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.”

The term Sustainable Development was popularized in 1987 by the United

Nations Commission on Environment and Development through the
Brundtland Report.

The world needs sustainable development as without it there can be no real and
enduring development. Industrial and technological development should be
secured in such a way as should not in any way disturb the ecology of
environmental and the socio-economic cultural life of the people.
the survival, continued progress, and maintenance of the human community as dependent on the continued
health and viability of the earth’s life support systems.

The image of the earth from space provided a first glimpse of the “big picture of sustainability” because it
showed the limits and vulnerability of earth’s life support systems, and made clear the global environmental
impacts of human activities.

If today is a typical day on planet earth, humans will add 15 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere,
destroy 115 square miles of tropical rain forest, create 72 square miles of desert, eliminate between 40–100
species, erode 71 million tons of top soil, add 2,700 tons of CFCs to the stratosphere, and increase the
population by 263,000.

(Orr, 1991)

In 2001 the UN Secretary-General’s report, showed that the world population would reach 8 billion by 2025,
and 9.3 billion in 2050. This report also provided statistics indicating that although global food production
has continued to expand more rapidly than population in the past decade, some agricultural practices have
led to environmental deterioration. During this period, agricultural expansion continued to encroach into
forests, grasslands and wetlands. The rate of deforestation for the 1990s is 14.6 million ha per year. This has
been caused mainly by the expansion of agricultural practices and urbanization. It was estimated that a 17
percent increase in water supply would be needed for food growing in the next twenty years, putting
additional pressure on the problem of water scarcity. By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population could be
living in countries with moderate or severe water stress. Currently, 815 million people in the world are
undernourished. Of these, an estimated 777 million live in developing regions, 27 million in transition
countries, and 11 million in industrialized countries.
 1. The earth is one but the world is not. We all depend on one biosphere for sustaining our lives. Yet
each community, each country, strives for survival and prosperity with little regard for its impact on
others. Some consume the Earth’s resources at a rate that would leave little for future generations.
Others, many more in number, consume far too little and live with the prospect of hunger, squalor,
disease, and early death.

(Our Common Future, 1987)

There are 3 primary objectives of sustainable development:

 Economic growth – building a strong, competitive economy, by ensuring that sufficient land of the right
type is available in the right places and at the right time to support growth and innovation; and identifying
then coordinating development requirements.
 Environmental protection – contributing to protecting and enhancing our natural and developed
environment, while helping to improve biodiversity, use natural resources wisely, minimizing waste and
pollution, and adapting to and helping to decrease climate change, including a global shift to low-carbon
economy.
 Social inclusion – supporting strong, vibrant and healthy communities by providing the supply of
housing required to meet the needs of present and future generations; and by creating a high-quality of
development, with accessible local services that reflect the community’s needs and support its health,
social and cultural well-being.

These are applied across all sectors of development, including:

 urbanization
 agriculture
 infrastructure
 energy use
 water availability
 transportation

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