What is sustainable development?
Sustainable development is the notion that humanity should strive to develop the economy in a manner that does not damage the integrity of ecosystems and social well-being. It’s about working toward a better life for all people for today and for the future. The most commonly accepted formal definition of SD is taken from Our Common Future, the landmark 1987 report of The World Commission on Environment and Development. Chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister, Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Commission noted that “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Click here for more information on sustainable development.
And more importantly, why does sustainable development matter? The word sustainable comes to us from the foresters of the 18th and 19th century in Europe. At the time much of Europe was being deforested, and the foresters became increasingly concerned since wood was one of the driving forces in the European economy. Wood heated homes, built homes and factories, became furniture and other articles of manufacture, and the forests that provided the wood were central to romantic literature and ideas. Forests were best harvested from an economic standpoint using clear-cutting techniques. This meant that the loggers moved into a tract of forest and removed all of the trees in the tract. But the forests that grew back after clear-cutting did not always provide the wood fiber needed for the European economy. The foresters, and especially the German foresters, in response to this crisis developed scientific, or sustainable, forestry. The idea at the time was simple. If enough trees were planted
Soil erosion and deforestation are endemic in Haiti due to centuries of agricultural exploitation, first under the colonial plantation system.intensive monocropping of export commodities such as cotton, indigo, tobacco, sugarcane, and coffee.and later by the widespread harvest of timber for export markets and the expansion of peasant subsistence agriculture on marginal sloping land. A growing urban population and an increasing demand for charcoal and fuel wood have further stressed the environment. While rural Haiti has provided most of the nation’s revenue in the form of agriculture and natural resources, this wealth has systematically been siphoned from rural areas to the capital with little returning to the countryside in the form of infrastructure or development. Furthermore, political and socioeconomic instability has been a tremendous obstacle to sustainable resource management and foreign investment in conservation projects and research. As a result rural populations themselves
• Guest View: Daniel Gagnier (PDF – 243 kb) Daniel Gagnier, the Chair of IISD’s Board of Directors, was recently interviewed by the International Organization for Standardization’s magazine. In this item, Gagnier speaks about social responsibility, markets, climate change and other elements of sustainable development. And he shines a light on the IISD approach: “…each IISD program includes economic as well as environmental and social inquiry,” he says. “This interconnected endeavour requires the use of multiple methods and analytical tools. Economics is increasingly interconnected with other fields of inquiry, thus providing fertile ground for research on how environmental and social issues are affected by our economic choices and vice versa.” This article was first published in ISO Focus, the magazine of the International Organization for Standardization and is reproduced with permission of the Editor. http://www.iso.org/isofocus • Our Common Inaction: Meeting the Call for Institution
The Government of Canada definition identified in the 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (the “Brundtland Commission”) states that Sustainable Development is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
