Sustainable Development

The 1980s' saw the birth of a new concept which intended to protect the environment while placing man in the center of concerns. The term "sustainable development" was explicitly used for the first time in Building a Sustainable Society, the 1981 British green party's manifesto, written by Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute. Six years later, in 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by the Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, popularized the idea in the report Our Common Future . But it wasn't until 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro that governments officially adopted sustainable development as a guiding concept for international public policies. In August 2002, ten years after the commitments made in Rio, South Africa hosted the World Summit on the Sustainable Development (WSSD). On the occasion of the biggest conference organized under the umbrella of the United Nations, the international community intended to take a close look at the state of the planet and its inhabitants and define the global public policies by which the Rio commitments could be put into action on an international level.

If, in a great degree, we owe Sustainable Development to Lester Brown, the ideas upon which he built his propositions were put forward during the 1970s by Ignacy Sachs and Maurice Strong. Under what they called "eco-development", these men called for a voluntary approach aimed at economic development, social equity and ecological prudence. They deemed institutional intervention to be essential in the achievement of these goals, particularly in regard to the control of the use of resources, the "greening" of production technologies, and pressing for patterns of consumption that favor needs over demand.

Strong presided the Conference of the United Nations on Environment and Development held in Stockholm in 1972, but the idea didn't manage to take root, mainly because industrialized countries and their economic lobbies dismissed any possible control of their activities. It was, on the contrary, the Club of Rome, an international think-tank, who succeeded in making itself heard. It published the report The Limits to Growth which argued that the overall level of growth needed to procure human beings a comfortable and satisfactory life had already been attained. It therefore advised against further growth-oriented policies in the light of the planet's incapacity to absorb such a supplement. The Conference finally closed with a commitment to the preservation of natural assets and the creation of numerous national and international agencies —among which the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)— that would work towards this goal.

Sustainable development finally entered the UN jargon and became popular thanks to the Brundtland Report, published in 1987. It formulated what is currently the most widely known and accepted definition of sustainable development: development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It also established seven strategic actions to undertake in order to achieve this goal: (i) deepening and improving growth, (ii) satisfying basic needs in terms of labor, food, energy, water and health, (iii) maintaining the size of the world's population at a sustainable level, (iv) conserving and enhancing natural resources, (v) reorienting technology so as to manage risks, and (vi) integrating environmental and economic issues in decision-making processes.

In 1992, at the Rio Earth Summit chaired by Maurice Strong, this concept of development was officially accepted as the framework and axis of global public policies. The international community, through what was then the largest number of heads of state to have ever been assembled, adopted a political declaration which enumerated 21 principles establishing the rights and duties of nations in the pursuit of human development and well-being. Known as Agenda 21, it was accompanied by a Plan of Action aiming to make development a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable process, and it constitutes a broad action strategy that "reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and environment cooperation." (Agenda 21, Preamble, Par. 1.3)

Any sustainable strategy must address three critical areas. (1) Firstly, such a strategy must be set in clearly "human" terms, taking a stand in favor of inter-state and inter-generational equity; (2) Secondly, it must also recognize that the capacity of industry to satisfy human needs is limited by the nature. A pattern of sustainable development thus includes proper management of natural resources, in order to guarantee the satisfaction of human needs in the long run. This is why, thirdly (3), sustainable development efforts must ask questions about the effects of economic activity on the environment, and search for means of financing and improving ecological industrial patterns allowing to preserve natural resources.

The key to success also rests upon the implementation of three principles, corresponding respectively to each of the three areas mentioned above: (i) the Principle of Solidarity between the peoples of the world and between present and future generations; (ii) the Precautionary Principle, which, noting that the Earth is not a laboratory, compels to take preventive measures or to opt for abstinence when the effects of human activity on the environment are not known; and (iii) the Principle of Participation of the various stakeholders in the communitys' decision-making processes.

At the Rio Earth Summit, the international community has further subscribed to the Principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, in virtue of which all countries of the world are responsible for the health of the planet, but have different roles to play in its preservation. Industrialized countries should make their current patterns of production and consumption evolve and transfer the necessary resources, environment-friendly technologies and funds to developing countries, so that they themselves may work in the way of their own concept of sustainable development. In return, developing countries must accept to transform their polluting economies and production patterns in spite of the high cost of such transformations.

The concept of sustainable development introduced new airs onto the international political and intellectual scene. Indeed, pursuing development has traditionally been conceived as an effort to build an industrial market economy, sole road capable of leading to modernity, improving living standards and giving human beings control over their own destiny. Sustainable development, on the other hand, integrates all aspects of the social life and focuses on the interface between society and the natural environment in which it exists. Furthermore, this integrated approach proposes an intercultural dialogue capable of reconciling different models of development, turning development into a political choice that societies will make democratically and in a manner that is consistent with their specific collective ideals.

Simon Upton notices in the August issue of Network 2002 that after Rio such a wide a conception of sustainable development appears to include the meaning of life itself. Indeed, he adds, the sustainable development agenda has become so vast that one may wonder what lies beyond it. It has come to include such wide-stretching issues as the role of the women in modern society, international trade, safe drinking water, debt relief, desertification and deforestation, poverty reduction, protection of Human Rights and safeguarding democratic values… An impressive catalog of generous ideas, but does that constitute a policy?