Sustainable Development the Brundtland Report

Sustainable Development

The Brundtland Report defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (IISD, 2009). The concept of sustainable development is based on the understanding that the world is a system -- a set of interrelationships that is near infinite in its complexity.

There are two levels of interrelationships involved. One is geographic and the other is temporal. The world's system spans all geographies. Actions taken in one part of the world will, in some, impact other parts of the world. Forest fires from slash and burn agriculture in Indonesia create pollution across all of Southeast Asia. The temporal relationship means that the system functions over time. Actions taken at one point in time will impact points in the future. Overfishing the bluefin tuna to extinction today will impact the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean ecosystems for generations to come, until a new post-bluefin equilibrium is reached.

There are multiple dimensions to the concept of sustainable development, including social, economic, and environmental (UN Division for Sustainable Development, 2009). Within each of these dimensions are webs of relationships that intertwine frequently. The interaction of different factors creates complex relationships between the factors.

Sustainable development, being based on holistic, global system, ultimately must resolve every environmental, social and economic ill on the planet. As a result of the complex webs of interrelationships, sustainable development faces numerous challenges that must be overcome in order to resolve these issues. The first is with respect to measuring sustainable development. While the definition indicates what the outcomes of sustainable development look like, it is difficult to definitively measure the impacts of individual decisions. A decision's on direct outcome variables can be measured, but its impacts on indirect outcome variables can be difficult to measure. The number of different factors that contribute to any one outcome can be high, and the degree of influence of any one factor can be difficult to discern.

Also contributing to the challenges faced by sustainable development are proprietary interests. Every legal entity, including individuals, governments and corporations, will protect its own interests. Changes to the status quo that do not give an entity benefit will be fought in the legal system, with political influence, in the court of public opinion and sometimes even through military means (China invading Tibet to gain access to mineral resources and control of Asia's major river systems, for example). Each entity pushing its own agenda will compromise efforts to implement the type of systemic changes to make development sustainable on a global basis.