultant vector being technology, hence it is a continually
evolving process; the 'journey' (the process of achieving sustainability) is of course
vitally important, but only as a means of getting to the destination (the desired future
state). However, the 'destination' of sustainability is not a fixed place in the normal
sense that we understand destination. Instead, it is a set of wishful characteristics of a
future system.
Important related concepts are 'strong' and 'weak' sustainability, deep ecology, and just
sustainability. "Just sustainability" offers a socially just conception of sustainability. Just
sustainability effectively addresses what has been called the 'equity deficit'
3

of environmental sustainability (Agyeman, 2005:44). It is the egalitarian conception of

sustainable development" (Jacobs, 1999:32). It generates a more nuanced definition of
sustainable development: the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into
the future, in ajust and equitable manner, whilst living within the limits of
supporting ecosystems (Agyeman, et al., 2003:5). This conception of sustainable
development focuses equally on four conditions: improving our quality of life and wellbeing; on meeting the needs of both present and future generations (intraand intergenerational equity); on justice and equity in terms of recognition (Schlosberg,
1999), process, procedure and outcome and on the need for us to live within ecosystem
limits (also called one planet living) (Agyeman, 2005:92). Open-source appropriate
technology has been proposed as an approach for reaching just sustainable
development.
Green development is generally differentiated from sustainable development in that
Green development prioritizes what its proponents consider to be environmental
sustainability over economic and cultural considerations. Proponents of Sustainable
Development argue that it provides a context in which to improve overall sustainability
where cutting edge Green Development is unattainable. For example, a cutting edge
treatment plant with extremely high maintenance costs may not be sustainable in
regions of the world with fewer financial resources. An environmentally ideal plant that is
shut down due to bankruptcy is obviously less sustainable than one that is maintainable
by the community, even if it is somewhat less effective from an environmental
standpoint. However, this view depends on whether one determines that it is the
development (the plant) which needs to be sustainable, or whether it is the humannature ecology (the environmental conditions) in which the plant exists which should be
sustainable. It follows, then, that an operational but heavily polluting plant may be
judged as actually 'less sustainable' than having no plant at all.
Sustainability

educator

Michael

Thomas

Needham

referred

to

'Sustainable

Development' "as the ability to meet the needs of the present while contributing to the
future generations needs."There is an additional focus on the present generations'
responsibility to improve the future generations' life by restoring the previous ecosystem
damage and resisting to contribute to further
4

The domain of 'economics' is fundamental to considerations of sustainable

development, however there has been considerable criticism of the tendency to use the
three-domain model of the triple bottom line: economics, environment and social. This
approach is challenged to the extent that it treats the economy as the master domain, or
as a domain that exists outside of the social; it treats the environment as a world of
natural metrics; and it treats the social as a miscellaneous collection of extra things that
do not fit into the economic or environmental domains (see the section on Economic
sustainability below). In the alternative Circles of Sustainability approach, the economic
domain is defined as the practices and meanings associated with the production, use,
and management of resources, where the concept of resources is used in the broadest
sense of that word.
Ecology
The sustainability of human settlements is part of the relationship between humans and
their natural, social and built environments. Also termedhuman ecology, this broadens
the focus of sustainable development to include the domain of human health.
Fundamental human needs such as the availability and quality of air, water, food and
shelter are also the ecological foundations for sustainable development; addressing
public health risk through investments in ecosystem services can be a powerful and
transformative force for sustainable development which, in this sense, extends to all
species.
Engineering emerging technologies
Engineering of emerging technologies supports the ecological aspects of sustainable
development. Carbon-neutral fuel and energy storage systems such as power to
gas, compressed air energy storage, and pumped-storage droelectricity are necessary
to store power from transient renewable energy sources including emerging renewables
such as airborne wind turbines.
Green Economy

The green economy is one that results in reducing environmental risks and ecological
scarcities. Green economy is an economy or economic development model based
on sustainable development and a knowledge of ecological economics.[1]
A feature distinguishing it from prior economic regimes is the direct valuation of natural
capital and ecological services as having economic value (seeThe Economics of
Ecosystems

and

Biodiversity and Bank

of

Natural

Capital)

and

a full

cost

accounting regime in which costs externalized onto society via ecosystems are reliably
traced back to, and accounted for as liabilities of, the entity that does the harm or
neglects an asset.
For an overview of the developments in international environment policy that led up to
the UNEP Green Economy Report, see Runnals (2011).
Green Sticker and ecolabel practices have emerged as consumer facing measurements
of sustainability. Many industries are starting to adopt these standards as a viable way
to promote their greening practices in a globalizing economy.

"Green" economists and economics

"Green

economics" is loosely defined as any theory of economics by which an economy

is considered to be component of the ecosystem in which it resides (after Lynn

Margulis). A holistic approach to the subject is typical, such that economic ideas are
commingled with any number of other subjects, depending on the particular theorist.
Proponents

of feminism, postmodernism,

the ecology

movement, peace

movement, Green politics, green anarchism and anti-globalization movement have used
the term to describe very different ideas, all external to some equally ill-defined
"mainstream" economics.
The use of the term is further ambiguated by the political distinction of Green
parties which are formally organized and claim the capital-G "Green" term as a unique
and distinguishing mark. It is thus preferable to refer to a loose school of "'green
economists"' who generally advocate shifts towards a green economy, biomimicry and a
6

fuller

accounting

for biodiversity.

(see The

Economics

of

Ecosystems

and

Biodiversity especially for current authoritative international work towards these goals
and Bank of Natural Capital for a layperson's presentation of these.
Some economists view green economics as a branch or subfield of more established
schools. For instance, it is regarded as classical economics where the traditional land is
generalized tonatural capital and has some attributes in common with labor and
physical capital (since natural capital assets like rivers directly substitute for man-made
ones such as canals). Or, it is viewed as Marxist economics with nature represented as
a form of Lumpenproletariat, an exploited base of non-human workers providing surplus
value to the human economy, or as a branch ofneoclassical economics in which
the price of life for developing vs. developed nations is held steady at a ratio reflecting a
balance of power and that of non-human life is very low.
An increasing commitment by the UNEP (and national governments such as the UK) to
the ideas of natural capital and full cost accounting under the banner 'green economy'
could blur distinctions between the schools and redefine them all as variations of "green
economics".

As

of

2010

the Bretton

Woods institutions

(notably

the World

Bank and International Monetary Fund(via its "Green Fund" initiative) responsible for
global monetary

policy have

stated

clear

intention

to

move

towards biodiversity valuation and a more official and universal biodiversity finance.[citation
needed]

Taking these into account targeting not less but radically zero emission and waste

is what is promoted by the Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives.[citation needed]

Definition of a Green economy
Karl Burkart defines a green economy as based on six main sectors: [4]

Renewable energy

Green buildings

Sustainable transport
7

Water management

Land management

The three pillars of

The

Global

(GGEI), is

sustainability.

Green

Economy

published

by

Index

consultancy

Dual Citizen LLC. It

measures

perception

performance of 27

and

both

national green economies as judged by expert practitioners and 3rd party indicators and
datasets. In 2013, Dual Citizen published a white paper titled "Communications & Green
Economic Growth"[6] revealing six areas where better communications and information
exchange could accelerate green growth and associated cleantech investments. The
GGEI (to be updated in full in 2014) measures 4 primary dimensions defining a national
green economy as follows:
1. Leadership and the extent to which national leaders are champions for green
issues on the local and international stage
2. Domestic policies and the success of policy frameworks to successfully promote
renewable energy and green growth in home market

3. Cleantech Investment and the perceived opportunities and cleantech investment

climate in each country
4. Green tourism and the level of commitment to promoting sustainable tourism
through government.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) representing global business defines
green economy as an economy in which economic growth and environmental
responsibility work together in a mutually reinforcing fashion while supporting progress
on social development.
In 2012, the ICC published the Green Economy Roadmap, containing contributions from
experts from around the globe brought together in a two year consultation process. The
Roadmap represents a comprehensive and multidisciplinary effort to clarify and frame
the concept of green economy. It highlights the essential role of business in bringing
solutions to common global challenges. It sets out the following 10 conditions which
relate to business/intra-industry and collaborative action for a transition towards a green
economy:

Open and competitive markets

Metrics, accounting, and reporting

Finance and investment

Awareness

Life cycle approach

Resource efficiency and decoupling

Employment

Education and skills

9

Governance and partnership

Integrated policy and decision-making

10