"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

 – Brundtland Commission in 1987 (Brundtland Report, WCED 1987: 43)

The above definition of sustainable development is certainly the best known of all the definitions of sustainable development. It is from a report in 1987 by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), which was chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland – and therefore more commonly known as the Brundtland Commission. 

Image: Gro Harlem Brundtland. (CC BY-ND 2.0 Image information: References 4.1.)

The Commission's work has proved so significant that the historical review of sustainable development often begins only in the 1980s when this Commission was set up. However, international cooperation to promote sustainable development had already taken place for twenty years and here we begin our review from the 1960s. 

Before that, however, we take a look at what sustainable development means in general. Although the course is not intended to provide a new definition of sustainable development or to introduce all previous ways of understanding the concept, the definition of the concept cannot, of course, be completely avoided if we want to understand sustainable development as a concept and a phenomenon.

Although the Brundtland Commission brought the term 'sustainable development' to the international political agenda, the term has been used at least as early as 1713, when Carl von Carlowitz recommended that forest management be based on ‘nachhaltige Entwicklung’ (sustainable development in German). By this, he meant that trees would only be cut down to the extent that they grow over a certain period of time. The World Conservation Strategy, published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in 1980, also states about sustainable development:

”Development is defined here as the modification of the biosphere and the application of human, financial, living, and non-living resources to satisfy human needs and improve the quality of human life. For development to be sustainable it must take account of social and ecological factors, as well as economic ones; of the living and non-living resource base; and of the long term as well as the short term advantages and disadvantages of alternative actions.” 

Sustainable development has been an important driver of political debate and action, but as a concept, it has been criticized for its vagueness. There are many interpretations of sustainable development. ‘Sustainability’ or ‘sustainable development has become a highly used, important, and politically significant buzzword in the debate about the well-being of humans, the environment, or, equally, the planet. Sustainability and sustainable development are often used as synonyms. However, a distinction can be made between these, for example, in that ‘sustainability’ is the state to which the ‘sustainable development’ process should lead.

Development - a fairly recent idea

The idea of ‘development’ is often left unquestioned in discussions about sustainable development. It is very typical of us to think that humanity is on a path that will inevitably lead to more and more advanced human systems. The idea of development has been embedded so deeply into (Western) thinking that it is difficult for us to realize that this idea is very young in relation to the history of humankind. 

Before Enlightenment, people most likely thought that life would go on in the future as it has before. Of course, it is not possible to say exactly when a human perception of progress changed. It is often thought, however, that at least within the so-called intelligentsia, belief in the development of humanity was solid from the mid-18th century onwards. Advances in science, in particular, contributed to this. 

The Industrial Revolution changed not only the material conditions of the people but also their belief in development. From the 18th century onwards development was believed to take place particularly through economic growth and increased material consumption. Belief in man's right to control nature and value it as a resource to produce market goods grew. The idea of development was therefore progressively secularized — development no longer meant just salvation through the Christian (or other) faith towards the afterlife. Scientific and technological advances promised people a better life already on Earth.

The development of the West - and Western perceptions of development - have also had an impact on other regions, including through colonisation. This is why we have emphasised the development of Western societies in the course.

Pillars of sustainable development

 Sustainable development is typically described in terms of different “dimensions,” “aspects,” “components,” or perhaps most commonly, “pillars”. These terms are also used interchangeably. There are three most common pillars – social, economic, and ecological – but other pillars (or dimensions, aspects, etc.), such as cultural, institutional, or technical, can also be linked to sustainable development.

An example of the political importance of these three dimensions is the Declaration of the previous United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 2012, which begins as follows:

”We, the Heads of State and Government and high-level representatives, having met at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 20 to 22 June 2012, with the full participation of civil society, renewed our commitment to sustainable development and to ensuring the promotion of an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable future for our planet and for present and future generations.”

The quote can be interpreted as meaning that sustainable development has a commonly accepted content – ecological, social, and economic sustainability – and, in addition, world leaders have a common will to promote sustainable development.

Visually, the agenda of sustainable development is most often presented through either three pillars supporting sustainability or three nested rings (see figures below). These different figures, which seemingly represent the same thing, have a fundamental difference: whether sustainability rests on three equal pillars (first figure) or whether the different dimensions of sustainability are conditional on each other. The latter figure suggests that the natural system is the basis of everything, that sustainable societies are only possible within the framework of ecology, and that sustainable economies can only be built within the framework of functioning societies.

The figures show two ways to illustrate the three dimensions of sustainable development. In the first figure, the dimensions are shown as separate and equal to each other. In the figure below, the nesting of circles refers to the ecological basis on which the social and economic dimensions of sustainable development are built.

What is meant by strong sustainability also crystallizes in the latter figure. The division into weak and strong sustainability was coined before the Brundtland Report (1987) mentioned at the beginning. The idea of ​​weak sustainability originated as early as the 1970s in the field of environmental economics. Its fundamental idea is that different types of capital – economic, social, and ecological – are interchangeable. That is, for example, the growth of economic capital compensates for the loss of ecological capital.

Strong sustainability, in turn, rejects this principle of interchangeability and considers that ecological capital always takes precedence over others. Strong sustainability has since been thought to have different degrees. Strong sustainability generally means sustainability that allows the substitution of ecological capital into other types of capital within reasonable limits. ‘Absurdly strong’ sustainability means that ecological capital cannot be reduced under any circumstances, which then prohibits the use of all non-renewable resources.

However, the three most common pillars of sustainable development (i.e., ecological, social, and economic) do not have any commonly agreed definitions, nor do they have any common historical source from which we could deduce what sustainability or sustainable development means. Despite this, of course, the pillars do not mean just anything. We can safely say that they somehow refer to society, the economy, and the environment. However, more precise definitions can be debated endlessly.

Of the three pillars, social sustainability is often the most difficult to understand and apply. Social issues are intertwined with competing interests and values, as well as unclear cause-and-effect relationships – and their diverse effects in different areas of life. It could be argued, however, that it is precisely the core of social sustainability that is written in the Brundtland Commission's definition of sustainable development introduced at the beginning of this section. In other words, social sustainability means the ability of people to meet their basic needs – such as nutritional needs, health, education, equal treatment, security – now and in the future. Many of the current UN Sustainable Development Goals, discussed later in this section, are related to these human needs. However, we have no commonly agreed way to define which human needs we should include in our view, or how needs can be distinguished from people’s indefinite desires. One possibility is to distinguish needs to be those whose unfulfillment causes serious harm to humans.

At the heart of ecological sustainability is most often the preservation of biodiversity, coupled with maintaining or improving the integrity of the systems that support life on Earth. 

Economic sustainable development is probably the most controversial of the three pillars of sustainable development. Economic sustainability is often associated with definitions such as “long-term planning”, “cost savings” and “smart growth”. The discrepancy of economic sustainability crystallizes in the last of these definitions, the idea of ​​growth. Very soon after the publication of the Brundtland report, the scientific literature critically addressed the contradiction between growth and the limited resources of the planet: Since economic growth cannot take place without using Earth’s limited resources, there is no such thing as sustainable development. Sustainable development was said to be an oxymoron, an expression whose parts are in conflict with each other – like false truth, for example.

Then again, it has been pointed out that development is not the same thing as growth. Growth means quantitative increase and development means qualitative change. Today, when it comes to economic sustainability, the emphasis is on the use of renewable resources, the recycling of resources, and, for example, growth in the service sector instead of industry. These can alleviate the original contradiction but do not eliminate it. Nor is the contradiction between the economic and ecological dimensions of sustainable development a new issue that is now just waiting to be resolved. The contradiction has been understood from the beginning.

Despite the fundamental contradiction, sustainable development negotiations covering almost all states have been taking place for 50 years. Indeed, the historical review of international sustainable development opens up one important aspect of politics: issues need to be resolved and coordinated even when it is, in principle, impossible.

The politics of sustainable development is influenced by cultural values, that is, what aspects of sustainability are considered important. As mentioned above, cultural sustainability has also been discussed separately in the context of sustainability. Culture is often thought of as a variety of cultural products or services, such as visual arts, films, literature, or theatrical performances, that can be consumed, produced, or pursued. Such cultural products and services can be important in building a more sustainable future, as they are one form of human communication and therefore can convey ideas and values. An example of this could be national epics, which have been used to build mental images of different nationalities. 

In a broad sense, however, culture can be understood as shared lifestyles, traditions, beliefs, and values. This does not mean that all people within a particular culture share completely similar lifestyles or values, but that certain traditions and customs are prevalent or understood within a particular culture. For example, not all Finns like sauna, but probably almost every Finn can describe the customs and traditions related to sauna in detail.

Dessein et al. (2015) have suggested that cultural sustainability can be understood in three ways. According to them, cultural sustainability means either 1. culture as an object of protection and preservation (e.g. protection of valuable cultural heritage sites), 2. culture as a mediator of sustainable thinking (e.g. through works of art), or 3. a wider cultural shift towards more sustainable lifestyles. 

In the first one, culture is seen as the fourth pillar of sustainability alongside the ecological, economic, and social pillars. In the second one, culture appears as a mediator of the sustainability themes represented by the ecological, social, and economic pillars, while in the third one culture can be thought to underlie all sustainability actions.

One factor in the success of ‘sustainable development’ is probably that the concept is not unambiguous. In an effort to combine all the pillars of sustainable development into a single, internally logical frame of reference, it is politically easier to find common ground through a declarative slogan advertising for the common good than to address the deeply contradictory goals and values behind the concept of sustainable development.

Food for thought: ask a few people you know how they understand the term "sustainable development". What answers did you get, and what did you learn from them?  You can share your reflections and discuss with other course participants on the page linked below.

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