The
Sustainability Reporting Program works from a definition of
sustainability that sees human activities as part of and
dependent upon the natural world. In scientific terms,
the human ecosystem, including the communities we build,
is a subset of the larger ecosystem of the Earth.
Sustainability is about meeting basic human needs and wants.
People value their health and that of their children, economic
security and happiness. These are primary elements in our
quality of life.
Most definitions stress that sustainability requires making
decisions that recognize the connections between actions and
effects in the environment, economy and society. Sustainability is very much about what kind of a legacy
we want to leave for our children and grandchildren.
The 1980 World Conservation Strategy, prepared by the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature along
with the UN Environment Program and the World
Wildlife Fund, promoted the idea of environmental
protection in the self-interest of the human species.
In 1987, the UN-sponsored Brundtland Commission released
Our Common Future, a report that captured widespread
concerns about the environment and poverty in many parts
of the world.
The Brundtland report said that economic development cannot stop,
but it must change course to fit within the planet's ecological
limits. It also popularized the term sustainable development,
which it defined as development that meets present needs
without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.
World attention on sustainability peaked at the 1992
UN Conference on Environment and Development,
in Rio de Janeiro. It brought together the heads
or senior officials of 179 governments, and included
the Earth Summit, the largest-ever meeting of world leaders.
Rio produced two international agreements,
two statements of principles and a major action agenda
on worldwide sustainable development.
The interest in sustainability that flourished during
that period was spurred by a series of incidents and
discoveries, including the leak of poisonous gas from a
chemical plant at Bhopal, India, the explosion and
radioactive release from Chernobyl, Ukraine,
the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer,
leaking toxic chemical dumps, such as Love Canal,
general fears about chemical contamination and
conflicts over decreasing natural resources such as forests
and fisheries.
The Brundtland report captured many of those concerns when it
said:
"Major, unintended changes are occurring in the atmosphere,
in soils, in waters, among plants and animals.
Nature is bountiful but it is also fragile and finely balanced.
There are thresholds that cannot be crossed without
endangering the basic integrity of the system. Today
we are close to many of those thresholds."
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