The Goals Of Sustainable Development : The Goal Of Sustainable Development

The Brundtland Report (1987) identifies sustainability as 5 different things; Holistic planning, one should have a right to be involved in any planning; Ecological processes

The universal definition of Sustainability, defined in the Brundtland Report back in 1987 and quoted by Mulder (2007) is “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Sustainable development is defined as “Development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (IISD, par. 1 ).

In general, this report discusses the successes and failures overall, analyzes sustainable development, institutional gaps, and also a call to action. Both Lomborg and The Brundtland Report agree that “...infant mortality is falling; human life expectancy is increasing; the proportion of the world’s adults who can read and write is climbing; the proportion of children starting school is rising; and global food production increases faster than the population grows.” (Brundtland 93) In conjunction with all the positive actions being taken; there are also environmental trends that threaten to radically alter the planet, that threaten the lives of many species upon it, including the human species. There has also been a growing realization in national government and multilateral institutions that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environmental issues. Nevertheless, “humanity has the capability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” (Brundtland 95) Furthermore, the goal for sustainable development and the integrated nature of the global environment/development challenges pose problems for institutions. “There is a growing need for effective international cooperation to manage ecological and economic interdependence.” (Brundtland 97) Last but not least, “To achieve the needed changes, we believe that an active follow-up of this report is imperative. It is with this in mind that we call for the UN General Assembly, upon due consideration, to transform this report into a UN Programme on Sustainable Development.” (Brundtland 99) There are many environmental issues occurring to our beautiful planet right now and will

Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................ 2 I. The development of global, European and national policies relating to sustainability. 2 1. Changing attitudes of public, politicians and businesses to the environment since 1945 .................................................................................................................................... 2 2. Brundtland definition of ‘sustainable development’ .................................................. 4 3. The international and UK policies to sustainable development since Earth Summit of 1992

Sustainable development suggests the implementation of state-imposed limitations, with the purpose of reducing the amount of resources and space we overtake and ultimately, the amount of damage we cause to our planet’s future. It requires that we view the earth as a system that both contains space and connects time. We are all interconnected, and the selfish, wasteful lifestyle that a country might live in North America can affect people all around the world, presently even. Generally, sustainable development can be separated into sections-two of them being social and environmental. Social sustainability places emphasis on the importance of public policy-making. It requires a political framework that consists of six areas-natural resource management, measurement and assessment, international trade and investment, climate change and energy, economic policy and communication technologies. Environment sustainability is concerned with the diversity and productivity of natural environments, and requires our generation to innovate activities so that they cause minimal harm to our natural environments. Our future on this earth will directly depend on our ability to introduce and implement the sustainable development techniques discussed in these fundamental sectors.

In the 1987 Bruntland report, researchers defined sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” (Our Common Future 1987). This definition receives some criticism by scientists

In 2005, the World Summit on Social Development globally announced three areas that help define the philosophy and social science of sustainability in the environment. Represented as the “three pillars” which result in strengthening sustainability; Economic development, social development, and environmental protection became the global focus for balancing ecology and the environment today.

to the dilemma of meanings over sustainable development is to change the use of words to sustainability (O’Connor, 1994) or sustainable livelihoods (Workshop on Urban Sustainability, 2000). These phrases avoid some possible conflicts between economic growth, social equity and the environment and instead focus on human needs and the environment–what Brundtland claimed was the aim of sustainable development. Deep Ecologists reject the concept of sustainable development as it prioritizes the needs of humans, however conceived and defined, over the rest of life and largely views the environment from a human standpoint. Despite these problems, we have used the phrase sustainable development as it attempts to embrace the relation between the socio-economic and environmental and has gained widespread recognition. It is clear from all the debates about

Backing up the history of conceptual Sustainable Development discussed during the lectures and tutorials, which as a term was first used in the book “Limits to Growth” during 1972, in which it was argued that the world will face major ecological collapse in the next 100 years if the resource consumption continued in the current trend. At latter stage, formally the “World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)”, that aimed to collectively bring countries to pursue a sustainable development. Brundtland Commission had published “Our Common Future” also known as the “Brundtland Report”, in which it states that a development should be able to meet the present needs in a much wider sense

Sustainable development is a relatively new concept, brought about by increasing scientific awareness of the interconnection between the environment and economic development, as discussed at the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. 15 years later in 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Commission, took the concept further to fully define sustainable development, which has helped to shape public policy, business strategies, and individual choices . Sustainable development contains two key concepts:

During an UN Commission meeting in 1983, Norwegian Prime Minister Brundtland came to express a stand amongst the most thorough meanings of sustainability: 'helping the present without trading off the capability of future eras to help 's (WCED Report, 1987).

Since the foundation of the principles of sustainable development, the interpretation and level of integration of sustainable principles have varied greatly on a global scale. As a result of the Bruntland Report’s (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) founding definition of sustainable development, there has been a drive towards the goal of a balance between the integration and policy frameworks of economic growth, social justice and environmental concern (Getzner, 1999; Connelly, 2007). However, the plethora of differing views on sustainability, and a global society fixated on economic growth, has created multiple approaches (Williams & Millington, 2004). The approaches vary in their effectiveness to address principles

The concept of sustainable development has become a major topic among intellectuals from various fields. Sustainable development has gone through various changes in its definitions and at present does not have a commonly accepted definition. The origination of the concept of sustainable development is debatable. In 1974 at a conference on Science and Technology for Human Development by the World Council of Churches the concept of a “sustainable society” is believed to have been first noted. This early concept focused on equitable distribution of scarce resources and the need for democratic decision making. In 1980 the currently used term of sustainable development emerged in the

In the past several decades, the term sustainable development has gained a lot of attention, however, it has since been overused to a point of saturation where it has lost the influence it previously elucidated and become a jargon for developers and slogan for environmentalists. What does sustainable development mean? For years scholars have tried to define and articulate the concept of sustainable development which has led it to become an oxymoron of sorts.