Sustainable Development
Authors: Fearnside Philip M. 
Published: September 2019

Sustainable development is a concept that has quickly risen to prominence both in academic work and in policymaking at all levels, particularly since 1987 when the World Commission on Environment and Development, better known as the Brundtland Commission, released its report promoting this approach. The report defines sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” and states that “the concept of sustainable development does imply limits—not absolute limits but limitations imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities. But technology and social organization can be both managed and improved to make way for a new era of economic growth” (p. 16). The thinking behind the concept extends back for decades before the Brundtland Report, particularly since the early 1970s with the rapid rise of what is known as “sustainability science,” although the term “sustainable development” was not coined until 1980. Sustainable development owes much of its political attractiveness to its vagueness, allowing hundreds of countries to sign onto international agreements that endorse the concept without fear that their development plans will be constrained. This advantage, of course, is linked to the disadvantage of allowing a “green” discourse to be used to promote just about any imaginable activity, no matter how damaging. Even countries importing toxic waste from the rest of the world claimed that they were practicing “sustainable development,” the Marshall Islands being the best known. The bibliography that follows presents some of the evolution of the concept of sustainable development and its scientific underpinnings. Two processes have proceeded in parallel: the political process of sustainable development that began with the Brundtland Report in 1987 and was extended by the United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 and the scientific process that evolved autonomously in response to the vagueness of the Brundtland definition. The sequence of international agreements associated with sustainable development has led this concept to permeate the planning of actions by governments and other entities throughout the world. Current application focuses on the seventeen sustainable development goals, or SDGs, which were agreed at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in 2015, together with their 230 individual indicators and 169 targets. A clear example of the challenge of moving sustainable development beyond a role as a greenwashing discourse is offered by the Climate Convention. The Kyoto Protocol requires that all projects in the Clean Development Mechanism contribute to sustainable development, and in 1997 when the Protocol was signed this was seen as a way to prevent climate-mitigation projects from causing untoward social and environmental impacts. However, it was later decided that there would be no international standards defining what constitutes sustainable development, and it would be left up to each country to decide for itself whether proposed projects in the country met that country’s own criteria. A Designated National Authority (DNA) in each country would certify that each project represents sustainable development, with the result that projects are virtually never blocked on this basis. In Brazil, a dramatic example is the Teles Pires Dam, which was certified as “sustainable development” and now receives clean development mechanism carbon credit. The Munduruku indigenous people near the dam were never consulted, as required by International Labor Organization Convention 169 and by Brazilian law. In 2013 the tribe’s most sacred site was first dynamited and then flooded. This was the Sete Quedas rapids, which is where the spirits of respected tribal elders go after death—equivalent to heaven for Christians.