S.N.D.T.

Women’s University
Law School
Environmental Law

Subject:- Sustainable Developments

Class :- LLB 2nd Year, (Semester –III)

Name :- Pratiksha Tripal Bhagat

ROLL NO:-4

Submitted to: Ms. Anuradha Kumar

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 Index
SR. No. Topic Page No
1 Introduction 3-5

2 Chapter 1: Economic development and the environment 6-9

3 Chapter 2: Sustainability and its historical development 10-15

4 Chapter 3: Principles of Sustainable Development 16-20

5 Chapter 4: Multiple Dimensions of Sustainable Development. 21-23

6 Chapter 5: Sustainability – The idea’s viability – dream or reality? 24

7 Conclusion 25

8 Bibliography 26

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 Introduction
The concept of sustainable development arises from a new worldview, which sees
the survival, continued progress, and maintenance of the human community as dependent
on the continued health and viability of the earth’s life support systems. The term “
sustainability” derives from the Latin root sus-tinere, which means to “under-hold” or
hold up from underneath, implying robustness and durability over time. Accordingly,
sustainability depicts a paradigm that seeks to protect the planet’s life support systems to
ensure longevity for humans and other species. 1
Sustainability is related to the quality of life in a community -- whether the
economic, social and environmental systems that make up the community are providing a
healthy, productive, meaningful life for all community residents, present and future.
'Sustain' does not mean that nothing ever changes. Nor does it mean utopia that nothing bad
ever happens. Sustainability is not about maintaining the status quo or reaching perfection.
A sustainable community seeks to maintain and improve the economic, environmental and
social characteristics of an area so its members can continue to lead healthy, productive,
enjoyable lives there.
Sustainability does not mean sustained growth. At some point, a sustainable
community stops getting larger but continues to change and improve, to develop in ways
that enhance the quality of life for all its inhabitants. Sustainable development improves the
economy without undermining the society or the environment. Sustainable development
focuses on improving our lives without continually increasing the amount of energy and
material goods that we consume. A sustainable community does not consume resources --
energy and raw materials -- faster than the natural systems they come from can regenerate
them. We are currently living unsustainable lives. If we are not careful how we use and
dispose of resources, our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will have a
poorer, more polluted world to live in.
A sustainable community is one where development is not unlimited growth; rather
it is the enhancement of what already exists in the community. A sustainable community is
not stagnant;

1 David V.J. Bell & Yuk-kuen Annie Chueng, Introduction to Sustainable Development,
JCAPS Available at: http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c13/e1-45.pdf.

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 sustainability does not mean things never change. On the contrary, it means always
looking for ways to improve a community by strengthening the links between its economy,
environment and society. A sustainable community is also not a utopia. It is not a
community where nothing ever goes wrong. Sustainability does not mean that businesses
never fail or that people never go hungry or that pollution never happens. Sustainable means
that when problems arise, we look for solutions that take into account all three parts of the
community instead of applying a quick fix in one area that causes problems in another.
With the summer of 1972, Stockholm staged the first UN Conference held
specifically to consider global environment conditions. 113 countries Heads of State and
high government officials discussed over the growing environmental issues of the world to
come up with an Action Plan for the cure of these unnumbered problems.2 It started a war
against the deteriorating conditions of the environment. The world has since then seen a
number of International Conventions and bodies like the International Organizations, the
Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs) in the form of International as well as domestic
legislations. Countries independently, to provide a better life to its citizens have come up
with numerous legislation to guide industries and other activities to be followed.
In 1987 the Brundtland Report recognized that economic development taking place
today could no longer compromise the development needs of future generations. This
concept of sustainable development aimed to encourage people to reflect on the harm
economic development was having on both the environment and on society. Building upon
this, the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 represented a major step forward towards the goal of
achieving sustainability, with international agreements made on climate change, forests and
biodiversity. Out of the Earth Summit came Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainability in the
21st century. By championing the concept of sustainable development, Agenda 21 provides
a framework for tackling today’s social and environmental problems, including air
pollution, deforestation, biodiversity loss, health, overpopulation, poverty, energy
consumption, waste production and transport issues.
Agenda 21 requires each country to draw up a national strategy of sustainable
development. Following Agenda 21 the UK Strategy bases its vision of sustainable
development on social equality, environmental protection, conservation and preservation of
natural resource and maintenance of high employment and economic growth. This strategy
is implemented through the framework of local government via Local Agenda 21, engaging

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local communities to become part of the process, and monitored by a series of sustainability
indicators.
Sustainable development is an approach that aims towards preserving the
environment to such extent so that it may be enjoyed and benefit our future generations the
way it has to us. It is an aim to preserve the environment to save it for the future generations
to come. In many cases, primarily because the results of long-term sustainability analyses
depend on the particular resources focused upon.In 1992, at the United Nations Conference
on Environment and Development, commonly known as the “ Earth Summit ” , the
concept of sustainable development received the approval of over 140 governments.
It is said by many environmentalists that Sustainable development is a process, not a
goal that could be achieved in a few years of time. The process could only be started by
following the procedural elements of Sustainable elements strictly and uniformly, not only
by industries but by the masses. To reach that level the world would need to follow the
pillars of sustainable development which are social justice, economic growth and
environmental protection.
According to the classical definition given by the United Nations World
Commission on Environment and Development in 1987, development is sustainable if it “
meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.” It is usually understood that this “intergenerational” equity
would be impossible to achieve in the absence of present-day social equity if the economic
activities of some groups of people continue to jeopardize the well-being of people
belonging to other groups or living in other parts of the world. Imagine, for example, that
emissions of greenhouse gases, generated mainly by highly industrialized countries, lead to
global warming and flooding of certain low-lying islands— resulting in the displacement and
impoverishment of entire island nations. 3

3 TATYANA D. SOUBBOTINA, BEYOND ECONOMIC GROWTH – AN

INTRODUCTION TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, 2nd ed. (2004).

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 Chapter 1: Economic Development and the Environment

Countries are unequally endowed with natural resources. For example, some
countries benefit from fertile agricultural soils, while others have to put a lot of effort into
artificial soil amelioration. Some countries have discovered rich oil and gas deposits within
their territories, while others have to import most “fossil” fuels. In the past a lack or
wealth of natural resources made a big difference in countries’ development. But today a
wealth of natural resources is not the most important determinant of development success.
Consider such high-income countries as Japan or the Republic of Korea. Their high
economic development allows them to use their limited natural wealth much more
productively (efficiently) than would be possible in many less developed countries. The
productivity with which countries use their productive resources –physical capital, human
capital, and natural capital —is widely recognized as the main indicator of their level of
economic development.
The natural environment plays an important role in supporting economic activity. It
contributes:
• In India we took fundamental rights from USA in our constitution. Fundamental
rights are soul of our constitution.
• indirectly, through services provided by ecosystems including carbon sequestration,
water purification, managing flood risks, and nutrient cycling.
Natural resources are, therefore, vital for securing economic growth and
development, not just today but for future generations. The relationship between economic
growth and the environment is complex. Several different drivers come into play, including
the scale and composition of theeconomy – particularly the share of services in GDP as
opposed to primary industries and manufacturing – and changes in technology that have the
potential to reduce the environmental impacts of production and consumption decisions
whilst also driving economic growth.
With many key natural resources and ecosystems services scarce or under pressure,
achieving sustained economic growth will require absolute decoupling of the production of
goods and services from their environmental impacts.4 This means consuming
environmental resources in a sustainable manner – whether by improving the efficiency of
resource consumption or by adopting new production techniques and product designs. It

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also means avoiding breaches in critical thresholds beyond which natural assets cannot be
replaced and can no longer support the desired level of economic activity. Existing
commitments to avoid dangerous climate change exemplify the need for absolute
decoupling, requiring a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, even in the face of an
expanding global economy.
Economic growth involves the combination of different types of capital to produce
goods and services. These include:
• produced capital, such as machinery, buildings and roads;
• human capital, such as skills and knowledge;
• natural capital, for example, raw materials we extract from the earth, carbon
sequestration services provided by forests and soils; and
• Social capital, including institutions and ties within communities.
Natural capital is different from other types of capital for a number of reasons. Some
elements of natural capital have critical thresholds beyond which sudden and dramatic
changes may occur; some have finite limits; changes to natural capital are potentially
irreversible; and impacts extend across many generations. Therefore, while natural capital is
used to generate growth, it needs to be used sustainably and efficiently in order to secure
growth in the long run. This is most obvious in the context of non-renewable resources such
as oil and minerals, but the rate of consumption of renewable resources such as forests and
fisheries and of ecosystem services such as biodiversity and carbon sequestration must also
be considered relative to their rate of recharge and replenishment and any critical thresholds
they exhibit.5
4 Absolute decoupling occurs when the environmentally relevant variable is stable
or decreasing while the economy continues to grow.

5 Theodre Panyote, Economic Growth and the environment, 2 Economic Survey Of Europe
(2003) available at: http://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/ead/pub/032/032_c2.pdf.

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 The formation of capital – whether produced, human, social or natural – is vital for
economic growth. Declining levels of some natural assets – for example, the use of minerals
and metals in manufacturing – can be acceptable as long as the decision to deplete them
reflects the real costs of environmental resources, taking into account their scarcity and how
substitutable they are, and only if adequate investments are made in other types of capital.
However, where environmental resources have critical thresholds beyond which they cannot
be substituted for by other types of capital, interventions to prevent these thresholds from
being exceeded must be considered.6
The role of environmental policy is to manage the provision and use of
environmental resources in a way that supports improvements in prosperity and wellbeing,
for current and future generations. There are a number of reasons why government
intervention is needed to achieve this. In particular, market failures in the provision and use
of environmental resources mean that natural assets would be over-used in the absence of
government intervention. These market failures arise from the public good characteristics of
the natural environment; ‘external’ costs and benefits where the use of a resource by one
party has impacts on others; difficulties in capturing the full benefits of business investment
in environmental R&D; and information failures.7
Will the world be able to sustain economic growth indefinitely without running into
resource constraints or despoiling the environment beyond repair? What is the relationship
between a steady increase in incomes and environmental quality? Are there trade-offs
between the goals of achieving high and sustainable rates of economic growth and attaining
high standards of environmental quality? For some social and physical scientists such as
GeorgescuRoegen8 and Meadows et al., growing economic activity (production and
consumption) requires larger inputs of energy and material, and generates larger quantities
of waste by-products.

6 Id.
7Tim Everett et. al., Economic Growth and the Environment, 2 DEFRA (2010) available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69195/pb133
90-economic-growth-100305.pdf.

8GEORGESCU-ROEGEN, THE ENTROPY LAW AND THE ECONOMIC PROCESS

(CAMBRIDGE,HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS) (1971).

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Increased extraction of natural resources, accumulation of waste and concentration of
pollutants will therefore overwhelm the carrying capacity of the biosphere and result in the
degradation of environmental quality and a decline in human welfare, despite rising
incomes.9 Furthermore, it is argued that degradation of the resource base will eventually put
economic activity itself at risk. To save the environment and even economic activity from
itself, economic growth must cease and the world must make a transition to a steady-state
economy.

9 H. Daly, Steady-state Economics (San Francisco, Freeman & Co.); 2nd ed. (1977).
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 Chapter 2: Sustainability and its Historical Development
In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in
Stockholm brought the industrialized and developing nations together to delineate the
‘rights’ of the human family to a healthy and productive environment. A series of such
meetings followed, e.g. on the rights of people to adequate food, to sound housing, to safe
water, to access to means of family planning. The recognition to revitalize humanity’s
connection with Nature, led to the creation of global institutions within the UN system.10
In 1980, the International Union for the Conservation of Natural Resources (IUCN)
Published the World Conservation Strategy (WCS) which provided a precursor to the
concept of sustainable development. The Strategy asserted that conservation of nature
cannot be achieved without development to alleviate poverty and misery of hundreds of
millions of people and stressed the interdependence of conservation and development in
which development depends on caring for the Earth. Unless the fertility and productivity of
the planet are safeguarded, the human future is at risk.11
Ten years later, at the 48th plenary of the General Assembly in 1982, the WCS
initiative culminated with the approval of the World Charter for Nature. The Charter stated
that "mankind is a part of nature and life depends on the uninterrupted functioning of
natural systems".
In 1983, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) was
created and, by 1984, it was constituted as an independent body by the United Nations
General Assembly. WCED was asked to formulate ‘A global agenda for change’. In 1987,
in its report Our Common Future, the WCED advanced the understanding of global
interdependence and the relationship between economics and the environment previously
introduced by the WCS. The report wove together social, economic, cultural and
environmental issues and global solutions.

10 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, History of Sustainable

Development available at: http://www.uncsd2012.org/history.html.

11 https://www.earthcouncilalliance.org/rio20/

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relationship between economics and the environment previously introduced by the WCS.
The report wove together social, economic, cultural and environmental issues and global
solutions. It reaffirmed that "the environment does not exist as a sphere separate from
human actions, ambitions, and needs, and therefore it should not be considered in isolation
from human concerns. The environment is where we all live; and development is what we
all do in attempting to improve our lot within that abode. The two are inseparable." In 1993,
UNCED instituted the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) to follow-up on the
implementation of Agenda 21.
In 2002, ten years after the Rio Declaration, a follow-up conference, the World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) was convened in Johannesburg to renew the
global commitment to sustainable development. The conference agreed on the
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) and further tasked the CSD to follow-up on
the implementation of sustainable development.12
On 24th December 2009 the UN General Assembly adopted a Resolution agreeing
to hold the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in 2012 -
also referred to as 'Rio+20' or 'Rio 20'. The Conference seeks three objectives: securing
renewed political commitment to sustainable development, assessing the progress and
implementation gaps in meeting already agreed commitments, and addressing new and
emerging challenges. The Member States have agreed on the following two themes for the
Conference: green economy within the context of sustainable development and poverty
eradication, and institutional framework for sustainable development
Since UNCED, sustainable development has become part of the international
lexicon. The concept has been incorporated in many UN declarations and its
implementation, while complex has been at the forefront of world’s institutions and
organizations working in the economic, social and environmental sectors. However, they all
recognize how difficult it has proven to grant the environmental pillar the same recognition
enjoyed by the other two pillars despite the many calls by scientists and civil society
signalling the vulnerability and precariousness of the Earth since the 1960s.13
Technically it started in 1969 with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
It was centered to “foster and promote the general welfare, to create and maintain
conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony and fulfil the
social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations”.
12 Id.

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 In July, 1970, President Nixon submitted to Congress a reorganization plan
proposing the establishment of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an independent
agency in the executive branch of the federal government. The plan proposed bringing
together 15 components from five executive departments and independent agencies.
In December 2, 1970, the EPA began its operations, the job of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency is to improve and preserve the quality of the
environment, both national and global. EPA works to protect human health and the natural
resources on which all human activity depends.
Stockholm Meeting was a big event of the 1970′s where the UN meet on the Human
Environment in Stockholm, Sweden. This meeting is where developed countries voiced
concern about the environmental implications of worldwide development, while countries
that were still developing raised their own continuing need for industrial development.
Therefore the idea of “sustainable development” was born out of an effort to find an
understanding between the development requirements of the countries in the Southern
Hemisphere and the conservation demands of the developed states in the North. The
meeting increased awareness of the world environmental issues and set in motion events
which lead to the general acknowledgment of the concept of “sustainable development” as a
method of realizing the development requirements of all folks without having to sacrifice
the earth’s capacity to sustain life.14
Out of the Stockholm Meeting, the UN Environmental Program was formed to
license the concept of environmentally-sound development. Based in Nairobi, Kenya,
UNEP provided the UN with an agency to look at the planet’s growing environmental and
development issues with a view to recommending to nationwide states and world bodies on
suitable actions. The work of the UNEP helped launch, among other stuff, the World
Environmental Academic Programme (IEEP ) in 1975 and the World Conservation
Technique in 1980.15
On December 1983, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the PM of Norway, was asked by the
Secretary General of the UN to chair a special independent commission, the World
Commission on Environment and Development called the WCED.

13 http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/jhtext_ch02.pdf.
14http://www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia/only-one-earth-stockholm-and-
beginningmodern-environmental-diplomacy

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 Its mission: to examine vital environmental and development issues around the
planet and fashion practical suggestions to address them. A second target was to bolster
global cooperation on environmental and development issues. And, eventually, the
commission wanted to raise the level of knowledge of and dedication to viable development
on the side of people, associations, companies and govts.
When the commission was organised, some wanted it to be restricted to
environmental problems only. Nevertheless they suspected that environmental quality and
supportable development were to inseparable ideas which should be linked in compound a
world technique. With this established, the commission therefore outlined viable
development as “development that fulfils the requirements of the present without risking the
capability of generations to come to meet their own needs.”
A further end result of the WCED report, was the UN Meeting on Environment and
Development. A two year series of preparatory conferences finished in the Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro, June 1992. This marked the second meeting of global leaders to talk about
environmental and development issues and was significantly bigger than its precedent the
Stockholm Meeting held twenty years before.16
The Earth Summit was bigger not just in the level of collaboration by the states of
the Earth Summit, but also in the extent of issues it tried to address. Over a hundred heads
of state and central authority attended the Earth Summit and 170 countries sent delegations.
As an element of the Earth Summit, countrywide leaders had a chance to sign world
conventions on global warming and biodiversity, a “Declaration of Environment and
Development” and an Agenda for the 21st Century ( a.k.a. agenda twenty-one ), which
looked to create a strong effort to teach folks about the state of both environment and
development, and to help them to make calls which can lead to supportability. Secretary
General of UNCED, Maurice Robust , summarised Agenda twenty-one as, a “program of
action for a tolerable future for the human family and an initial step toward making sure the
world will change into a more just, secure and wealthy habitat for all humanity.” Agenda
twenty-one called on all nations of the planet to try a thorough process of planning and
action to achieve supportability. As well as worldwide agenda, this document also detailed a
role for towns and counties.

15 http://www.un.org/en/sections/what-we-do/promote-sustainable-development/index.html
16 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/milestones/wced

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 Chapter twenty-eight of Agenda twenty-one ( known as Local Agenda twenty-one )
states : “Local authorities construct, operate and maintain commercial, social and
environmental substructure, oversee planning processes, build local environmental policies
and rules, and …as the level of state nearest the folks, they play a very important part in
teaching, mobilizing and replying to the general public to plug supportable development.”
On the anniversary of the Earth Summit in June 1993, President Clinton signed an
executive order creating the President’s Council on Tolerable Development. The Council
was established to assist in the creation of U.S. Policies which will inspire industrial
expansion, job creation, and environmental protection. In his address to the country he
revealed, “Every country faces a challenge to spot and implement policies that may meet
the requirements of the present without sacrificing the future. America will face that test
with the assistance of this Council and the concepts and experience that its members bring
to this crucial task.”17
The twenty-five member Council built new partnerships among delegates from
industry, administration ( including U.S. Cupboard members ) and environmental, work,
and civil rights associations to develop bold fresh approaches to integrate business and
environmental policies. Their charge : to seriously change the President’s vision of tolerable
development into a concrete plan.
Their first work concluded in Feb 1996, with the publishing of their report titled,
“Sustainable America : A New Understanding for Wealth , Opportunity, and A Good
Environment for the Future.” In Jan 1997, the Commission issued its 2nd major report
titled, “Building on Understanding : A Progress Report on Supportable America.” Secretary
General of UNCED, Maurice Powerful , summarised Agenda twenty-one as, a “program of
action for a viable future for the human family and a primary step toward making sure the
world will change into a more just, secure and wealthy habitat for all humanity.”
Agenda twenty-one called on all nations of the Earth to do a complete process of
planning and action to reach supportability. As well as worldwide agenda, this document
also detailed a role for towns and counties. Chapter twenty-eight of Agenda twenty-one (
known as Local Agenda twenty-one ) states : “Local authorities construct, operate and
maintain commercial, social and environmental sub-structure, oversee planning processes,
build local environmental policies and rules, and …as the level of state nearest the folk,

17 http://www.un.org/geninfo/bp/enviro.html

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they play a crucial role in teaching, mobilizing and replying to the general public to push
viable development.”18
Starting in April 2001, preparation for the World Meeting for Viable Development
to be held in Johannesburg, S.A. occurred at the local, nationwide, sub-regional, regional
and worldwide levels. Talks took place addressing not only Agenda twenty-one, but also
facing new vital issues the world is facing in this century with globalization.
There were 4 world PrepComs held in preparation for WSSD. The World
Conference on Tolerable Development ( WSSD ) marked the ten year anniversary of the
1992 Earth Peak , the U. N Meeting on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil. WSSD happened from Aug twenty-six – Sep four, 2002 in Johannesburg, S. A. It
presented an expedient opportunity for presidencies, United States ‘ agencies, multilateral
money establishments, NGOs, and civil society to reinvigorate their world commitment
toward viable development. Roughly sixty thousand folks from around the world attended
the Peak. The Peak resulted in a chain of commitments in 5 concern areas that were backed
up by particular administration statements on programs, and by partnership initiatives. The
5 concern areas included water, energy, health, farming and biodiversity. U.S. Under
Secretary of State for Worldwide Affairs Paula Dobriansky identified U.S.
Goals for the 2002 World Conference for Viable Development (WSSD ) in
Johannesburg, S. A. . “The US plans to work in co-operation with executives, the non-
public sector and NGOs to reach supportable development initiatives to reduce the quantity
of folk getting by without clean drinking water; augment access to scrub energy, lessen
hunger and increase rural productiveness; guarantee universal access to basic education;
stem AIDS and reduce TB and malaria; and manage and preserve forests and seas.”19

18 http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/whatsdem/whatdm2.htm
19 http://www.globalissues.org/article/366/world-summit-on-sustainable-development

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 Chapter 3: Principles of Sustainable Development
The Sustainable Development Act defines certain principles that must be
incorporated into the interventions of all departments and agencies. In a sense, these
principles are a guide for action within a perspective of sustainable development. They are
an original reflection of the principles of the Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development, a fundamental text that affirms international commitment to sustainable
development.
The concept of sustainability is based on the premise that people and their
communities are made up of social, economic, and environmental systems that are in
constant interaction and that must be kept in harmony or balance if the community is to
continue to function to the benefit of its inhabitants— now and in the future. A healthy,
balanced society (or nation, or community, depending on the strength of one’s magnifying
glass) is one that can endure into the future, providing a decent way of life for all its
members—it is a sustainable society. Sustainability is an ideal toward which to strive and
against which to weigh proposed actions, plans, expenditures, and decisions. It is a way of
looking at a community or a society or a planet in the broadest possible context, in both
time and space.20
Although it adopts a broad perspective, in practice the pursuit of sustainability is
fundamentally a local endeavor because every community has different social, economic,
and environmental needs and concerns. And in each community the quality, quantity,
importance, and balance of those concerns is unique (and constantly changing). For that
reason—and because the best mitigation efforts also tend to be locally based—we tend to
speak of sustainability mostly in terms of local actions and decisions.
There are six principles of sustainability that can help a community ensure that its
social, economic, and environmental systems are well integrated and will endure.21
We should remember that, although the list of principles is useful, each of them has
the potential to overlap and inter-relate with some or all of the others. A community or
society that wants to pursue sustainability will try to:

20http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/article/environment-and-sustainable
development-1853-1.html
21 http://Envirocentre2005/downloads/ECOWEB1.pdf

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 1. Maintain and, if possible, enhance, its residents’ quality of life. Quality of
life—or “livability”—differs from community to community. It has many components:
income, education, health care, housing, employment, legal rights on the one hand;
exposure to crime, pollution, disease, disaster, and other risks on the other. One town may
be proud of its safe streets, high quality schools, and rural atmosphere, while another thinks
that job opportunities and its historical heritage are what make it an attractive place to live.
Each locality must define and plan for the quality of life it wants and believes it can
achieve, for now and for future generations.22
2. Enhance local economic vitality. A viable local economy is essential to
sustainability. This includes job opportunities, sufficient tax base and revenue to support
government and the provision of infrastructure and services, and a suitable business climate.
A sustainable economy is also diversified, so that it is not easily disrupted by internal or
external events or disasters, and such an economy does not simply shift the costs of
maintaining its good health onto other regions or onto the oceans or atmosphere. Nor is a
sustainable local economy reliant on unlimited population growth, high consumption, or
nonrenewable resources.
3. Promote social and intergenerational equity. A sustainable community’s
resources and opportunities are available to everyone, regardless of ethnicity, age, gender,
cultural background, religion, or other characteristics. Further, a sustainable community
does not deplete its resources, destroy natural systems, or pass along unnecessary hazards to
its great-great-grandchildren.
4. Maintain and, if possible, enhance, the quality of the environment. A
sustainable community sees itself as existing within a physical environment and natural
ecosystem and tries to find ways to co-exist with that environment. It does its part by
avoiding unnecessary degradation of the air, oceans, fresh water, and other natural systems.
It tries to replace detrimental practices with those that allow ecosystems to continuously
renew themselves. In some cases, this means simply protecting what is already there by
finding ways to redirect human activities and development into less sensitive areas. But a
community may need to take action to reclaim, restore, or rehabilitate an already-damaged
ecosystem such as a nearby wetland.
22 ‘The Future We Want.’ Outcome document of the United Nations Conference on
Sustainable Development June 2012, Para 247.
https://sustainabledevelopment.usn.org/content/documents/733FutureWeWant.pdf

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 5. Incorporate disaster resilience and mitigation into its decisions and actions.
A community is resilient in the face of inevitable natural disasters like tornadoes,
hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and drought if it takes steps to ensure that such events cause
as little damage as possible, that productivity is only minimally interrupted, and that quality
of life remains at (or quickly returns to) high levels. A disaster-resilient community further
takes responsibility for the risks it faces and, to the extent possible, is self reliant. That is, it
does not anticipate that outside entities (such as federal or state government) can or will
mitigate its hazards or pay for its disasters.
6. Use a consensus-building, participatory process when making decisions.
Participatory processes are vital to community sustainability. Such a process engages all the
people who have a stake in the outcome of the decision being contemplated. It encourages
the identification of concerns and issues, promotes the wide generation of ideas for dealing
with those concerns, and helps those involved find a way to reach agreement about
solutions. It results in the production and dissemination of important, relevant information,
fosters a sense of community, produces ideas that may not have been considered otherwise,
and engenders a sense of ownership on the part of the community for the final decision.
• Brundtland Green Establishments
“An establishment is “green” because it undertakes reduction, reuse, recovery and
recycling projects—resource conservation projects in other words. An establishment is
“Brundtland” because it also implements actions centred around the themes of democracy,
sharing, cooperation, equity, solidarity, respect, peace and human rights, which are
highlighted in the Brundtland Report.23
Brundtland Green Establishments are institutions that have taken on the mission to
“… promote the development of critical and responsible citizens able to take action to make
the world worthy of their aspirations.” The approach of a BGE is to think, teach, educate
and act to create a society that embraces the values of ecology, pacifism, solidarity and
democracy.
Establishments with BGE status are recognized for their daily initiatives promoting
sustainable development. Each year, they must renew their status as a green establishment,
which is conditional upon specific guidelines.

23 http://www.iisd.org/sd/#one

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 • Precautionary principle:
This principle plays a significant role in determining whether development process
is sustainable or not. This principle underlies sustainable development which requires that
the development activity must be stopped and prevented if it causes serious and irreversible
environmental damage. The emergence of this principle marks a shift in the international
environmental jurisprudence- a shift from assimilative capacity principle to precautionary
principle.
Principle 6 of the Stockholm declaration contains assimilative capacity principle
which assumes that science could provide the policy makers with necessary information and
means to avoid encroaching upon the capacity of the environment to assimilate the impacts
and it presumes that relevant technical expertise would be available when environmental
harm is predicted and there would be sufficient time to act in order to avoid such harm. This
principle is based on the assumption the scientific theories are certain and adequate.24
The uncertainty of scientific proof lead to a shift from assimilative capacity principle
to precautionary principle. Principle 11 of the world charter for nature contained the
precautionary principle that proclaims that any activity which is likely to cause damage to
the environment shall be avoided. This document was a soft law though.
This principle was conceptualized under principle 15 of the Rio declaration which
provides: in order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely
applied by the states according to their capabilities.25
Where there are threats from serious and irreversible environmental damages, lack
of scientific certainty shall not be used as reason for postponing cost-effective measures to
prevent environmental degradation.
• Polluter pays principle:
This was developed by the OECD nations. This was a soft law and the members
were not bound by it. The principle basically means that the producer of goods or other
items should be responsible for the costs of preventing or dealing with pollution which the
process causes this includes environmental cause as well as the damages. The Brundtland
report,1987 insisted on internalization of the environmental cost of economic activities.
This effectuated the spirit of the polluter pays principle.26
24 http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/english/agenda21toc.htm
25 http://www.precautionaryprinciple.eu/
26 www.unesco.org/education/efa/ed_for_all

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 Principle 16 Rio Declaration proclaims that the natonal authorities should endeavor
to promote the internationalization of the environmental costs and the use of economic
instruments, taking into account the approach that the polluter should, in principle, bear the
cost of pollution, with due regard to the public interest and without distorting international
trade and investment.
• Public Trust Doctrine:
The natural resources are the res communis or res nullius. But for the sake of
convenience the government shall be considered as the owner of such property. The state
shall hold the property as trustee and the public shall be the beneficiaries. The ownership of
the state shall be limited and it shall not use the property for its own purpose or any other
purpose which shall be against the interest of the public and shall hamper the enjoyment of
the property by the public.27

27 http://www.shrdc-isb.org.pk/Report/SDG-WorkshopReport1.pdf

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 Chapter 4: Multiple Dimensions of Sustainable Development
To establish an adequate conceptual framework within which to explore the idea of
sustainable development we need therefore to identify the multiple dimensions of the
concept. There are three dimensions which require our urgent attention: the economic, the
political, and the epistemological dimensions.
• The economic dimension
As we saw in the discussion of environmental accounting, much of the economic
argument has been conducted at the level of present and future anticipated demand,
assessing the costs in foregone economic growth of closer attention to environmental
factors. It was John Stuart Mill, in his Principles of Political Economy (1873), who
emphasised the idea that we need to preserve Nature from unfettered growth, if we are to
preserve human welfare before diminishing returns begin to set in. With hindsight we can
appreciate the full significance of Mill's observations. This tradition, which we would
identify today as part of the alternative, sustainable tradition of thought, was largely
opposed to the views of most orthodox economists, who either followed Malthus or, later,
Ricardo. The Malthusian tradition emphasised the importance of the ratio of population to
natural resources, and has given rise to a 'population ethic', espoused by Neo-Malthusians
like Garret Hardin (1968).28
• The political dimension
The political dimension of sustainability comprises two separate, but related,
elements: the weight to be attached to human agency and social structure, respectively, in
determining the political processes through which the environment is managed; and the
relationship between knowledge and power in popular resistance to dominant world views
of the environment and resources. In both cases it is useful to draw on a body of emerging
social theory, which has evolved and gained currency while environmentalism has risen to
prominence. The problem of human agency in relation to the environment is well
recognised in the literature, especially by geographers. It is also a central concern of
sociologists, although rarely linked to environmental concerns per se. The British
sociologist Anthony Giddens has devoted considerable attention to what he describes as a
theory of 'structuration', which would enable us to recognise the role of human beings
within a broad structural context, in seeking to advance their own, or group, interests. He
notes that "...human agents.. have as an inherent aspect of what they do, the capacity to
understand what they do while they do it.".29

28http://portal.unesco.org/education
29 http://www.iisd.org/pdf/2006/sd_timeline_2006.pdf

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 It is their knowledge ability as agents which are important. Although Giddens does
not apply his ideas specifically to environmental questions, they have clear utility for any
consideration of the political and social dimensions of sustainability. An examination of the
way power is contested helps us to explain human agency in the management of the
environment, as well as the material basis of environmental conflicts. In this sense it is
useful to distinguish between the way human agents dominate nature - what we can term
"allocative resources"30 and the domination of some human agents by others -
"authoritative resources" in Giddens' phrase. Environmental management, and conflicts
over the environment, are about both processes: the way groups of people dominate each
other, as well as the way they seek to dominate Nature. Not surprisingly, the development,
or continuation, of more sustainable livelihood strategies carries important implications for
the way power is understood between groups of people, as well as for the environment
itself. The Green agenda is not simply about the environment outside human control; it is
about the implications for social relations of bringing the environment within human
control. The second question of importance in considering the political dimension of
sustainability, is the relationship between knowledge and power, a dimension often
overlooked by observers from developed countries when they turn their attention to poorer
societies. As we shall see in a moment, the consideration of epistemology in sustainable
development carries important implications for our analysis, since it strikes at the cultural
roots of quite different traditions of knowledge. It is also important to emphasise, however,
that knowledge and power are linked, as Foucault observed in much of his work.31 We can,
following Foucault, distinguish three fields of resistance to the universalising effects of
modern society, and these fields of resistance are particularly useful in delineating popular
responses, by the rural poor in particular, to outside interventions designed to manage the
environment in different ways. The first type of resistance is based on opposition to, or
marginalisation from, production relations in rural societies. This is resistance against
exploitation, in Foucault's terms, and includes attempts by peasants, pastoralists and others
to resist new forms of economic domination, which they are unable to control or negotiate
with. The second form of resistance is based on ethnic and gender categories, and seeks to
remove the individual from domination by more powerful groups, whose ethnic and gender
30 Giddens, A. The Constitution of Society, Oxford: Polity Press (1984).
31 B. Smart, Michel Foucault, London: Tavistock/Ellis Horwood (1985).

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identity has conferred on them a superior political position. In many cases the only strategy
open to groups of people whose environmental practices are threatened by outsiders, and
whose own knowledge, power and identity is closely linked with these practices, is to seek
to distance themselves from 'outsiders' by, for example, reinforcing ethnic boundaries
between themselves and others. Finally, poor rural people frequently resist subjection to a
world view which they cannot endorse, in much the same way as people in developed
countries often confront 'totalising' theories, such as psychoanalysis or Marxism. In
developing countries the development professionals frequently have recourse to a body of
techniques for intervening in the natural environment, which are largely derived from
developed countries' experience: 'environmental managerialism' is one way of expressing
these techniques. The refusal to be subordinated to a world view dominated by essentially
alien values and assumptions marks what Foucault terms "resistance against subjection". In
no way is it implied that resistance can be equated with political struggle, whatever the
basis of the resistance itself. Frequently people who are relatively powerless, because their
knowledge-systems are devalued, or because they do not wield economic power, resist in
ways which look like passivity: they keep their own counsel, they appear respectful towards
powerful outsiders, they simply fail to cooperate. Hi. The epistemological dimension
Sustainable development is usually discussed without reference to epistemological issues
(ie. those concerned with ways of acquiring knowledge and their integration into conceptual
systems). It is assumed that 'our' system of acquiring knowledge in the North, through the
application of scientific principles, is a universal epistemology. Anything less than scientific
knowledge hardly deserves our attention. Such a view, rooted as it is in ignorance of the
way we ourselves think, as well as other cultures' epistemology, is less than fruitful.32
reminds us that large-order cognitive maps are not confined to Western science, and that in
Asia, for example, systems of religious belief have often had fewer problems in confronting
'scientific' reasoning than has the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The ubiquitousness of Western
science, however, has led to traditional knowledge becoming fragmented knowledge in the
South today, increasingly divorced from that of the dominant scientific paradigm. This
observation echoes contemporary Green thinking, too: in his conversation with Capra,
Schumacher noted that "..because of the smallness and patchiness of our knowledge, we
have to go in small steps. We have to leave room for non-knowledge.."33 The philosopher
Feyerabend, in his influential book Farewell to Reason, has distinguished between two
different traditions of thought, which can usefully be compared with 'scientific' and
'traditional' knowledge. The first tradition, which corresponds closely to scientific
epistemology, he calls the abstract tradition. This enables us "..to formulate statements
(which are) subjected to certain rules (of logic, testing and argument) and events affect the
statements only in accordance with the rules.. it is possible to make scientific statements
without having met a single one of the objects described.."34

32 S. Goonatilake, Aborted Discovery: Science and Creativity in the Third World, London:
Zed Books (1984).
33 F. Capra, Uncommon Wisdom, London: Fontana. (1988).
34 P. Feyerabend, Farewell to Reason, New York: Bower (1987).

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 Chapter 5: Sustainability – The idea’s viability – Dream or Reality?
Governments and the UN system have also marginalized sustain able development by failing
to articulate serious objectives and coherent strategies for its implementation. Agenda 21 embraced
every goal offered up in anticipation of the Rio summit, but it set no specific priorities or targets,
making it impossible to mobilize support for any strategy or to measure progress. At the 2002 World
Summit on Sustainable Development, the process reached its lowest point with a sprawling and
incoherent plan. Participants endorsed eight broad Millennium Development Goals (MDGS)-
including the eradication of extreme poverty, the provision of universal primary education, and the
assurance of equality for women - that had been crafted at the UN'S Millennium Summit two years
earlier. Since then, the UN Secretariat has parsed these broad objectives into 18 specific targets and
48 indicators. But the MDGS are already losing traction because governments have limited power to
directly affect these outcomes. Most of the world is closer to meeting the MDGS now than it was a
decade ago, but that is largely because human welfare has generally been improving. (The most
striking exceptions are found in the many African countries that score worse today on most measures
of human welfare.) The MDGS, targets, and indicators do not constitute a strategy that informs the
actions of governments, companies, and NGOS. Most of what the MDGS envision is beyond the
power of any enterprise to deliver. Consider, for instance, the efforts that would be needed to meet the
MDG to "develop a global partnership for development." The indicators designed to measure
compliance with this goal include some activities that governments do control, such as the amount of
untied official development assistance (ODA) they offer, which, in the right settings, can help
alleviate poverty. But they also include special targets for ODA to small island nations and landlocked
states that serve no strategic purpose-reflecting these nations' special ability to manipulate UN
commitments to their narrow advantage. And regarding the indicators on which progress has been
most remarkable-access to phone services, computers, and the Internet-advances have been the
fortuitous by-product of technological development and have often reflected the accidental wisdom of
governments' decisions to let the market work on its own. The trouble with sustainable development
and the MDGS is that they reflect a diplomatic process that has devoted too much effort to
lengthening the international community's wish list and not enough to articulating and ranking the
types of practical measures that are the hallmark of serious policymaking. Governments might have
wondered whether any given dollar in aid would be best invested in water treatment, poverty
alleviation, or structural adjustment, or if it would be better to treat the causes of underdevelopment,
such as corruption, or its symptoms, such as inadequate health care. Yet these crucial questions are
unanswered.

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 CONCLUSION
Sustainable development is largely about people, their well-being, and equity in their
relationships with each other, in a context where nature-society imbalances can threaten
economic and social stability. Because climate change, its drivers, its impacts and its policy
responses will interact with economic production and services, human settlements and
human societies, climate change is likely to be a significant factor in the sustainable
development of many areas (e.g., Downing, 2002). Simply stated, climate change has the
potential to affect many aspects of human development, positively or negatively, depending
on the geographic location, the economic sector, and the level of economic and social
development already attained (e.g., regarding particular vulnerabilities of the poor, see Dow
and Wilbanks, 2003). Because settlements and industry are often focal points for both
mitigation and adaptation policy-making and action, these interactions are likely to be at the
heart of many kinds of development-oriented responses to concerns about climate change.
Recommendations:
1. Developing nations must ally together so as to negotiate equally with the allied
imperial centers.
2. There must be equal pay for equally-productive work to provide roughly equal
buying power relative to the talents and energy expended to all who are employed.
3. Sharing those productive jobs would melt the invisible economic borders which
currently guide the wealth into the hands of only the adequately paid. Each employable
person now need work only two to three days per week.
4. Elimination of the subtle monopolizations of land, technology, finance capital,
and information (Part IV), utilizing Henry George’s principles of conditional title to
nature’s wealth, will restructure monopoly capitalism to democratic-cooperative-
(superefficient)-capitalism and increase economic and social efficiency equal to the
invention of money, the printing press, and electricity.
5. Addressing population issues and sustainable development will alert the citizenry.

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Articles
1. David V.J. Bell & Yuk-kuen Annie Chueng, Introduction to Sustainable Development,
JCAPS available at: http://www.eolss.net/sample-chapters/c13/e1-45.pdf.
2. H. Daly, Steady-state Economics (San Francisco, Freeman & Co.); 2nd ed.(1977).
3. Theodre Panyote, Economic Growth and the environment, 2 ECONOMIC SURVEY OF
EUROPE (2003). http://www.unece.Org/fileadmin/DAM/ead/pub/032/ 032_c2.pdf.
4. Tim Everett et. al., Economic Growth and the Environment, 2 DEFRA (2010) available
at:https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69195/pb1
390-economic-growth-100305.pdf.

Websites:
1.United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, History of Sustainable
Development available at: http://www.uncsd2012.org/history.html.
2. http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/publications/textbooks/jhtext_ch02.pdf.
3. www.worldbank.org

Books:
1. Capra, F. Uncommon Wisdom, London: Fontana. (1988).
2. Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law And The Economic Process (Cambridge, Harvard
University Press) (1971).
3. P. Feyerabend, Farewell to Reason, New York: Bower (1987).
4. S. Goonatilake, Aborted Discovery: Science and Creativity in the Third World, London:
Zed Books (1984).
5. Tatyana D. Soubbotina, Beyond Economic Growth – An Introduction To Sustainable
Development, 2nd Ed. (2004).

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