The Gigantic Definition of Sustainable Development

Surfers, it won't take you long to learn that an official-sounding definition of sustainable development was published in 1987 by the Brundtland Commission, a World Commission on Environment and Development convened by the United Nations and known by the name of its chairman. We're just going to simplify it for the presumed visitor to this website, a person active in his or her community.

Idealists all over the world are interested in the concept of sustainable development and in forming green communities to help address global warming, desertification, and other huge environmental changes that would produce massive social and economic changes.

The Brundtland Commission report said sustainable development "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

Therefore the definition of sustainable development is contributing to environmental sustainability of the earth, economic prosperity, and social equity among peoples over generations.

Supporting the Ecosystems of the Planet

Back in the 1800s the word sustainability was used in Europe to refer to whether forests would run out of wood. In the 1970s counter-culture, sustainability evolved into an economic, political, or social term as much as an environmental one.

A host of United Nations work since 1987, including the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio and the U.N. Agenda 21 program, continues to tie environmental sustainability back into social and economic factors, with cultural diversity increasingly thrown into the mix. The European Union has a similarly diverse program.

These efforts are concerned with the carrying capacity of the earth to support an ecosystem friendly to human life, without compromising economic and social conditions. Just to confuse you further, of course, some people argue this is too people-centered, so they want to talk about the earth's ecosystems with no special regard for humans above other species.

So just be aware that when we Americans talk about a definition of sustainable development mainly as a "greener," more environmentally conscious way of undertaking real estate development, the rest of the world may mean something quite different.

The word "development" in much of the world stage is a Cold War era idea about eradicating poverty and disease to the point that nations can become equally wealthy, self-sufficient, and intelligently self-governing. Thus the economic, social, and now indigenous cultural overtones of "sustainable development" lingers in global circles.

Definition of Sustainable Development for Cities and Neighborhoods

In the U.S. the environmental factors are the ones garnering the attention. Al Gore and his book and movie, An Inconvenient Truth, as well as the establishment of LEED® certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, are the popularizers of the trend.

The concept of sustainable development cannot be couched in absolutes, as in "Your downtown is sustainable development, but the next one west isn't sustainable." Practices and materials simply contribute or don't contribute to sustainability. Probably. As far as we know now.

Worldwide debate has been that the developed countries cannot continue their proportional over-consumption of the world's resources. But in the U.S. and most advanced societies, we have trouble with the notion that something threatens our fundamental prosperity. And social equity, well, of course we already have that here in America, huh?

So for your city, say that the definition of sustainable development is examining and correcting conditions as needed to advance economic prosperity, social equity and cultural diversity without compromising environmental quality, availability of natural resources, and biodiversity for future generations.

The local conversation can be about the triple bottom line (not merely an economic bottom line, but also a calculation that measures and accounts for economic and social progress or degradation). With such an approach, you might convince your City Council to rip up part of a street to plant a rain garden whether or not they are the entity responsible for clean water. If it's straight municipal finance, and another agency purifies water, it will be a much tougher argument.

Another idea to be aware of is that there also is a de-growth movement world-wide, which states that you can't have growth and development while still have sustainability. A few environmentalists don't want us to use much of anything. The Menominee Indian Tribe in Wisconsin has argued that its forest resources should be protected forever. See the Menominee Sustainable Development Institute site.

And indeed at the opening of the Rio Earth Summit, Maurice Strong talked about how we need to give up suburbia, air conditioning, appliances, high meat consumption, and so forth. So some interests think you need to figure out how to shrink things before you can be sustainable! They could be right, but I hope not.

Actually the Brundtland Commission report, p. 49, talks about the need to "revive growth" and "change the quality of growth," so you have it on good authority that sustainability is not anti-growth. But it does require us to change, something we hate to do.

To keep reading about worldwide sustainability, try this World Conservation Union report.

Defining Yourself as a Green Community

But as you can see, the definition of sustainable development is so broad as to be unhelpfully vague and ethereal, in my opinion. Avoid the political friction about the definition of sustainable development, with its anti-progress overtone. So unless you can convince your city or neighborhood to use it as the #1 Organizing Concept, you should probably retreat to the much more manageable concept of making yourself a green community. Often the concept of green communities is built on a set of quantifiable goals ("metrics" in the jargon of the day) that are primarily environmental.

Even Chicago, which really has embraced sustainability, uses the green term frequently, as in "green roofs" and "green alleys," rather than sustainable this and that.

Green communities are communities developed and redeveloped on the principle of minimizing and then eliminating environmental damage due to human activity. A green community shouldn't use up its natural capital, a term used to refer to the total of Mother Nature’s resources, faster than it is generated.

Sustainable Development, or Green Building, in Practice

Some of you came to this site because you thought green building and sustainable development were pretty much synonyms. And I'm not saying you're wrong. Head on over to the the green home construction page.

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