What is Sustainable Development?

Sustainable Development is balancing economic growth and environmental protection.

In 1962 Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring launched the contemporary environmental movement. During the following decades, issues concerning economic growth and environmental protection were discussed in academic circles--economics, environmental biology, and political science--and debated in Congress and the United Nations.

While the term had been discussed previously, it was in 1987, with The World Commission on Environment and Development (The Brundtland Commission), that the concept of sustainable development achieved centerstage in global politics. In Our Common Future, the Commission framed the "growth versus environment debate" noting that sustainable development "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.