Sustainable development is development in which the needs of present generations are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This basic formulation first appeared in 1987 in the report Our Common Future. It was prepared by the UN Commission on Environment and Development, often also called the Brundtland Commission after its head, Gro Harlem Brundtland, a Norwegian politician and public figure who contributed enormously to promoting the concept of sustainable development and to international cooperation to achieve it. It is in the formulation of the Brundtland Commission that the key idea of sustainable development is to be seen as a balance between the generations.
Intergenerational Balance
The essence of sustainable development is to ensure that the development of the present generation does not compromise the interests of future generations. The classical definition understands intergenerational balance as a balance of needs. However, the word "needs" can be interpreted in different ways. First, we can talk about the ability to meet needs in the context of natural resource endowment. This means that we must leave future generations the same amount of resources that we have, so that they can use those resources to meet their needs.
Secondly, we can talk about the ability to meet needs as a standard of living. This means that for future generations it must be at least the same as the standard of living of our generation. However, it does not necessarily have to be achieved thanks to the availability of natural resources. For example, we can now invest natural resources in human capital and knowledge, and future generations will ensure a higher standard of living by increasing knowledge. These two interpretations gave rise to two branches of sustainable development - the concepts of strong and weak sustainability research.
Already by the early 1990s, the number of definitions of sustainable development had reached several dozen, and since then it has grown even more. This is because the concepts of strong and weak sustainability have encountered a number of problems. For example, does strong sustainability mean that we should consume minimal or no non-renewable natural resources? After all, if we consume them, we automatically leave fewer resources for future generations.
At the same time, if we take the concept of weak sustainability as a basis, it is not quite clear how it differs from the model of human development that humanity has followed throughout its history. Mankind has always consumed natural resources, converting the wealth generated from them into capital for the production of goods and services as well as for the development of human capital. As a result, mankind has accumulated a vast reservoir of knowledge and technology, and this has enabled it to significantly improve its standard of living. If such development is sustainable, it turns out that there is no problem. However, the very formation of the Commission on Environment and Development shows that the current form of development of human civilization, which is carried out by replacing natural capital with physical and human capital, is perceived by the international community as risky.
As a result of the fact that the concepts of strong and weak sustainability as attempts to formalize the term "sustainable development" as understood by the Brundtland Commission could not overcome these kinds of critical arguments, the concept of sustainable development gradually began to acquire a broader, more abstract character. It began to be understood as the achievement of a balance between the economic, environmental and social dimensions of human development. In other words, sustainable development is economic growth that does not lead to environmental degradation while resolving social problems such as inequality and poverty.
