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Sustainable development

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The concept of human development expands upon the notion of economic development to include social , political and even ethical dimensions . Since the mid-twentieth century, international organisations such as the United Nations and the World Bank have adopted human development as a holistic approach to evaluating a country’s progress that considers living conditions, social relations, individual freedoms and political institutions that contribute to freedom and well-being , in addition to standard measures of income growth .

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83-478: Sustainable development is an approach to growth and human development that aims to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The aim is to have a society where living conditions and resources meet human needs without undermining planetary integrity . Sustainable development aims to balance the needs of the economy , environment , and social well-being . The Brundtland Report in 1987 helped to make

166-416: A limits discourse is an economically reformist, yet politically conservative approach to sustainability. Fourth, radical sustainability is a transformative approach seeking to break with existing global economic and political structures. Sustainable development, like sustainability , is regarded to have three dimensions : the environment, economy and society . The idea is that a good balance between

249-403: A local Agenda 21 and more and more companies and organisations also align their strategic plan with the strategic plan of Agenda21. With the approaching of the year 2000, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was compelled to develop something that existed in the private sector: setting out a long term plan, a mid term plan and a short term planning. This endeavour supports on Agenda21 and was named

332-410: A sustainable yield (the rate of harvest should not exceed the rate of regeneration); for non-renewable resources there should be equivalent development of renewable substitutes; waste generation should not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment. In 2019, a summary for policymakers of the largest, most comprehensive study to date of biodiversity and ecosystem services was published by

415-538: A "lack of concrete understanding of what "sustainability policies" might entail in practice". A study concluded in 2007 that knowledge, manufactured and human capital (health and education) has not compensated for the degradation of natural capital in many parts of the world. It has been suggested that intergenerational equity can be incorporated into a sustainable development and decision making, as has become common in economic valuations of climate economics . The World Business Council for Sustainable Development published

498-541: A Vision 2050 document in 2021 to show "How business can lead the transformations the world needs". The vision states that "we envision a world in which 9+billion people can live well, within planetary boundaries , by 2050." This report was highlighted by The Guardian as "the largest concerted corporate sustainability action plan to date – include reversing the damage done to ecosystems, addressing rising greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring societies move to sustainable agriculture." There are many reasons why sustainability

581-532: A balance between economic development , environmental protection , and social well-being . However, scholars have pointed out that there are manifold understandings of sustainable development. Also there are incoherencies in the dominant market-based socio-economic-political organisation. Attempts towards universal sustainable development need to account for the extremely varied challenges, circumstances, and choices that shape prospects and prosperity for all, everywhere. The discourse of sustainable development

664-492: A dynamic approach to the theory, a dynamism that has been advocated by Ul Haq and Sen, in spite of the implicit criticism of those two figures. In an attempt to promote human development, the United Nations supports decennial Earth Summits where UN members discuss a plan of action called Agenda 21  – an agenda to make sure humanity will still be around after the year 2100. Thousands of cities now have

747-403: A growth in the gross domestic product. This model of unlimited personal and GDP growth may be over. Sustainable development may involve improvements in the quality of life for many but may necessitate a decrease in resource consumption . "Growth" generally ignores the direct effect that the environment may have on social welfare, whereas "development" takes it into account. As early as the 1970s,

830-431: A healthy environment. No new ethic is required. This so-called weak version of sustainability is popular among governments, and businesses, but profoundly wrong and not even weak , as there is no alternative to preserving the earth's ecological integrity." Scholars have stated that sustainable development is open-ended, much critiqued as ambiguous, incoherent, and therefore easily appropriated. Sustainable development

913-413: A long and healthy life, to be educated, to enjoy a decent standard of living", as well as "political freedom, other guaranteed human rights and various ingredients of self-respect". Thus, human development is about much more than economic growth, which is only a means of enlarging people's choices. Human Development has roots in ancient philosophy and early economic theory. Aristotle noted that "Wealth

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996-498: A more diverse approach to individual incentives. This will involve a shift from seeing people as agents in control of their choices selecting from a set of possibilities utilizing human capital as one of many assets. Instead, theorists should see people as having more mutable choices influenced by social structures and changeable capacities and using a humanistic approach to theory including factors relating to an individual's culture, age, gender, and family roles. These extensions express

1079-437: A simple story by the end of primary school." While schooling has increased rapidly over the last few decades, learning has not followed suit. Universal Primary Education was one of the eight international Millennium Development Goals , towards which progress has been made in the past decade, though barriers still remain. Securing charitable funding from prospective donors is one particularly persistent problem. Researchers at

1162-633: A suburb of Chemnitz. He was the son of Saxon forest master Georg Carl von Carlowitz. The Thirty Years' War had caused much trouble and the Rabenstein Castle was also damaged leading to the family moving to Altschönfels in 1652. Young von Carlowitz grew up in the estate of Arnsdorf. In 1659 he studied at the Lycei Halensis. Fiver years later he went to study law and public administration in Jena , learned foreign languages, travelled as part of

1245-487: Is a conservative approach on both economic and political terms. Second, progressive sustainability is an economically conservative, yet politically reformist approach. Under this framing, sustainable development is still centered on economic growth, which is deemed compatible with environmental sustainability. However, human well-being and development can only be achieved through a redistribution of power to even out inequalities between developed and developing countries. Third,

1328-521: Is a structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies. This inhibits necessary societal change. Furthermore, there are several barriers related to the difficulties of implementing sustainability policies. There are trade-offs between the goals of environmental policies and economic development. Environmental goals include nature conservation. Development may focus on poverty reduction. There are also trade-offs between short-term profit and long-term viability. Political pressures generally favor

1411-432: Is a way for people and nations to see the policy flaws of regions and countries. Although the releasing of this information is believed to encourage countries to alter their policies, there is no evidence demonstrating changes nor is there any motivation for countries to do so. The Human Development Index ( HDI ) is the normalized measure of life expectancy , education and per capita income for countries worldwide. It

1494-696: Is an annual publication released by the UNDP's Human Development Report Office and contains the Human Development Index. Within global HDR there are four main indexes: Human Development Index, Gender-related Development Index, Gender Empowerment Measure and the Human Poverty Index. There are not only a global Human Development Reports but there are also regional and national reports. The Regional, National and subnational (for portions of countries) HDRs take various approaches, according to

1577-428: Is an improved standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare and thus human development. Although this index makes an effort to simplify human development, it is much more complex than any index or set of indicators. The 2007 report showed a small increase in world HDI in comparison with the previous year's report. This rise was fueled by a general improvement in the developing world , especially of

1660-596: Is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful for something else", and Adam Smith and Karl Marx were concerned with human capabilities. The theory grew in importance in the 1980s with the work of Amartya Sen and his Human Capabilities perspective, which played a role in his receiving the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics. Notable early active economists who formulated the modern concept of human development theory were Mahbub ul Haq , Üner Kirdar , and Amartya Sen. The Human Development Index developed for

1743-717: Is highly influential in global and national governance frameworks , though its meaning and operationalization are context-dependent and have evolved over time. The evolution of this discourse can for example be seen in the transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, years 2000 to 2015) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, years 2015 to 2030). Sustainable development has its roots in ideas regarding sustainable forest management , which were developed in Europe during

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1826-735: Is leading SDG 4 , covering all aspects of education. Through initiatives, projects, conventions and events, UNESCO addresses issues related to education and shapes its future. The UN agency has established the Convention against Discrimination in Education , the Convention on Higher Education Qualifications and the Futures of Education initiative. In September 2022, the Transformation Education Summit sounded

1909-407: Is meant to provide a broader view of human development and is adapted to developed countries to reveal social exclusion . The Social Progress Index is published by the non-profit Social Progress Imperative . It combines indicators related to social welfare, equality, personal freedom and sustainability. Leandro Prados de la Escosura has an alternative dataset for human development, which he calls

1992-537: Is possible that we can find ways to replace some natural resources, it is much less likely that they will ever be able to replace ecosystem services , such as the protection provided by the ozone layer, or the climate stabilizing function of the Amazonian forest. The concept of sustainable development has been criticized from different angles. While some see it as paradoxical (or an oxymoron ) and regard development as inherently unsustainable, others are disappointed in

2075-453: Is so difficult to achieve. These reasons have the name sustainability barriers . Before addressing these barriers it is important to analyze and understand them. Some barriers arise from nature and its complexity ("everything is related"). Others arise from the human condition. One example is the value-action gap . This reflects the fact that people often do not act according to their convictions. Experts describe these barriers as intrinsic to

2158-541: Is the foundational concept of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Policies to achieve the SDGs are meant to cohere around this concept. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development , adopted by all United Nations (UN) members in 2015, created 17 world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim of these global goals is " peace and prosperity for people and the planet" – while tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests. The SDGs highlight

2241-628: Is to be guided and judged. Since the Brundtland Report , the concept of sustainable development has developed beyond the initial intergenerational framework to focus more on the goal of "socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable economic growth ". In 1992, the UN Conference on Environment and Development published the Earth Charter , which outlines the building of a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in

2324-512: Is used up faster than it can be replenished. Sustainability requires that human activity only uses nature's resources at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally. The concept of sustainable development is intertwined with the concept of carrying capacity . Theoretically, the long-term result of environmental degradation is the inability to sustain human life. Important operational principles of sustainable development were published by Herman Daly in 1990: renewable resources should provide

2407-616: The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services . It recommended that human civilization will need a transformative change, including sustainable agriculture , reductions in consumption and waste, fishing quotas and collaborative water management. Environmental problems associated with industrial agriculture and agribusiness are now being addressed through approaches such as sustainable agriculture , organic farming and more sustainable business practices . At

2490-523: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which ran from 2000–2015. The United Nations made a commitment to accomplish these goals by 2015 and thus make an attempt to promote human development. As the experience of this exercise was perceived successful, a follow-up program was developed and named as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). There are six basic pillars of human development: equity, sustainability, productivity, empowerment, cooperation and security. The Global Human Development Reports (HDR)

2573-555: The Overseas Development Institute have indicated that the main obstacles to funding for education include conflicting donor priorities, an immature aid architecture, and a lack of evidence and advocacy for the issue. Additionally, Transparency International has identified corruption in the education sector as a major stumbling block to achieving Universal Primary Education in Africa. Furthermore, demand in

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2656-606: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stems from this early research. In 2000, Sen and Sudhir Anand published a notable development of the theory to address issues in sustainability. Martha Nussbaum 's publications in the late 1990s and 2000s pushed theorists to pay more attention to the human in the theory, and particularly to human emotion. A separate approach stems in part from needs theories of psychology which in part started with Abraham Maslow (1968). Representative of these are

2739-535: The least developed countries group. This marked improvement at the bottom was offset with a decrease in HDI of high income countries . To reflect gaps in the Human Development Index, the United Nations came out with the Human Poverty Index (HPI) in 1997 . The HPI measures the deficiencies in the three indexes of the human development index: long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. The HPI

2822-459: The 17th and 18th centuries. In response to a growing awareness of the depletion of timber resources in England, John Evelyn argued, in his 1662 essay Sylva , that "sowing and planting of trees had to be regarded as a national duty of every landowner, in order to stop the destructive over- exploitation of natural resources ." In 1713, Hans Carl von Carlowitz , a senior mining administrator in

2905-615: The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro has placed the concept of sustainable development on the international agenda. Sustainable development is the foundational concept of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These global goals for the year 2030 were adopted in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). They address the global challenges, including for example poverty , climate change , biodiversity loss , and peace. There are some problems with

2988-409: The 21st century. The action plan Agenda 21 for sustainable development identified information, integration, and participation as key building blocks to help countries achieve development that recognizes these interdependent pillars. Furthermore, Agenda 21 emphasizes that broad public participation in decision-making is a fundamental prerequisite for achieving sustainable development. The Rio Protocol

3071-713: The Agenda 21 document was declared, the 'Future we want' document was proclaimed in the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, stating that "We resolve to promote education for sustainable development and to integrate sustainable development more actively into education beyond the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development." Human development (economics) The United Nations Development Programme defines human development as "the process of enlarging people's choices", said choices allowing them to "lead

3154-578: The Augmented Human Development Index. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in September 2015, calls for a new vision to address the environmental, social and economic concerns facing the world today. The Agenda includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 4 on education. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

3237-745: The Future" for the US Congress , the first hearings ever held on sustainable development. In 1980, the International Union for Conservation of Nature published a world conservation strategy that included one of the first references to sustainable development as a global priority and introduced the term "sustainable development". Two years later, the United Nations World Charter for Nature raised five principles of conservation by which human conduct affecting nature

3320-569: The Human-Scale Development approach developed by Manfred Max-Neef in the mid-to-late 1980s which addresses human needs and satisfiers which are more or less static across time and context. Anthropologists and sociologists have also challenged perspectives on Human Development Theory that stem from neoclassical economics. Examples of scholars include, Diane Elson , Raymond Apthorpe, Irene van Staveren, and Ananta Giri. Elson (1997) proposes that human development should move towards

3403-652: The Millennium Declaration from the year 2000 with its eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the first comprehensive global governance framework for the achievement of sustainable development. The SDGs have concrete targets (unlike the results from the Rio Process) but no methods for sanctions. They contain goals, targets and indicators for example in the areas of poverty reduction, environmental protection , human prosperity and peace . Sustainability means different things to different people, and

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3486-414: The alarm on the need for global solutions. On this occasion, UNESCO published a report on a "new social contract for education", calling for a "peaceful, just and sustainable" future and underlining the importance of education in profound societal changes. Since 1909, the percentage of children in the developing world attending school has increased. Before then, a small minority of boys attended school. By

3569-422: The authors wrote: "We are searching for a model output that represents a world system that is sustainable without sudden and uncontrolled collapse and capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all of its people." The year 1972 also saw the publication of the influential book, A Blueprint for Survival . In 1975, an MIT research group prepared ten days of hearings on "Growth and Its Implication for

3652-467: The capacities to measure progress towards sustainable development; promote equity within and between generations; adapt to shocks and surprises; transform the system onto more sustainable development pathways; link knowledge with action for sustainability; and to devise governance arrangements that allow people to work together. During the MDG era (year 2000 to 2015), the key objective of sustainable development

3735-403: The concept of sustainability was used to describe an economy "in equilibrium with basic ecological support systems". Scientists in many fields have highlighted The Limits to Growth , and economists have presented alternatives, for example a ' steady-state economy ', to address concerns over the impacts of expanding human development on the planet. In 1987, the economist Edward Barbier published

3818-446: The concept of sustainability. Other barriers are extrinsic to the concept of sustainability. This means it is possible to overcome them. One way would be to put a price tag on the consumption of public goods. Some extrinsic barriers relate to the nature of dominant institutional frameworks. Examples would be where market mechanisms fail for public goods . Existing societies, economies, and cultures encourage increased consumption. There

3901-441: The concept of sustainable development better known. Sustainable development overlaps with the idea of sustainability which is a normative concept . UNESCO formulated a distinction between the two concepts as follows: " Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal (i.e. a more sustainable world), while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it." The Rio Process that began at

3984-427: The concept of sustainable development has led to a diversity of discourses that legitimize competing sociopolitical projects. Global environmental governance scholars have identified a comprehensive set of discourses within the public space that mostly convey four sustainability frames: mainstream sustainability, progressive sustainability, a limits discourse, and radical sustainability. First, mainstream sustainability

4067-560: The concept of sustainable development. Some scholars say it is an oxymoron because according to them, development is inherently unsustainable. Other commentators are disappointed in the lack of progress that has been achieved so far. Scholars have stated that sustainable development is open-ended, much critiqued as ambiguous, incoherent, and therefore easily appropriated. In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development released

4150-828: The connections between the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable development. Sustainability is at the center of the SDGs, as the term sustainable development implies. The short titles of the 17 SDGs are: No poverty ( SDG 1 ), Zero hunger ( SDG 2 ), Good health and well-being ( SDG 3 ), Quality education ( SDG 4 ), Gender equality ( SDG 5 ), Clean water and sanitation ( SDG 6 ), Affordable and clean energy ( SDG 7 ), Decent work and economic growth ( SDG 8 ), Industry, innovation and infrastructure ( SDG 9 ), Reduced inequalities ( SDG 10 ), Sustainable cities and communities ( SDG 11 ), Responsible consumption and production ( SDG 12 ), Climate action ( SDG 13 ), Life below water ( SDG 14 ), Life on land ( SDG 15 ), Peace, justice, and strong institutions ( SDG 16 ), and Partnerships for

4233-502: The developing environmental movement drew attention to the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation . Kenneth E. Boulding , in his influential 1966 essay The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth , identified the need for the economic system to fit itself to the ecological system with its limited pools of resources. Another milestone was the 1968 article by Garrett Hardin that popularized

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4316-630: The developing world for improved educational access is not as high as foreigners have expected. Indigenous governments are reluctant to take on the ongoing costs involved. There is also economic pressure from some parents, who prefer their children to earn money in the short term rather than work towards the long-term benefits of education. A study conducted by the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning indicates that stronger capacities in educational planning and management may have an important spill-over effect on

4399-428: The economic news and instructions for the natural growing of wild trees, besides thorough explanation how with gods good will the ever stronger scarcity of timber is to be managed by sowing, growing and planting of seedlings, also through wild and planned cultivation of a once cut and barren land can again be made useful as timber land - through the collection of seeds from seed trees, the preparation of soil for sowing and

4482-499: The exhaustion of earth's finite stock; this perspective renders the Industrial Revolution as a whole unsustainable. The sustainable development debate is based on the assumption that societies need to manage three types of capital (economic, social, and natural), which may be non-substitutable and whose consumption might be irreversible. Natural capital can not necessarily be substituted by economic capital. While it

4565-526: The foothills of the Ore Mountains , was known for its silver mines . In this post, he was responsible, among other things, for the supply of timber to the mining industry, which employed about ten thousand miners at the time. He married Ursula Margaretha, daughter of Christoph Dietrich von Bose in 1675. They had five children. He died in Freiberg . The idea of sustainability , wherever it occurs in

4648-521: The forced discipline of the French minister Jean Baptiste Colbert , who had enacted a forestry reform in France . He may also have come across John Evelyn 's work Sylva (1662). His importance as author is in the fact that he was the first one who comprehensively wrote about forestry. His treatise is a compilation of the knowledge about forest management at the time. He used his own experience to expand

4731-469: The forests. First, the river systems in the Erzgebirge was engineered, so logs could be transported from ever more distant forest areas, but these measures only postponed the crisis. The prices for timber rose ever more, which led to bankruptcy and closure of parts of the mining industry. Von Carlowitz was raised in and influenced by this environment. He traveled widely in his youth and learned much from

4814-494: The goals ( SDG 17 ). Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a term officially used by the United Nations . It is defined as education practices that encourage changes in knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to enable a more sustainable and just society for humanity. ESD aims to empower and equip current and future generations to meet their needs using a balanced and integrated approach to sustainable development's economic, social, and environmental dimensions. Agenda 21

4897-412: The grand tour to France, Russia and Italy. In 1671 he joined his father who was involved in settling disputes on the border with Bohemia. In 1672 he became a chamberlain and again assisted his father. Elector Johann Georg II appointed him as a mining inspector in 1679. In 1711 he became Oberberghauptmann in charge of mining at the court of Kursachsen in Freiberg (Sachsen) . Freiberg, which is located in

4980-546: The history, emerges in time of crisis and scarcity. Around 1700, the mining industry and livelihood of thousands was threatened in Saxony . It was not that the mines had been exhausted of their ores, the problem was an acute scarcity of timber. The mining industry and smelting of ores had consumed whole forests. In the vicinity of places of mining activity the old growth forests had disappeared completely. Trees had been cut at unsustainable rates for decades without efforts to restore

5063-496: The lack of progress that has been achieved so far. Part of the problem is that "development" itself is not consistently defined. The vagueness of the Brundtland definition of sustainable development has been criticized as follows: The definition has "opened up the possibility of downplaying sustainability. Hence, governments spread the message that we can have it all at the same time, i.e. economic growth, prospering societies and

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5146-399: The linear path of materials (extraction, use, disposal in landfill) to a circular material flow that reuses materials as much as possible, much like the cycling and reuse of waste in nature. This way of thinking is expressed in the concept of circular economy , which employs reuse , sharing , repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing and recycling to create a closed-loop system, minimizing

5229-449: The local level there are various movements working towards sustainable food systems which may include less meat consumption, local food production, slow food , sustainable gardening , and organic gardening . The environmental effects of different dietary patterns depend on many factors, including the proportion of animal and plant foods consumed and the method of food production. As global population and affluence have increased, so has

5312-404: The report Our Common Future , commonly called the Brundtland Report . The report included a definition of "sustainable development" which is now widely used: Sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains two key concepts within it: Sustainable development thus tries to find

5395-434: The same thing in this context. The three dimensions paradigm has few theoretical foundations. Countries could develop systems for monitoring and evaluation of progress towards achieving sustainable development by adopting indicators that measure changes across economic, social and environmental dimensions. Six interdependent capacities are deemed to be necessary for the successful pursuit of sustainable development. These are

5478-471: The science of forestry. This, in turn, influenced people like Gifford Pinchot , the first head of the US Forest Service , whose approach to forest management was driven by the idea of wise use of resources, and Aldo Leopold whose land ethic was influential in the development of the environmental movement in the 1960s. Following the publication of Rachel Carson 's Silent Spring in 1962,

5561-803: The scientific knowledge base that remained after the devastation of the Thirty Years' War . Hans Carl von Carlowitz was the first one to clearly formulate the concept of sustainability in forestry (pages 105–106 in the Sylvicultura Oeconomica ). "Wird derhalben die größte Kunst/Wissenschaft/Fleiß und Einrichtung hiesiger Lande darinnen beruhen / wie eine sothane Conservation und Anbau des Holtzes anzustellen / daß es eine continuierliche beständige und nachhaltende Nutzung gebe / weiln es eine unentberliche Sache ist / ohne welche das Land in seinem Esse nicht bleiben mag." The full title of his book loosely translates as: Sylvicultura Oeconomica, or

5644-409: The service of Elector Frederick Augustus I of Saxony published Sylvicultura economics , a 400-page work on forestry. Building upon the ideas of Evelyn and French minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert , von Carlowitz developed the concept of managing forests for sustained yield . His work influenced others, including Alexander von Humboldt and Georg Ludwig Hartig , eventually leading to the development of

5727-435: The short term over the long term. So they form a barrier to actions oriented toward improving sustainability. The concept of sustainable development has been and still is, subject to criticism, including the question of what is to be sustained in sustainable development. It has been argued that there is no such thing as sustainable use of a non-renewable resource , since any positive rate of exploitation will eventually lead to

5810-468: The start of the twenty-first century, the majority of children in most regions of the world attended some form of school. By 2016, over 91 percent of children are enrolled in formal primary schooling. However, a learning crisis has emerged across the globe, due to the fact that a large proportion of students enrolled in school are not learning. A World Bank study found that "53 percent of children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand

5893-548: The strategic thinking of the individual authorship groups that craft the individual reports. In the United States, for example, Measure of America has been publishing human development reports since 2008 with a modified index, the human development index American Human Development Index , which measures the same three basic dimensions but uses slightly different indicators to better reflect the U.S. context and to maximize use of available data. The Human Development Index

5976-399: The study The Concept of Sustainable Economic Development , where he recognized that goals of environmental conservation and economic development are not conflicting and can be reinforcing each other. A World Bank study from 1999 concluded that based on the theory of genuine savings (defined as "traditional net savings less the value of resource depletion and environmental degradation plus

6059-500: The system as a whole. Sustainable capacity development requires complex interventions at the institutional, organizational and individual levels that could be based on some foundational principles: Hans Carl von Carlowitz Hans Carl von Carlowitz or Hannß Carl von Carlowitz (24 December 1645 – 3 March 1714), was a Saxon tax accountant and mining administrator. His book Sylvicultura oeconomica, oder haußwirthliche Nachricht und Naturmäßige Anweisung zur wilden Baum-Zucht (1713)

6142-482: The term " tragedy of the commons ". The direct linking of sustainability and development in a contemporary sense can be traced to the early 1970s. "Strategy of Progress", a 1972 book (in German) by Ernst Basler, explained how the long-acknowledged sustainability concept of preserving forests for future wood production can be directly transferred to the broader importance of preserving environmental resources to sustain

6225-437: The three dimensions should be achieved. Instead of calling them dimensions , other terms commonly used are pillars , domains , aspects , spheres . Scholars usually distinguish three different areas of sustainability. These are the environmental, the social, and the economic. Several terms are in use for this concept. Authors may speak of three pillars, dimensions, components, aspects, perspectives, factors, or goals. All mean

6308-520: The use of resource inputs and the creation of waste , pollution and carbon emissions. The European Commission has adopted an ambitious Circular Economy Action Plan in 2020, which aims at making sustainable products the norm in the EU. It has been suggested that because of the rural poverty and overexploitation , environmental resources should be treated as important economic assets, called natural capital . Economic development has traditionally required

6391-416: The use of various materials increased in volume, diversity, and distance transported. By 2050, humanity could consume an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year (three times its current amount) unless the economic growth rate is decoupled from the rate of natural resource consumption . Sustainable use of materials has targeted the idea of dematerialization , converting

6474-426: The value of investment in human capital "), policymakers have many possible interventions to increase sustainability, in macroeconomics or purely environmental. Several studies have noted that efficient policies for renewable energy and pollution are compatible with increasing human welfare, eventually reaching a golden-rule steady state. A meta review in 2002 looked at environmental and economic valuations and found

6557-569: The world for future generations. That same year, the interrelationship of environment and development was formally demonstrated in a systems dynamic simulation model reported in the classic report on Limits to Growth . This was commissioned by the Club of Rome and written by a group of scientists led by Dennis and Donella Meadows of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Describing the desirable "state of global equilibrium",

6640-405: Was a huge leap forward: for the first time, the world agreed on a sustainability agenda. In fact, a global consensus was facilitated by neglecting concrete goals and operational details. The most comprehensive global governance framework for sustainable development is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This agenda was a follow-up to

6723-586: Was poverty reduction to be reached through economic growth and participation in the global trade system. The SDGs take a much more comprehensive approach to sustainable development than the MDGs did. They offer a more people-centred development agenda. Out of the 17 SDGs , for example, 11 goals contain targets related to equity, equality or inclusion, and SDG 10 is solely devoted to addressing inequality within and among countries. An unsustainable situation occurs when natural capital (the total of nature's resources)

6806-479: Was the first comprehensive treatise about forestry. He approached forestry from the fears of a shortage of wood needed for the mining industry. He coined the term Nachhaltigkeit, now translated as "sustainable" while referring to the use of forests and is considered to be the father of sustainable yield forestry. Von Carlowitz was born in Oberrabenstein  [ de ] close to Chemnitz , nowadays

6889-517: Was the first international document that identified education as an essential tool for achieving sustainable development and highlighted areas of action for education. ESD is a component of measurement in an indicator for Sustainable Development Goal 12 (SDG) for "responsible consumption and production". SDG 12 has 11 targets, and target 12.8 is "By 2030, ensure that people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature." 20 years after

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