Sustainable development
Sustainable development is an approach to growth and human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The aim is to have a society where living conditions and resources meet human needs without undermining planetary integrity. Sustainable development aims to balance the needs of the economy, environment, and society. Sustainable development aims to balance the needs of the economy, environment, and society. Equitable health access is a pillar of social sustainability. The Brundtland Report in 1987 helped to make the concept of sustainable development better known.
Sustainable development overlaps with the idea of sustainability which is a normative concept. UNESCO formulated a distinction between the two concepts as follows: "Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal, while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it."
The Rio Process that began at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro has placed the concept of sustainable development on the international agenda. Sustainable development is the foundational concept of the Sustainable Development Goals. These global goals for the year 2030 were adopted in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly. They address the global challenges, including poverty, climate change, biodiversity loss, and peace.
There are some problems with the concept of sustainable development. Some scholars say it is an oxymoron because according to them, development is inherently unsustainable. Other commentators are disappointed in the lack of progress that has been achieved so far. Scholars have stated that "sustainable development" is open-ended, ambiguous, and incoherent, so it can be easily appropriated. Furthermore, while digitalization is often promoted as a tool for sustainable development, recent scholarly analysis has introduced a more complex view, indicating that the rapid reliance on digital technologies can have a negative overall impact on environmental sustainability, despite positive influences on economic and social development aspects. Therefore, it is important that there is increased funding for research on sustainability in order to better understand sustainable development and address its vagueness and shortcomings.
Definition
In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development released the report Our Common Future, commonly called the Brundtland Report. The report included a definition of "sustainable development" which is now widely used:Sustainable development thus tries to find a balance between economic development, environmental protection, and social well-being.
Scholars note that sustainable development is understood in many different ways. They also highlight inconsistencies in the current market-driven system of social, economic and political organization. Efforts toward global sustainability must consider the diverse challenges, conditions, and choices that affect prospects and prosperity for all, everywhere.
Sustainability means different things to different people, and the concept of sustainable development has led to a diversity of discourses that legitimize competing sociopolitical projects.
Development of the concept
Sustainable development has its roots in ideas regarding sustainable forest management, which were developed in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. In response to a growing awareness of the depletion of timber resources in England, John Evelyn argued, in his 1662 essay Sylva, that "sowing and planting of trees had to be regarded as a national duty of every landowner, in order to stop the destructive over- exploitation of natural resources." In 1713, Hans Carl von Carlowitz, a senior mining administrator in the service of Elector Frederick Augustus I of Saxony published Sylvicultura economics, a 400-page work on forestry. Building upon the ideas of Evelyn and French minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, von Carlowitz developed the concept of managing forests for sustained yield. His work influenced others, including Alexander von Humboldt and Georg Ludwig Hartig, eventually leading to the development of the science of forestry. This, in turn, influenced people like Gifford Pinchot, the first head of the US Forest Service, whose approach to forest management was driven by the idea of wise use of resources, and Aldo Leopold whose land ethic was influential in the development of the environmental movement in the 1960s.Following the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962, the developing environmental movement drew attention to the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation. Kenneth E. Boulding, in his influential 1966 essay The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth, identified the need for the economic system to fit itself to the ecological system with its limited pools of resources. Another milestone was the 1968 article by Garrett Hardin that popularized the term "tragedy of the commons".
The direct linking of sustainability and development in a contemporary sense can be traced to the early 1970s. "Strategy of Progress", a 1972 book by Ernst Basler, explained how the long-acknowledged sustainability concept of preserving forests for future wood production can be directly transferred to the broader importance of preserving environmental resources to sustain the world for future generations. That same year, the interrelationship of environment and development was formally demonstrated in a systems dynamic simulation model reported in the classic report on Limits to Growth. This was commissioned by the Club of Rome and written by a group of scientists led by Dennis and Donella Meadows of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Describing the desirable "state of global equilibrium", the authors wrote: "We are searching for a model output that represents a world system that is sustainable without sudden and uncontrolled collapse and capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all of its people." The year 1972 also saw the publication of the influential book, A Blueprint for Survival.
In 1975, an MIT research group prepared ten days of hearings on "Growth and Its Implication for the Future" for the US Congress, the first hearings ever held on sustainable development.
In 1980, the International Union for Conservation of Nature published a world conservation strategy that included one of the first references to sustainable development as a global priority and introduced the term "sustainable development". Two years later, the United Nations World Charter for Nature raised five principles of conservation by which human conduct affecting nature is to be guided and judged.
Since the Brundtland Report, the concept of sustainable development has developed beyond the initial intergenerational framework to focus more on the goal of "socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable economic growth". In 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development published the Earth Charter, which outlines the building of a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century. The action plan Agenda 21 for sustainable development identified information, integration, and participation as key building blocks to help countries achieve development that recognizes these interdependent pillars. Furthermore, Agenda 21 emphasizes that broad public participation in decision-making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development.
The Rio Protocol was a huge leap forward: for the first time, the world agreed on a sustainability agenda. In fact, a global consensus was facilitated by neglecting concrete goals and operational details.
Whilst the discussions about sustainable development are highly influential in global and national governance frameworks, its meaning and operationalization are context-dependent and have evolved over time. This evolution can for example be seen in the transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Global governance framework
The most comprehensive global governance framework for sustainable development is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. This agenda was a follow-up to the Millennium Declaration from the year 2000 with its eight Millennium Development Goals, the first comprehensive global governance framework for sustainable development. The SDGs have concrete targets but no methods for sanctions. They contain goals, targets and indicators for example in the areas of poverty reduction, environmental protection, human prosperity and peace.Scholars who are investigating global environmental governance have identified a set of discourses within the public space that mostly convey four sustainability frames: mainstream sustainability, progressive sustainability, a limits discourse, and radical sustainability. First, mainstream sustainability is a conservative approach on both economic and political terms. Second, progressive sustainability is an economically conservative, yet politically reformist approach. Under this framing, sustainable development is still centered on economic growth but human well-being and development can only be achieved through a redistribution of power to even out inequalities between developed and developing countries. Third, a limits discourse is an economically reformist, yet politically conservative approach to sustainability. Fourth, radical sustainability is a transformative approach seeking to break with existing global economic and political structures.