D EF IN IN G S U S TA I N A B L E DE VE L OP ME NT

F O R O U R C O M M O N F UTURE

The UN World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by

former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, alerted the world
to the urgency of making progress toward economic development that could
be sustained without depleting natural resources or harming the environment.
Written by an international group of politicians, civil servants and experts on
the environment and development, the Brundtland Report changed sustainable
development from a physical notion to one based on social, economic and
environmental considerations.
This book positions the Brundtland Commission as a key event within a
longer series of international reactions to pressing problems of global poverty and
environmental degradation. It shows that its report, Our Common Future, published
in 1987, covered much more than its 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’ for which it became best
known. It also addressed a long list of issues which remain unresolved today. The
book explores how the work of the Commission juggled contradictory expectations
and world views, which existed within the Commission and beyond, and drew
on the concept of sustainable development as a way to reconcile profound
differences. The result was both an immense success and disappointment.
Coining an irresistibly simple definition enabled the Brundtland Commission
to place sustainability firmly on the international agenda. This definition gained
acceptability for a potentially divisive concept, but it also diverted attention from
underlying demands for fundamental political and social changes.
Meanwhile, the central message of the Commission – the need to make
inconvenient sustainability considerations a part of global politics as much
as of everyday life – has been sidelined. The book thus assesses to what extent
the Brundtland Commission represented an immense step forward or a missed
opportunity.

Iris Borowy is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Historical Institute, University of

Rostock, Germany and a Research Associate at the Centre Alexandre Koyré,
CNRS, Paris, France.
‘Praised as a blueprint for a new era, despised as an “oxymoron”, classified as
simple ecological modernization, seen as the greenwashing of Keynesian social-
democracy, there is no doubt of the historical significance of the notion of
Sustainable Development. In this instructive, well researched book, Iris Borowy
disentangles the various strands. Highly recommended.’
– Joan Martínez-Alier, Professor of Economics and Economic History and
Deputy Director of ICTA at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain

‘The Brundtland Commission is today often written off as either the dawn of
a new era or as a massive failure. Its work is usually reduced to a single phrase
– “sustainable development” – which, ironically, had its origins elsewhere. Iris
Borowy gives us an eye-opening and very readable story of the commission’s aims
and achievements and its impact worldwide. Borowy has written a fascinating
historical account of the international actors and their convictions, of ideas
and interests, and the behind-the-scene struggles and debates that made the
Brundtland report a landmark in political thought towards a better future.’
– Christof Mauch, Director, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at
LMU Munich and Past President, European Society for Environmental History
DEFINING SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT FOR
OUR COMMON FUTURE
A History of the World Commission on
Environment and Development
(Brundtland Commission)

Iris Borowy
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 Iris Borowy
The right of Iris Borowy to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Borowy, Iris, 1962–
Defining sustainable development for our common future : a history
of the World Commission on Environment and Development
(Brundtland Commission) / Iris Borowy.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. World Commission on Environment and Development.
2. Sustainable development. 3.Environmental policy. I. Title.
HC79.E5B6643 2014
338.9´27–dc23 2013021976
ISBN: 978-0-415-82550-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-38379-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Goudy
by HWA Text and Data Management, London
 CONTE NTS

Foreword vii
Acknowledgments xii
Acronyms and abbreviations xiii
1 Introduction: the difficult elements of sustainable development 1

PART I
The time before the WCED 15

2 The background: strands leading up to the Brundtland

Commission 17

PART II
The time of the WCED 53

3 Establishing the Commission 55

4 Jakarta 75
5 Oslo 80
6 São Paulo 93
7 Ottawa 104
8 Harare 124
9 Moscow 140
10 Bringing Commission work to an end 150

v
 CO N TEN T S

PART III
The time after the WCED 163

11 Strands leading away from the Brundtland Commission 165

12 Conclusions: a retroactive view on sustainable development
and its difficult elements 204

Notes 215
Bibliography 244
Index 254

vi
 F O RE W O R D

When the Brundtland Commission first sat down together in Geneva in 1984,
we were mostly strangers and treated each other with the gentle respect one
would expect. Even so, first encounter or not, with a mandate covering both
environment and development, we soon found ourselves in warm disagreement
over a number of issues.
While our mutual respect continued and grew, that first meeting in Geneva
was a love-in compared to the eight which followed, something that should come
as no surprise to anyone who can recall the political climate prevailing during the
Cold War world of the 1980s.
In this first-ever history of our work, Iris Borowy not only tells the story
behind the UN’s establishment of the Commission, chronicling the key events
in its life and some of the more critical conflicts between major players, but she
also describes the vigorous debates through which the concept of sustainable
development and other principal ideas evolved, all the while capturing much
of the excitement which marked our meetings and public hearings between
Geneva and Tokyo. It is a fascinating book and a rewarding read for all of those
interested in the events and ideas leading up to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and
the continuing global debate on the defining issues of our time.
As Secretary General, I was more intimately involved in the life and work of
the Commission than anyone else but it was Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland’s stature
and skill as Chairman that was critical in guiding the Commissioners through
many difficult moments, holding them together and achieving our ultimate
consensus.
Moving the Commission from controversy to consensus was not easy. Although
each of our 23 members (later 22: 12 from the South, 7 from the West and 3 from
the East) served in a personal capacity, we represented almost every shade of
ideology extant at that time and our national, cultural and group loyalties were
very strong. We had been asked to tackle some of the most complex issues facing
humankind, issues loaded with questions of power, equity and justice. In doing so,
we strove to involve a broad range of outside actors from every part of the globe.
It was a potent mix of people, issues, ideology and process and we had a built-in
potential to blow ourselves apart. We did come close on a few occasions, as Iris

vii
 F O RE WO R D

Borowy points out. But in the end, after a final all-night session in Tokyo marked
by serious drama, we managed to reach a full consensus both on a diagnosis of the
issues confronting the world community and on an agenda for change, including
some 350 proposals for policy and institutional reform to place the world on more
secure pathways to a sustainable future.
Consensus was crucial to the success of our endeavours and I found Iris
Borowy’s account of how we overcame the obstacles to achieve it quite insightful.
Having lived through it, however, I would perhaps have given more emphasis to
the role played by the public hearings and site visits we organized in every region
of the world. In my view, they were the key to our consensus. Our hearings with
over 2000 experts, scientists, civic, government and business leaders provided us
with a base of information we trusted because we had acquired it together. Our
site visits helped form a bond between us, individually and as a group. Together,
they enabled us to bridge the rivers of misinformation and paranoia that flowed
through the Cold War world of the 80s.
Some of these events remain fresh in my mind. Our visits to East Kalimantan,
for example, and the highlands of Zimbabwe, where we heard from local groups
struggling with poverty and other problems that neither I nor my other northern
colleagues could have imagined. Or our hearing in São Paulo. I can still feel the
electricity which filled the amphitheatre when the leader of an Indian nation
whose homeland was being erased by massive deforestation took the microphone
and on national TV proclaimed: ‘I am the son of a small nation … dying and as
we die insisting that there is only one place for us to live.’ Two days later, when
Dr Brundtland tried to close the event, the crowd, having just experienced their
first open public hearing since the collapse of the military dictatorship, rushed
down to the stage shouting, ‘Please, you must not stop. We have more to say …
and you will not be back!’
Without a consensus, I suspect that Our Common Future would have quickly
ended up in that very large library of virtually unread and largely forgotten
UN reports. Instead, it went on to become the most widely read UN report
in history. It led directly to the Earth Summit in Rio where over 100 Heads of
States and Governments committed themselves to reform the policies that were
at the source of continuing environmental destruction and to undertake a rapid
transition to more sustainable forms of development. And it set the parameters
for the continuing global debate on the relationship between the environment
and the economy as reflected, for example, both in the 2002 and 2012 Summits
on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg and Rio, and in the continuing
debate on the politically charged issue of climate change.
Today, the Commission is remembered principally for its signature concept of
sustainable development. Iris Borowy describes the challenging debates through
which the concept grew from the few paragraphs I brought to our first meeting
in 1984 to the multifaceted definition found in our report. After Our Common
Future was released in 1987, I was astonished at the speed at which international
bodies, governments, corporations and academe endorsed our recommendations.

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 FO RE W O R D

And quite overwhelmed a few years later when the two words ‘sustainable
development’ became a part of the common everyday lexicon of humankind.
I was also disappointed. I had laboured long and hard to evolve a meaningful
definition of sustainable development, one that recognized both the need to
respect the rights of future generations and the need to live within nature’s limits.
To my distress, however, only the intergenerational dimension emerged in the
media coverage.
To be sustainable, we wrote, development must ‘… meet the needs and
aspirations of the present generation without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs’. Elegant and quotable, these few words
went viral and soon became embedded in the popular mind as the Brundtland
Commission’s definition of sustainable development. Moreover, sustainability
quickly became a popular value and the test of acceptable development.
Neither governments nor industries wanted to hear their activities described
as unsustainable. Making them more sustainable, however, was difficult. It was
much easier to bring together a group of selected experts to reinterpret these
words or tweak them into a new definition embracing what they were now
doing, whatever that was. And unfortunately, absent any notion of limits, our
intergenerational ‘definition’ lent itself to this manipulation. Just before the ’92
Earth Summit, I wrote that a new way to define ‘infinity’ was the ever-expanding
number of self-serving definitions of sustainable development.
Even those who knew that the Commission’s definition of sustainable
development included living within nature’s ‘ultimate limits’ often chose to
ignore it, as was clear at the Rio Summit. I could understand that, having seen
how most of the world’s establishment had reacted to the Club of Rome’s 1972
Limits to Growth. Commissioners of course were part of that establishment and,
as Iris Borowy so well describes, we agonized for three years over how best to
deal with the reality of limits. It raised all sorts of politically awkward problems.
Southern Commissioners feared that global environmental limits would preclude
the South ever enjoying the living standards of the North. The politicians among
us recognized that their colleagues in government couldn’t reconcile limits with
the fact that in order to get elected they had to promise voters to grow the
economy ever faster, indefinitely. And economists couldn’t reconcile limits with
their basic models, which are utterly devoid of earthly constraints or which, at
best, treat the earth as a mere externality.
In the end, however, we all came to understand that global limits were not
only real but fast approaching and that, however inconvenient, to ignore them
could threaten the ‘survival of the human race’. An urgent transition from the
environmentally destructive and resource consuming economic course we were
on, to one that was more sustainable, was simply imperative.
That message is even more urgent today. In 1987, we had not yet crossed
any global limits. Today scientists tell us that we have crossed at least three of
the most critical planetary boundaries: carbon, nitrogen and water. With global
population destined to grow by at least another two billion over the next 30 years,

ix
 F O RE WO R D

along with perhaps three billion new middle-class consumers, the world will need
half again as much food and energy and a third more water as now. And it must
also create most of the physical infrastructure that will operate at mid-century. To
pretend that we can achieve this while continuing to dump carbon emissions into
the atmosphere without restriction and to deplete our limited stocks of waters,
forests, fisheries and arable land, is to be both wilfully blind and to betray our
children and grandchildren.
Looking back over the past quarter century, it is evident that a shift to a more
sustainable society has barely begun. That disappoints but it doesn’t surprise
me. In 2008, candidate Barack Obama observed that sustainability required
‘something of a paradigm shift for economics’. History shows that paradigm shifts
don’t happen overnight. If they happen at all, they happen very slowly, resisted
all the way by the vested interests of the status quo and other forms of inertia. So
it was after the Earth Summit.
Even so, there are reasonable grounds for a degree of optimism. Since 1987,
we have seen enormous gains in freedom and democracy worldwide. The civil
society we leaned on in preparing Our Common Future was a midget compared
to the giant of today, armed with iPads, iPods and Facebook. Sustainability is
now almost a universal value and our understanding of and capacity to address
the challenges in achieving it have experienced a quantum leap. The private
sector is slowly coming on board. A growing number of governments at all levels
are leading the way in the politically difficult process of shifting the burden of
taxation from ‘public goods’ like job creation, savings and income to ‘public bads’
like resource consumption, carbon releases and environmental pollution. And we
can today point to literally thousands of examples worldwide of more sustainable
ways of building communities, managing forests and fisheries, and generating
energy, including wind and solar, the cost of which is falling dramatically.
As the science and evidence grows that we are indeed crossing critical
planetary boundaries, so does the number of government, corporate and other
leaders calling for the action needed to keep us within those boundaries. Having
read the evidence, they know in their guts that we are on an unsustainable course
and running out of time.
This was clearly in evidence just a few months ago. In November 2012, the
International Energy Agency warned that current global projections of increased
fossil fuel consumption put the planet on a trajectory to warm by 6°C above pre-
industrial levels by century’s end. Two months later, in January 2013, Christine
Lagarde, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, addressed
the world’s leading movers and shakers at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Climate change, she said, was ‘the greatest economic challenge of the 21st
century’. Coupled with increasing vulnerability from resource scarcity, it was ‘the
real wild card in the pack’. The ‘science is sobering’ and unless we take concerted
action, ‘future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled’! A few days
later, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim added his warning. A warming of not
6°C but 4°C ‘had to be avoided at all costs’, he said. The world’s top priority ‘…

x
 FO RE W O R D

must be to get finance flowing and prices right on all aspects of energy costs to
support low-carbon growth’.
While all of this is encouraging, the outcome of the ongoing struggle for a more
sustainable future remains uncertain. It is much easier politically to stay on the
road we are on, even if it means ending up where we’re headed – societies more
and more vulnerable to catastrophic ecological, social and economic collapse.
The status quo has enormous momentum and its key players have immense power
to lobby governments to keep on doing what they have always done – only more
of it and faster.
We know that democratic and other governments can and will challenge the
interests of the status quo if they feel the heat of an aroused public opinion pressing
them to do so. In this regard, it is useful to recall that it was a rising wave of public
opinion demanding action that brought our leaders to Stockholm in 1972. It
began in the late 60s after a series of environmental disasters, crested after the
first oil shock in 1973 and fell into a deep trough after the second shock in 1978.
It was a second worldwide wave of public opinion that brought our leaders to the
Rio Earth Summit in 1992. That wave began in late 1984, again following a series
of high profile environmental disasters (which we listed in Our Common Future),
and it crested just before the conference. Given this experience, Mother Nature
may well have to suffer a massive heart attack, perhaps an escalating climate 9/11
focused on the large carbon states, before we see a third wave of rising public
awareness strong enough to empower our leaders to override the blocking actions
of interests determined to maintain the status quo.
We are the wealthiest civilization ever and since 1987 we have demonstrated
a capacity to devise new and more sustainable forms of development at an
increasing rate. We now have both the knowledge and capacity to create a more
secure and sustainable future. As my good friend Barbara Ward (from whom I first
heard the two words ‘sustainable development’) used to say: ‘We have a duty to
hope’ … we find the will to act.

Jim MacNeill, OC, DSc, LLD, PEng,

Secretary General of the World Commission

on Environment and Development, and
chief architect and lead author of its
1987 report, Our Common Future.

xi
 A C K NOWL EDG M EN TS

I would like to thank most warmly the following people for having taken the time
to answer my questions in interviews and/or written statements, in alphabetical
order: Gro Harlem Brundtland, Hans Christian Bugge, Branislav Gosovic,
Volker Hauff, István Láng, Jim MacNeill, Margarita Marino de Botero, William
Ruckelshaus, Mohamed Sahnoun, David Satterthwaite, Janez Stanovnik and
Maurice Strong. Jim MacNeill, Branislav Gosovic and Nitin Desai have kindly
sent me helpful unpublished material. Margarita Marino de Botero has repeatedly
provided me with useful suggestions and e-mail addresses.
Stephen Macekura, Matthias Schmelzer and Branislav Gosovic have read
parts of the manuscript, and Jim MacNeill has read the entire manuscript. All
have shared insightful and extremely helpful comments, which have saved me
from several embarrassing errors and made me rethink some of my interpretations
so that remaining mistakes clearly are mine. The International Development
Research Center at Ottawa has supplied copious source material with exemplary
speed. All the people at Earthscan/Routledge have been extremely supportive,
responding to all my many requests with tact, friendliness and professionalism.
I would also sincerely like to thank the following people: John Ulrich, who
searched the Maurice Strong Papers at the Harvard College Library for me;
Jean-Paul Gaudillière and Dominique Pestre, who enabled me to spend a very
productive year at the Centre Alexandre Koyré and at CERMES in Paris, where
the idea for this book project was born; Magali Romero Sá, Marcos Cueto and
Gilberto Hochman, who invited me to a very enjoyable and, in many ways, eye-
opening research stay at the Casa Oswaldo Cruz / FIOCRUZ in Rio de Janeiro; and
Astri Andresen, who provided me with a great working space at the Department
of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion at the University of Bergen
(along with regular lunches with the wonderful people at the department).
My special thanks go to Jim MacNeill and Margarita Marino de Botero,
who have helped this project enormously with their respective Northern and
Southern enthusiasm and encouragement.
Above all I am indebted to my husband, Norbert, for sharing his living-room
sofa with the Brundtland Commission for many months and to Markus and Ralf
for making sustaining this world worthwhile.

xii
 A CRON Y M S AN D
ABBREVIATION S

ACC Administrative Committee on Co-ordination

ADB Asian Development Bank
ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations
BB Brundtland Bulletin
CFC chlorofluorocarbon
CO2 carbon dioxide
COMECON Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
CSD Commission on Sustainable Development
DOEM Designated Official on Environmental Matters
ECOSOC Economic and Social Council
EEC European Economic Community
EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone
EFTA European Free Trade Association
ELCI Environment Liaison Centre International
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
ESCAP Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GDP gross domestic product
GEF Global Environmental Facility
GNP gross national product
HCL Harvard College Library, Environmental Science and Public
Policy Archives
HDR Human Development Report
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
ICC International Chamber of Commerce
ICLEI International Council of Local Environmental Initiatives
IDRC International Development Research Center, Ottawa
IIED International Institute of Environment and Development
IIPC Intergovernmental Intersessional Preparatory Committee
ILO International Labor Organization
IMF International Monetary Fund

xiii
 A CRO N Y MS A N D A BBRE V I AT I O N S

IPCC International Panel on Climate Change

IUCN International Union for the Conservation of Nature
IUPN International Union for the Protection of Nature
MAB Man and the Biosphere
MDG Millennium Development Goal
MIC methyl isocyanate
MSP Maurice Strong Papers
NAS National Association of Scholars
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NGO non-governmental organization
NIEO New International Economic Order
OAU Organization of African Unity
OCF Our Common Future
ODA Official Development Assistance
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OECDA OECD Archives
OEEC Organisation for European Economic Co-operation
PAC political action committee
R&D research and development
SCOPE Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment
SDG Sustainable Development Goal
SDI Strategic Defense Initiative
UN United Nations
UNA United Nations Archives, New York
UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNECE United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
UNEP United Nations Environment Programme
UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization
UNOGL United Nations Office at Geneva Library
UNSCCUR United Nations Scientific Conference on the Conservation
and Use of Resources
UNSCOP UN Special Commission on Palestine
WCED World Commission on Environment and Development
WHO World Health Organization
WHOA WHO Archives
WRI World Resources Institute
WTO World Trade Organization
WWF World Wildlife Fund

xiv
I am proud of my participation at the Commission’s work. I am now ninety
years old, there are three things I am proud in my long life: participation in
the partisan resistance to the Nazis, initiation of UNCTAD and participation
at the WCED.
Janez Stanovnik to author, 23 February 2012

There is now a feeling, not so much that the management of our small planet
is proving unexpectedly difficult but that there is some deeper malaise: that
the machinery we created is not working, that perhaps it cannot work, that
we need to re-think the issues from new perspectives.
It is important to ask ourselves what has gone wrong.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, Public Hearing Oslo, 24 June 1985

Perhaps I could just note also that according to the schedule of this world
commission that somehow in early 1987 the ‘Mandate for Change’ that they
are concerned with seems to come to a screeching halt. I can’t imagine that
the world’s environmental or developmental issues are going to be solved at
that time and I would urge that their report, Common Future, be made widely
available in a variety of media in a variety of forums. It seems to me that the
commission is the beginning rather than the end of this international issue.
Tim Shaw, Pearson Institute of International Development
at Dalhousie University, Halifax Public Hearing, 31 May 1986

xv
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 1
I NTRODUCTI O N
The difficult elements of
sustainable development

‘Sustainable development’ is with us.

At the time of writing, in spring 2013, the term ‘sustainable development’
produces 335 million hits on Google. The European Union, the African Union
and the Organization of American States name sustainable development as
one of their policy goals. We are living in the United Nations (UN) Decade
of Education for Sustainable Development, launched in 2005. Universities in
Leipzig, Utrecht, Uppsala, Basel, Berlin, Graz, Stellenbosch, Venice, Linköping,
New Delhi, Malmö, Paris, Vienna, Berkeley, London, Sydney, Sevilla and
Monaco (and probably others) offer master’s programmes in Sustainable
Development. The UN keeps a Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform.1
The Government of Hong Kong, a Nicaraguan association of small farmers, and
the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park offer sustainable development funds.2
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has offices
in Geneva, Washington DC and Brussels.3 And, as the ultimate sign of having
established a place in modern global society, Sustainable Development is a
member of Facebook.4
This ubiquitous presence contrasts both with the diffuse understandings of what
the concept means and with its apparent absence from real life developments.
It is not difficult to see that current developments are unsustainable. At
present, the world is using the resources and waste absorption capacities of 1.5
planets per time unit.5 Fifteen out of 24 crucial ecosystem services, evaluated by
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005, were degraded or being used
unsustainably, including fresh water, air and water purification, climate regulation
and pest control.6 And the world is heading for a four degree temperature rise
promising inundated coastal cities, increased food insecurity, frequent high-
intensity tropical storms and further irreversible loss of biodiversity.7 If current
developments continue unchanged, soon there will be no need to define
unsustainable development, looking out the window will be enough.
Part of this discrepancy is that while ‘unsustainable development’ is easy
enough to recognize for all who wish to see, ‘sustainable development’ is difficult
to define since its two core elements, sustainability and development, are not
self-evidently compatible.

1
 IN TRO DU CTI ON

Sustainability is the comparatively simpler idea, which can be explained in

purely descriptive terms as the capacity of any given system to exist and reproduce
on a long-term basis.8 Development adds a value judgement by implying a desired
(i.e. by implication, a desirable) evolution of human society.
Combined, sustainable development refers to a manner of human living,
which can exist and reproduce on a long-term basis while providing good living
conditions. Inevitably, controversial aspects abound. If, in most basic terms,
sustainable development allows people to survive and lead good lives for a long
time in the future, what does this mean? Who are ‘the people’? What constitutes
‘survive’? What is a ‘good life’? And what is ‘the future’?
For all we know, humanity has never known a state when all of its members
lived the entire span of their potential lifetimes. There have always been
people who died prematurely as a result of diseases, accidents and/or hunger
and it is difficult to imagine that they would ever stop doing so completely.
Even in an ideal world, there will be some diseases, some accidents and some
kind of hardship, which will prevent some people from living until old age.
Realistically, therefore, even a sustainable world will know some degree
of premature death. In a generic, mostly unreflected sense, the concept of
sustainability assumes that ‘many’ or ‘most’ or ‘almost all’ people realize their
potential of lifetime. But how many is that? How much disease do we accept
as normal? How many children, who never reach adolescence, do we regard as
an acceptable element of desirable development? 2 per cent? 0.2 per cent? 20
per cent? And what length of life do we accept as qualifying for ‘potential of
lifetime’? How many years constitute a full life? Whose life expectancy should
be taken as a worldwide norm? That of Japan? Or of the USA? Russia? Bolivia?
Morocco? Haiti? With what amount of social security, health and medical
care? At whose cost? Should different standards of life expectancies be used
for people in different countries? On what grounds should that be morally
acceptable? If all people should have a right to the same life expectancy, who
should be responsible for bringing this about? And what living standard do we
have in mind? What level of resource consumption and waste production do we
consider the minimum? Or the maximum? Or the optimum? And again: is it to
be the same for everybody? And if not, why not? If yes, how? And what trade-
off do we envisage between living standard, number of people and length of
life? Between different groups of people living today as well as between people
living today and those living in the future? And what is the ‘future’? Obviously,
at some point in time the Earth, the sun and, eventually, the universe will come
to an end, so ‘future’ cannot mean indefinitely. Nor can it mean next year. But
how long does a development have to be sustained to count as sustainable? 100
years? 1,000? 10,000? Ten million?
One attempt at an accurate definition, which takes these caveats into
account, characterizes sustainable development as ‘sustaining at least current
levels of human wellbeing over some reasonable but finite time horizon’.9 This
explanation provides valuable orientation. But its wording indicates an ex post

2
 I N TRO DU CTI O N

approach, making sustainable development detectable when it has happened and,

by implication, guidelines on how to get there are no longer needed. However, to
be of tangible use, decision makers in all sectors and on all levels – in other words:
we the people – need a normative definition which delineates the direction and
range of acceptable policies, laws, investment and private behaviour.
This perceived need formed the background for the UN to establish a World
Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1983 and to ask it,
among other tasks, to propose ‘long-term environmental strategies for achieving
sustainable development to the year 2000 and beyond’.10 This came as close to
finding an answer to the core question of humanity as it gets, and the UN provided
a mandate and a tight time frame but no funding. The group was soon called the
Brundtland Commission after its chairwoman, Gro Harlem Brundtland.11
After three years the Commission presented its answers in a report. It was
considered a good report at the time, but today it is generally remembered only
for a single phrase in which it defined sustainable development as meeting ‘the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs’.12 This phrase was widely endorsed and has remained by far
the ‘most widely accepted starting point for scholars and practitioners concerned
with environment and development dilemmas’.13 In fact, this definition
has gained such a status of ‘truth’ that frequently it is cited as fact, without
referencing its origin.14 However, its general and somewhat diffuse nature has
led to numerous attempts at more specific explanations. In 1997 Susan Murcott
collected 57 existing definitions of ‘sustainable development’, and debate has
continued since.15
The Brundtland Commission did not invent either the expression or the
concept of ‘sustainable development’. In 1984, an internal background paper
of the World Bank was entitled ‘Carrying Capacity, Population Growth, and
Sustainable Development’.16 A 1980 study of the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on a world conservation strategy, published in
collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and
the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), carried the term ‘sustainable development’
in its subtitle and dedicated a chapter to its discussion. It is often named as the
first instance of the expression.17 However, a 1979 study by the International
Institute for Environment and Development on the environmental record of
eight multilateral agencies included a discussion on the concept of ‘sustainable
development’ as an underexplored concept of development literature.18 And
there is a longer line of words which expressed a similar concept. In 1981,
Lester Brown wrote an analysis called ‘Building a Sustainable Society’ for the
Worldwatch Institute.19 Discussions at UNEP used various terms including
‘ecodevelopment’, ‘development without destruction’, ‘development without
destroying the environment’ and ‘environmentally sound development’.20
Even the definition had predecessors. Around 1974, Luis Sanchez, director of
the Division of Economic and Social Programmes, in a memo to UNEP staff
members, referred to ‘ecodevelopment’ as:

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an approach to development of a given eco-system or locality which

harmonizes economic and ecological factors to assure best use of both the
human and natural resources of the region to best meet the needs and
aspirations of the people on a sustainable basis.21

Even earlier, the declaration of the UN Conference on the Human Environment

(UNCHE) had declared that the ‘natural resources of the earth … must be
safeguarded for the benefit of present and future generations’.22 Barbara Ward
and René Dubos formulated the need and possible strategies for development
which would sustain livelihoods in their book Only One Earth.23 Probably even
the expression of ‘sustainable development’ was first coined by Barbara Ward
in discussions, from where it spread into the international environmentalist
scene.24 But even before then, in 1966, Kenneth Boulding, in his article on
the ‘Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth’ argued that the welfare of the
individual person depended on his ability to identify with community in space
as well as with ‘community extending over time from the past into the future’.25
Thus, by 1983, discussing sustainable development had had a history when
it became part of the mandate of the WCED, and the expression for which it
would become best known was also probably the least original component of its
work. This is not to say that the definition it coined was insignificant, and the
phrase is correctly cited as the contribution of the Brundtland Commission to
the sustainability discourse.26 But reducing its work to this phrase trivializes both
the work of the WCED and the challenges of sustainable development, which
are at the bottom of the enormous discrepancy between widespread theoretical
endorsement of the concept and the near absence of its implementation.
To begin with, the WCED was not created as an academic entity designed
to enrich intellectual discourse but as an agent of tangible policy. This purpose
affected its work throughout, ranging from the selection of Commission members
and issues, to its conclusions and its efforts to publicize its findings. Thus, viewing
the Commission merely as an exercise in issue conceptualization misses its central
point. Instead, it should more accurately be perceived as an integral component
of international policy efforts.
This perspective is important because it makes visible its substantial agenda
of change, which WCED members clearly considered the centrepiece of their
work. The Commission named its terms of reference ‘A Mandate for Change’,
and included an ‘Agenda for Change’ into its work programme.27 This calling
for change was not a sudden or arbitrary inspiration. It was rooted in earlier
movements and strands of thought which had voiced doubts about the wisdom
of ongoing environmental and economic development and in which most
Commission members had had active roles. In as much as these movements
differed in their interpretations of reality and of what was going wrong with it,
Commissioners arrived with different, sometimes contradictory, preconceived
ideas about what type of changes were needed. For instance, to what extent, if
at all, should future policies consider the historical responsibility of colonialism?

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Was development primarily an economic term or, if not, what else should it refer
to? Were there limits to growth, locally, regionally, globally or not at all? Should
production and consumption be universally discouraged? Or encouraged? Or
reduced in the North but encouraged in the South?
Given their different views on these issues, how did Commission members
find agreement? Which calls for change did they adopt, which did they modify,
and which did they reject? What vision of society did this amount to? And how
did they negotiate consensus and compromise?
These questions point to a second neglected dimension of the Commission as a
negotiating process, both within the members and between the Commission and
numerous outside actors. This is a central aspect in view of the profound conflicts
of world view and interests which erupt as soon as the implications of ‘sustainable
development’ are seriously considered. WCED discussions can be viewed as ersatz
debates, acting out global controversies in the nutshell of a Commission. In
reality, the WCED went far beyond a delegated discussion. By listening to people
in hearings and by actively soliciting and receiving contributions from different
parts of the world and also by arousing support and criticism later, the WCED
went out of its way to launch the real global debate, connecting people who
would never meet intellectually, politically or geographically. But the process was
anything but easy and anything but perfect. Like any negotiation, it involved
compromises and trade-offs when ideal reconciliations of contradictory views
and interests were out of reach or simply impossible.
Gradually, it became clear that reaching their aim would require difficult
reconciliations in at least four dimensions, involving tensions between:

a present versus future generations;

b economic versus environmental perspectives;
c North versus South;
d scientific accuracy versus political acceptability.

Present versus future generations

This dimension was expressed in the widely cited definition. It may owe its
easy acceptance to the combined impact of a. its reference to the archetypical
human desire to provide for one’s children, and b. its undemanding, low-conflict
implications, since future generations do not pick fights with those living in the
present about the consequences of (in-)action. As a result, the definition has
been widely endorsed in principle without being translated into tangible policy
or behaviour.
Both reactions are rooted in human history, whose record is ambivalent in the
way humans have or have not sought to maximize current benefit at the expense
of future generations. In a long-term perspective, humans have mostly acted with
little knowledge about or regard for the long-term consequences of their actions.
When early man spread around the world and populated all continents except

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Antarctica, he and she were presumably looking for food, and in the process they
almost certainly drove a series of animals of attractive hunting size such as the
mammoths, mastodons or moas to extinction.28 As a result, they deprived coming
generations of valuable hunting prey, who then had to find other ways to feed
their families. Throughout the millennia, men and women frequently found they
had exploited a resource beyond its regenerative capacity so that they were short
of food, water, wood, huntable species or other necessities, and much of human
history can be seen as efforts to find substitutes. Options were few but effective:
humans could leave the area to find new territories whose resources were not
(yet) depleted. They could develop and refine agricultural techniques, which
enabled them to get more food out of existing territory and gradually transformed
ever-increasing stretches of nature into ever-more productive farmland. Humans
could wage wars against neighbours and take away their food and land. Or they
could reduce their food requirements by allowing parts of their societies to starve
and die, usually the very young, the very old and those of low social status.29
The overall record is positive. The very fact that we exist today indicates
success. Though settlements and civilizations have repeatedly collapsed and
countless people have suffered hunger and premature death throughout the ages,
humanity as a whole has thrived to the extent that today its activities shape
the face of the Earth, that it marginalizes an increasing number of species and
that the majority of global biomass is appropriated for human needs.30 One could
argue that human survival strategies have been sustainable in the sense that they
have sustained Homo sapiens for approximately 200,000 years (and earlier forms
of humans considerably longer) and have led them to this position of strength.
This collective experience of millennia is stored in genetic and cultural
heritage. During the overwhelming part of its history, men hunted and gathered
as much food as their hunger demanded and their skills and their environment
allowed, and judging by the survival record, this way of life has served Homo
sapiens well. He and she evolved and acquired instincts which provide helpful
guidance on what to eat, with whom to procreate and what to do in moments of
immediate danger. But unlike animals that go into hibernation or have migration
patterns, humans have no innate impulses to take precautionary measures for
future periods of scarcity. The need for such behaviour is too recent in human
history to be genetically encoded; it has to be learned as a cultural skill. And,
endowed with substantial problem-solving capacities, humans developed a broad
repertoire of sustainability strategies. Men learned to reserve part of the harvest
as seeds for the following season, and to feed enough livestock over the winter
so that their offspring could sustain herds. Many societies developed social
rules which regulated farming and hunting so that it would remain below the
carrying capacity of a given area. In this sense, sustainability thinking has been
so intimately woven into human living as to have been named a world heritage.31
Clearly, humans mastered the art of living sustainably to some extent or
there would not be so many living today. But, also clearly, this mastery has never
been complete. Locally, the skills repeatedly proved insufficient. Frequently,

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people simply did not plan ahead enough or did not understand the long-term
consequences of their actions or were unable to cope with changes such as new
diseases, short- and long-term changes in population size, soil fertility due to
erosion, mineral depletion or salinization, changes in climate etc. Repeatedly,
societies have declined, relocated and/or collapsed completely. Living within
resource limits has always been difficult and sometimes societies succeeded and
sometimes they failed.32 Past experience, therefore, offers two distinct narratives:
that of humanity as a whole, which is one of long-term survival and increasing
prosperity, and that of many different societies with a very diverse record of
success and failure. Views on sustainable development depend largely on the
selection and interpretation of either of these narratives.
Some observers see the present as a simple continuation of this evolution of
humanity. In this view, there is no need for fundamental change since, over a
long history, people have frequently experienced crises but have inevitably found
solutions, so that humanity as a whole is accustomed to meeting challenges and
is well equipped to cope with them. This view is strongly underscored by the fact
that, by any measure, human lives are clearly getting better. The average person
has never been wealthier, healthier, has never lived longer and has never had to
worry less about seeing his and her children die in infancy than today.33 In short,
the existing system of human living has given ample proof of being able not only
to withstand problems but to turn them to innovation and progress, giving rise
to the argument that expecting decline and/or collapse is ignoring the historical
record.34 This view holds that no particular policy changes are required since the
present generation is leaving a solid basis for well-being and there is no reason to
assume that future generations will be less able to cope with problems than those
of the past.
There is increasing reason to question whether past strategies will allow future
prosperity or whether, on the contrary, they will exacerbate those problems,
which have caused the collapse of individual societies in the past and which,
in a globalized world, may threaten the well-being and/or survival of world
society in the future. This perspective interprets past experience not primarily as
successive improvements born from human ingenuity, which could be continued
endlessly, but as an increasing human appropriation of natural resources, which
has had mixed effects on the quality of human life and which must necessarily
come to an end when global capacities are exhausted. In this perspective, the
massive increase in human influence on the world around them during the last
150 years and especially since 1950 represents a break with past experience
in that man’s effect on the 20th century planet has become so dominant as to
be ‘something new under the sun’.35 This view has inspired ecologist Eugene
Stoermer and atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen to coin the term ‘anthropocene’
for the current geological era, to denote a difference to earlier eras and the rapid
current development towards potential tipping points.36 This perspective sees a
change of rules, in that ecological restrictions, which used to determine local
activities, now apply on a global scale, so that today’s global society is as much in

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danger of breakdown as local societies have been in the past, many of whom have
collapsed after long periods of increasing prosperity which misled contemporaries
into believing this development would continue forever.37 Thus, more pessimistic
observers argue that referring to the past record of human problem solving may
resemble the man who jumps out of the tenth floor and finds, while passing floor
three on his way down, that so far everything has gone just fine. This view holds
that profound policy changes are urgently necessary since otherwise the present
generation is maximizing benefits for itself while leaving an overwhelming
mountain of problems for future generations.
Any workable concept and policy of sustainable development would have to
reconcile those two views.

Economic versus environmental perspectives

In part, this difference of perspective ties into different disciplinary world views
of the two formative components of sustainable development: economics and
ecology. Economic theory was largely born during and through the Industrial
Revolution and responded to a need for guidance in an economic world which
appeared to outgrow the exigencies of traditional agricultural economies and
in which an understanding of capital, markets and technology became more
important than mastering elements of nature like soil, harvests or weather.38
Distancing economic thought from considerations of nature was a gradual
process. Classical economists like François Quesnay, Adam Smith, Thomas
Malthus, David Ricardo and W. Stanley Jevons included biological resources,
notably land, into their considerations and viewed their intellectual work as part
of a larger body of research with no clear boundaries between social and natural
sciences. They believed in economic growth as a normal state for a certain
period of time, which was a relatively new idea, but they could not conceive of
endless growth. At some point, the economy would enter a stationary state. They
differed in their views of when this would be and how they evaluated it. Malthus
famously predicted a continuing discrepancy between population growth and
food production which would result in periodic famines. Jevons pointed out the
importance of a finite resource, coal, for the British economy. John Stuart Mill,
invoking the image of all nature transformed into human resources, explicitly
rejected the idea of endless growth as entirely undesirable. But none doubted
that the human economy was rooted in a context of nature where growth was
self-evidently limited.
The elimination of nature from economic theory was part of the fragmentation
and specialization of disciplines in the late 19th century. The natural sciences
increasingly required professional specialists and adopted (laboratory)
experimentation as their key method. Meanwhile, economics emphasized theory
and mathematical modelling methods while neglecting empirical data and
contextualizations. Ecological factors were reconceptualized as ‘externalities’
which lay beyond economic interests and competence. In distinct contrast to

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earlier concepts, neoclassical economists aimed at objectivity devoid of normative

judgements, focusing only on the monetary expressions of economic items and
accepting prices as the central regulatory element of economic processes. This
shift had two effects which would make communication with biological sciences
difficult: it suggested the general substitutability of goods and services, since all
could be expressed in prices, and it made the idea of endless growth possible,
since there was no natural limit to money. This view became deeply entrenched
in 20th century economic theory, and irrespective of differences of views on
other points, mainstream economists agreed that physical limits were no useful
category in economic planning since resources did not enter the economic cycle
directly but through knowledge-driven technology and market-negotiated prices.
This conceptual separation of economics from its origins in natural sciences
profoundly affected how economists and environmentalists viewed the world and
found it difficult to communicate. Geoff Edwards sees ‘disciplinary worldviews’
consisting of ‘matrix of concepts and principles’ which students of that field learn
early on through textbooks, lectures and any normal communication within
the discipline.39 Thus, without major efforts to break beyond learned modes of
thinking, discussions between economists and environmentalists resemble a
conversation of the deaf mute.
One of the points which most separate them is their respective concept of
collapse. To an ecologist or ecological economist, collapse means the breakdown
of essentials which keep ecosystems functioning. They can point to examples,
both on a global scale with several instances of mass extinctions, and on a
local scale, as after volcano eruptions, floods or other natural disasters. To an
environmentalist, denying the possibility of biological collapse and extinction
is to deny the obvious. Similarly, the idea of unlimited economic growth in a
finite planet with limited space, resources and limited waste absorption capacities
appears ludicrous and merely confirms that economists do not understand that
economic processes depend on these environmental factors. This perspective has
been taken up by ecological economists such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, E.F.
Schumacher and Herman Daly, who point out that the economy is a subsystem of
the environment on which it depends for resources (including energy) and waste
absorption. From an ecological point of view, the ignorance of economists leads
to practices which result in the collapse of ecological systems on which human
lives depend.
To a standard economist, collapse means the breakdown of essentials which
keep the production, allocation and distribution of market products going. In a
world which consists of various forms of capital (man-made, natural, human or
social), all of which can be monetarized, an ecological collapse makes no sense.
Scarcity simply leads to higher prices which inevitably make people develop
alternatives through innovative methods and/or substitute resources. This process
relies on human ingenuity, which is unlimited, so that, while resources may be
finite, the ways in which they can be used to ensure prosperity are not. The idea
that ignoring physical limits will lead to environmental collapse is viewed as

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a misconception of reality since it fails to understand the fundamental rules of

how an economy works. This cornucopian view has been most strongly endorsed
by economists like Julian Simon, Larry Summers and Bjørn Lomborg, but they
are merely the most outspoken representatives of views broadly held by most
mainstream economists. From their point of view, proponents of environmental
limits to economic growth simply do not get the basics of economics right and
this ignorance leads to pointless but crippling regulations which can result in the
collapse of economic systems on which human livelihoods depend.
Communication is much inhibited by the fact that the environmentalist’s
salvation from collapse is the economist’s collapse and vice versa.
However, different views of systemic breakdown are also influenced by more
deep-seated attitudes based on a series of cognitive biases. On the one hand, all
human cultures know a tradition of millennialism, both religious and secular, i.e.
a belief that humans will experience some form of apocalyptic catastrophe, often
(though not always) followed by a benign resurrection, which will elevate human
life to a higher level. Examples include the Norse eschatology of Ragnarok, the
biblical Flood of Noah, Hindu–Buddhist concepts of cyclical destruction, world
revolution in Marxism and the dominant scientific view that life will end with
the heat death of the Universe.40 However, this affinity to apocalyptic thinking
competes with a series of other universal human biases that stand in the way
of acknowledging risks of disaster: the inability to imagine or realistically gauge
extremely improbable events (the black swan phenomenon), the tendency to
underestimate risks related to a factor which also provides benefits, the inability
to visualize very high numbers, overconfidence in personal problem-solving
abilities, and the tendency to ignore even obvious signs of danger when other
people do so as well (bystander apathy).41 Even with the best of intentions, the
distinction between sensible and necessary concern and doomsday craziness is as
difficult to draw as that between calm and realistic confidence and absurd risk
denial. The position taken on this question largely determines the position taken
on the perceived need for and nature of a policy of sustainable development.
Any workable concept and policy of sustainable development would have to
reconcile economic and environmental views of reality.

North versus South

While these conflicts were profound in the long run, the immediate discussion
of the Commissioners was dominated by divisions between perspectives of
rich societies of the North and poor societies of the South. This difference of
perspective was closely tied to different perspectives on development.
‘Development’ is no self-explanatory term. Recent research underlines the
socially constructed character of the concept.42 In the context of economics and
international relations, ‘development’ came to mean the type of transformation
Europe and North America had experienced during industrialization. Its major
component was economic growth, expressed and measured by per capita gross

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domestic product (GDP). By 1945, ‘development’ was considered synonymous

with ‘modernization’ and increased well-being, supposedly a natural process that
was self-evidently desirable and which would eventually spread to all regions of the
world. Rich industrialized countries in Europe, North America and Australia had
already reached an advanced state while countries in Asia, Africa and, to a lesser
extent, in South America were behind and would need an accelerated evolution
in order to ‘catch up’. In this process they were supported by development aid
that was extended by international and national organizations. This dichotomy
of ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries whereby the former changed over time
but only the latter needed to ‘develop’ would dominate conventional wisdom of
the state of the world into the 21st century. President Truman is credited with
imprinting this terminology onto the global discourse when he spoke about
‘making the benefits of our scientific advances and industrial progress available
for the improvement and growth of underdeveloped areas’.43 Considerations
about how much of Northern development had depended on cheap energy and
colonial resources were marginalized or excluded from the mainstream discourse
on ‘modernization’, thus glossing over the fact that in this form this process would
be impossible to repeat on a global scale. For much of the 20th century, this
concept of ‘development’ was widely accepted and its implementation coveted
by all those who felt they lacked it. The terminology gave rise to offshoots, such
as ‘less developed’, ‘more developed’ or ‘least developed’ and it was universally
adopted, both in ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries, including, during the
1980s, in the Brundtland Commission.44
Since the 1970s, scholars have criticized ‘development’ as an imperialist
policy by which high-income countries have fortified their economic superiority
and their political control over low-income and (formerly) colonized countries.45
Other scholars have pointed to perceived successes of ‘development’, measured
in health or social indicators such as life expectancy, infant mortality, gender
equality or literacy rather than purely monetary data.46
Both views are well-grounded in evidence, and the respective perspective
depends on choices of time, place and indicators, making ‘development’ a
complex phenomenon whose effects are not easily defined or evaluated. Very
generally speaking, it has been praised and coveted for its capacity to improve
living conditions and criticized for its tendency to increase distributional injustice
and create environmental stress.
Within these contradictory views, Northern and Southern perspectives
differed sharply.
Northern societies had experienced development mainly as something which
had delivered substantial increases in wealth, comfort and living standards
but whose main component, industrialization, was becoming a burden on
their natural surroundings by using excessive amounts of dwindling resources
and producing excessive amounts of pollution. Making development less
environmentally destructive, therefore, entailed regulating and/or reducing
production and consumption. At the same time, development was perceived as

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global, since its characteristics seemed the same everywhere and since resources
and markets increasingly worked on a global level and it seemed obvious that
the development–environment link represented a global phenomenon as well.
Consequently, studies looked at global imbalances between available resources
and their exploitation as well as between produced emissions and waste and
global absorption capacities. Environmental risks, therefore, tended to be seen
as existential threats to humanity, and any policy placing development and
environment in harmony would have to function globally, otherwise it would not
work. A one-world approach made obvious sense because first, it was factually
true, and secondly, it would motivate people to become active if they understood
that nobody stood outside this challenge. It meant everybody had to change.
Southern societies had experienced development mainly as something which
colonial/imperial powers had withheld from them in order to maximize their
own wealth, comfort and increased living standards. The potential benefits of
development were obvious enough and Southern countries wanted access to them
but realized they would continue to have to fight for their share of development.
The biggest threat was the international financial and trade systems which
placed the well-being and sometimes the raw survival of Southern people at
jeopardy and left them little choice for their actions. Perceivable environmental
burdens in their countries could be tracked to this system of trade, price and
debt straightjackets which kept people too poor to be concerned about long-term
considerations. Any policy placing development and environment in harmony
would have to address these regional disparities, otherwise it would not work.
A regional approach made obvious sense because first, it was factually true,
and secondly, it would motivate people in the South to become active if they
understood that environmental protection would coincide with better living
conditions, and those in the North if they understood that they were responsible
for difficulties worldwide. But in reality, the North had to change.
Any workable concept and policy of sustainable development would have to
reconcile those views.

Scientific accuracy versus political acceptability

The mandate of the WCED and the understanding of its members clearly aimed
at producing coherent suggestions for policy changes to be implemented later on.
Early on, the Commission optimistically declared its conviction that it was
possible to build a future that was ‘more prosperous, more just, and more secure’
since it would rest on ‘policies and practices’ that expanded and sustained the
ecological basis of development. However, this would require significant changes
in attitudes, life styles, policies, forms of national and international cooperation,
and ‘above all, in the level of understanding and commitment by people,
organizations and governments’.47
But how do you get people and governments to agree to change their attitudes,
policies and lives in fundamental ways? Getting the science right was important

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but was clearly not going to be enough. Several well-researched and best-
selling reports on the threatened state of the global environment had alerted
the public in the North – and to some extent beyond – to the environmental
degradations brought by the existing form of economic development. The
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson and the Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome
were outstanding examples, introducing the concepts of gradual but profound
environmental destruction by industry and of physical limits into the discourse
for good. However, the effects of this stream of impressive and increasingly urgent
warnings also wore off, provoking a discernible decline of reaction, and the 1972
Limits to Growth Study was partly counterproductive when it scared people into
discarding it as ‘doomsaying’.48 Not all WCED Commissioners distrusted the
findings of Limits to Growth, but all knew that their report had to be different
if it was to have an effect. More upbeat, more hopeful and more geared towards
practical recommendations.
But what if the available data were not upbeat and if sincere practical
recommendations would have to call for more drastic changes than the average
person would wish to contemplate? What if mitigating climate change clearly
required reducing the use of fossil fuel but the logical consequence, making petrol
more expensive, was sure to doom the report in all of North America and a lot
of the rest of the world? What if it was obvious that there was no way the planet
would satisfy the energy requirements of Northern countries, let alone the entire
world, leading logically to a variety of similarly unacceptable options: should
Southern countries have to contend themselves with lower-energy economies?
Or should the North have to give up part of its energy consumption for the benefit
of the South? Or should overconsumption continue leaving future generations
with the immense problem of inheriting a socio-economic system based on fossil
fuel-based infrastructure without the necessary fuels? Was it better to spell out the
alternatives or to gloss over them? In other words, was it better to compromise on
scientific precision, risking loss of credibility, or to be exact on scientific accuracy,
risking loss of readership and influence?
Any workable concept and policy of sustainable development would have to
find a balance between those exigencies.
This book explores how the Commission confronted these divides: how did
its members find solutions? To what extent did they hold onto principles and
how did they compromise on convictions and, possibly, on realistic assumptions?
How did they avoid failure and how did their work succeed or fail on its own
terms later? The result is not so much the story of the birth of a concept, which
subsequently became part of people’s languages and thinking around the world,
but an investigation of a struggle between people, concepts, convictions and
interests, whose outcome was and remains uncertain.
This book assumes that the readers have not read Our Common Future and are
therefore unfamiliar with the broad range of topics which the report addressed
and how it addressed them. Adequate space, therefore, is given to summaries
of the respective texts as the Commission received and discussed them and as

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they evolved in the course of these discussions. I feel that only by tracing this
evolution do the struggles of the Commissioners become clear, as they tried to
do justice to a challenge which touched on a potentially unlimited spectrum of
environmental, economic, political, social and ethical issues, and on which they
were required to understand the problems at hand, to agree on solutions and to
present those in a way which would make sense to people in all fields of life in
countries around the world. In the process, the book is also a summary of the
multitude of problems considered relevant to sustainable development as they
were understood by recognized experts in the field at the time. It is difficult to
overlook how much of the underlying difficulties, notably regarding conflicting
interests and rights, remain relevant today.
The periods before and after the WCED form an integral part of this struggle
because all its components existed both before and after the life of the Commission.
But the Commission itself receives most attention because, arguably, it provides a
best-case scenario of a debate which, in the early 21st century, the governments
and publics of the world are still largely trying to avoid.

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 B IBLIOGRAP H Y

Unpublished sources
Personal interviews
Orally or e-mail communication: Gro Harlem Brundtland (5 March 2012), Hans
Christian Bugge (7 November 2012), Branislav Gosovic (11 May 2013), Volker Hauff
(14 February 2012), István Láng (12 December 2011), Jim MacNeill (1 February 2012,
13 September 2012, 5 May 2013, 16 May 2013), Margarita Marino de Botero (4 March
2012), William Ruckelshaus (31 January 2012), Mohamed Sahnoun (21 August 2011),
David Satterthwaite (14 May 2012), Janez Stanovnik (23 February 2012), Maurice Strong
(21 February 2012).

Archives
International Development Research Center, Collection of the Brundtland Commission
United Nations Archive, Collection series: S-1051; S-0971; S-0910; S-0913
United Nations Organization Library, Documents of the United Nations General
Assembly
World Health Organization, Series: H II/36/3, H 11-372-16, H 11/372/17, H 11-372-30
Harvard College Library, Environmental Science and Public Policy Archives, Maurice
Strong Papers

Published sources
Brundtland Bulletin, Nos. 1–6.
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