Sustainable development can be described as that which meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
This definition was coined by the Brundtland Report in 1987, when environmental issues were relatively low on the public agenda and the need for a profound change of direction was less well understood.
Today there is unprecendented consensus that the local and global environmental challenges we face demand urgent action. Corporations, political leaders, learned societies as well as the public all speak of ‘sustainable development’, adding to those long-standing voices of the environment movement itself.
Yet while the need for change may now be widely accepted, there is a conspicuous gap – between where we are now and where we need to be.
