What does Sustainable Development really mean?
In 1987, The United Nations Commission on Environment and Development (the Bruntland Commission) defined Sustainable Development as follows: “Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable development is about making life better for everyone. This should not involve recklessly destroying our natural resources, nor should it involve polluting the environment.” Sustainable development goes by many names: eco-design, eco-innovation, sustainable design, and so forth. The basic principle is an approach to the design of a product with special consideration for the environmental impacts of the product during its whole lifecycle. The life cycle of a product is divided into four separate parts: • Procurement • Manufacture • Use • Disposal In order to truly be involved in sustainable development all aspects of a product from design all the way to marketing should be analyzed at every stage for the
