What is sustainable development?

The UN-sponsored World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) warned in 1987 that many nations were on an unsustainable development pathway, and were running down the environment, the natural capital upon which economies depend. Commission member Maurice Strong, a Canadian who went on the head the 1992 Earth Summit, compared the destruction of nature to the destruction of factories that produce our daily needs.

Strong and the commission warned that by damaging the environment we were undermining our own economic future and that of future generations. He called for “development without destruction.” The World Conservation Union said that sustainable development means, “improving the quality of life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems.”  

In its landmark report, Our Common Future, the Brundtland Commission said:

"Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable – to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without comprising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept of sustainable development does imply limits – not absolute limits but limitation imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities. But technology and social organization can be both managed and improved to make way for a new era of economic growth."

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