Sustainability ...then and now...

Updating the definition of Sustainability: How do you and your ‘Industry Partners’ define Sustainability today?

As early as June 1972 the United Nations, at its Conference on the Human Environment, focused on what mankind had been doing to our environment, and considered the goals that should be set to ensure the health of our planet by the year 2000. Then, in 1983 the Secretary General of the United Nations appointed Gro Harlem Brundtland, a Social Democratic politician (then serving Prime Minister of Norway), diplomat, physician, and international leader in sustainable development and public health, to head the World Commission on Environment and Development with its focus on environmental and developmental concerns for all regions of the world.

Over the next four years she (Brundtland) guided the World Commission, later to be referred to by most as the Brundtland Commission, in defining the need for global focus on environmental concerns which resulted in the delivery of  the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development to the 96^th plenary meeting on 11 December 1987 in which they coined the often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” ^[1][2]

While the United Nations holds this as its definition of desired actions, quoting the Brundtland Commission and repeating the intent of the Commission in follow-on meetings like The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, and later implying its impact at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1997) in which the Kyoto Protocol established steps approved by 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the use of binding targets, many organizations seem to have moved forward from this 25 year old standard.

Now, with Rio +20 just weeks ahead...what is our stance on Sustainability. In many communities (global) sustainability seems to be a synonym for environment. We often reject the concept of maintaining and/or improving economies and ensuring the future for generations to come. So...how do you define sustainability? Is it only about environment, or does it have a much broader...deeper meaning for you. And is your organization paying attention to sustainable practices in their business models and production and service processes? How do you define Sustainability and are you living it?

Sustainability isn't a passing fad, it is a future for our planet...and one we need to understand a champion.

1.       ^ United Nations. 1987."Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development." General Assembly Resolution 42/187, 11 December 1987. Retrieved: 2007-04-12

2.       ^ Smith, Charles; Rees, Gareth (1998). Economic Development, 2nd edition. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-72228-0.