SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT
A
Brief History of Sustainable Development
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 sustainability idea as we know it
emerged in a series of meetings and reports during the 1970s and 1980s. In
1972, the UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment marked the first
great international meeting on how human activities were harming the
environment and putting humans at risk.
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.
