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This article was published in the April 2005 issue of Environment:

Science and Policy for Sustainable Development , Volume 47,

Number 3, pages 8–21. © Robert W. Kates, Thomas M. Parris,

and Anthony A. Leiserowitz, 2005. For more information about

Environment , see http://www.heldref.org/env.php

WHAT IS

SUSTAINABLE

DEVELOPMENT?

GOALS, INDICATORS, VALUES, AND PRACTICE

By Robert W. Kates, Thomas M. Parris, and Anthony A. Leiserowitz

Sustainable development is. . .

Considering that the concept of sustainable development is now

enshrined on the masthead of Environment magazine, featured

on 8,720,000 Web pages, 1 and enmeshed in the aspirations of

countless programs, places, and institutions, it should be easy to

complete the sentence. 2 But the most widely accepted definition

is creatively ambiguous: “Humanity has the ability to make devel-

opment sustainable—to ensure that it meets the needs of the

present without compromising the ability of future generations

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to meet their own needs.” 3 This malleabil-

ity allows programs of environment or

development; places from local to global;

and institutions of government, civil soci-

ety, business, and industry to each project

their interests, hopes, and aspirations onto

the banner of sustainable development.

A brief history of the concept, along

with the interpretive differences and the

common ground in definitions, goals,

indicators, values, and practice follows.

Taken together, these help explain what

is meant by sustainable development.

were often followed by global confer-

ences. Characteristic of these interna-

tional commissions was the effort to

link together the aspirations of human-

kind—demonstrating how the pursuit

of one great value required the others.

Sustainable development, with its dual

emphasis on the most recent concerns—

development and environment—is typi-

cal of such efforts.

The World Commission on Environ-

ment and Development was initiated

by the General Assembly of the United

Nations in 1982, and its report, Our Com-

mon Future , was published in 1987. 7 It

was chaired by then–Prime Minister of

Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland, thus

earning the name the “Brundtland Com-

mission.” The commission’s member-

ship was split between developed and

developing countries. Its roots were in

the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the

Human Environment—where the con-

flicts between environment and devel-

opment were first acknowledged—and

nations should do to become richer,” and

thus again is automatically dismissed by

many in the international arena as being

a concern of specialists, of those involved

in questions of “development assistance.”

But the “environment” is where we live;

and “development” is what we all do in

attempting to improve our lot within that

abode. The two are inseparable. 9

As with previous efforts, the report

was followed by major international

meetings. The United Nations Confer-

ence on Environment and Development

(UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (the

so-called “Earth Summit”) issued a dec-

laration of principles, a detailed Agen-

da 21 of desired actions, international

agreements on climate change and biodi-

versity, and a statement of principles on

forests. 10 Ten years later, in 2002, at the

World Summit on Sustainable Develop-

ment in Johannesburg, South Africa, the

commitment to sustainable development

was reaffirmed. 11 In the interim, sustain-

Antecedents

In the last half of the twentieth century,

four key themes emerged from the col-

lective concerns and aspirations of the

world’s peoples: peace, freedom, devel-

opment, and environment. 4 The peace

that was thought to be secured in the

postwar world of 1945 was immedi-

ately threatened by the nuclear arms race.

Throughout the Cold War, peace was sus-

tained globally but fought locally, often

by proxies for the superpowers. While

the number of wars has diminished over

the last decade, 5 peace is still sought, pri-

marily in Africa and the Middle East.

Freedom was sought early in the post-

war world in the struggle to end imperi-

alism; to halt totalitarian oppression; and

later to extend democratic governance,

human rights, and the rights of women,

indigenous peoples, and minorities. The

success of many former colonies in attain-

ing national independence was followed

by a focus on economic development to

provide basic necessities for the poor-

est two-thirds of the world and higher

standards of living for the wealthy third.

Finally, it is only in the past 40 years that

the environment (local to global) became

a key focus of national and international

law and institutions.

Although reinterpreted over time,

peace, freedom, development, and the

environment remain prominent issues

and aspirations. In the 1970s and 1980s,

world commissions of notables 6 were

created to study such international con-

cerns, producing major documents that

Although reinterpreted over time, peace,

freedom, development, and the environment

remain prominent issues and aspirations.

in the 1980 World Conservation Strat-

egy of the International Union for the

Conservation of Nature, which argued

for conservation as a means to assist

development and specifically for the

sustainable development and utilization

of species, ecosystems, and resources. 8

Drawing on these, the Brundtland Com-

mission began its work committed to the

unity of environment and development.

As Brundtland argued:

able development as a concept, as a goal,

and as a movement spread rapidly and

is now central to the mission of count-

less international organizations, national

institutions, corporate enterprises, “sus-

tainable cities,” and locales.

Definitions

The Brundtland Commission’s brief

definition of sustainable development as

the “ability to make development sustain-

able—to ensure that it meets the needs

of the present without compromising the

ability of future generations to meet their

own needs” 12 is surely the standard defi-

nition when judged by its widespread use

and frequency of citation. The use of this

definition has led many to see sustainable

development as having a major focus on

The environment does not exist as a sphere

separate from human actions, ambitions,

and needs, and attempts to defend it

in isolation from human concerns have

given the very word “environment” a

connotation of naivety in some political

circles. The word “development” has also

been narrowed by some into a very lim-

ited focus, along the lines of “what poor

10 E NVIRONMENT

A PRIL 2005

intergenerational equity. Although the

brief definition does not explicitly men-

tion the environment or development,

the subsequent paragraphs, while rarely

quoted, are clear. On development, the

report states that human needs are basic

and essential; that economic growth—

but also equity to share resources with

the poor—is required to sustain them;

and that equity is encouraged by effec-

tive citizen participation. On the environ-

ment, the text is also clear:

assemble under the sustainable devel-

opment tent, also created a veritable

industry of deciphering and advocat-

ing what sustainable development really

means. One important study—by the

Board on Sustainable Development of

the U.S. National Academy of Scienc-

es—sought to bring some order to the

broad literature its members reviewed. 14

In its report, Our Common Journey:

A Transition toward Sustainability , the

board focused on the seemingly inher-

ent distinction between what advocates

and analysts sought to sustain and what

they sought to develop, the relationship

between the two, and the time horizon of

the future (see Figure 1 on this page).

Thus under the heading “what is to

be sustained,” the board identified three

major categories—nature, life support

systems, and community—as well as

intermediate categories for each, such

as Earth, environment, and cultures.

Drawing from the surveyed literature,

the board found that most commonly,

emphasis was placed on life support

systems, which defined nature or envi-

ronment as a source of services for the

utilitarian life support of humankind.

The study of ecosystem services has

strengthened this definition over time.

In contrast, some of the sustainable

development literature valued nature

for its intrinsic value rather than its

utility for human beings. There were

also parallel demands to sustain cultural

diversity, including livelihoods, groups,

and places that constitute distinctive and

threatened communities.

Similarly, there were three quite dis-

tinct ideas about what should be devel-

oped: people, economy, and society.

Much of the early literature focused

on economic development, with pro-

ductive sectors providing employment,

desired consumption, and wealth. More

recently, attention has shifted to human

development, including an emphasis on

values and goals, such as increased

life expectancy, education, equity, and

opportunity. Finally, the Board on Sus-

tainable Development also identified

calls to develop society that emphasized

the values of security and well-being of

The concept of sustainable development

does imply limits—not absolute limits but

limitations imposed by the present state

of technology and social organization on

environmental resources and by the ability

of the biosphere to absorb the effects of

human activities. 13

In the years following the Brundtland

Commission’s report, the creative ambi-

guity of the standard definition, while

allowing a range of disparate groups to

Figure 1. Deﬁnitions of sustainable development

WHAT IS TO

BE SUSTAINED:

FOR HOW LONG?

25 years

“Now and in

the future”

Forever

WHAT IS TO

BE DEVELOPED:

NATURE

Earth

Biodiversity

Ecosystems

PEOPLE

Child survival

Life expectancy

Education

Equity

Equal opportunity

LINKED BY

Only

Mostly

But

And

LIFE SUPPORT

Ecosystem

services

Resources

Environment

ECONOMY

Wealth

Productive

sectors

Consumption

COMMUNITY

Cultures

Groups

Places

SOCIETY

Institutions

Social capital

States

Regions

SOURCE: U.S. National Research Council, Policy Division, Board on Sustainable

Development, Our Common Journey: A Transition Toward Sustainability

(Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999).

V OLUME 47 N UMBER 3

E NVIRONMENT 11

national states, regions, and institutions

as well as the social capital of relation-

ships and community ties.

There was ready agreement in the

literature that sustainable development

implies linking what is to be sustained

with what is to be developed, but here,

too, the emphasis has often differed from

extremes of “sustain only” to “develop

mostly” to various forms of “and/or.”

Similarly, the time period of concern,

ambiguously described in the standard

definition as “now and in the future,” has

differed widely. It has been defined from

as little as a generation—when almost

everything is sustainable—to forever—

when surely nothing is sustainable.

The 2002 World Summit on Sustain-

able Development marked a further

expansion of the standard definition

with the widely used three pillars of

sustainable development: economic,

social, and environmental. The Johan-

nesburg Declaration created “a col-

lective responsibility to advance and

strengthen the interdependent and mutu-

ally reinforcing pillars of sustainable

development—economic development,

social development and environmental

protection—at local, national, regional

and global levels.” 15 In so doing, the

World Summit addressed a running con-

cern over the limits of the framework of

environment and development, wherein

development was widely viewed solely

as economic development. For many

under the common tent of sustainable

development, such a narrow defini-

tion obscured their concerns for human

development, equity, and social justice.

Thus while the three pillars were rap-

idly adopted, there was no universal

agreement as to their details. A Web

search of the phrase “three pillars of

sustainable development” finds a wide

variety of environmental, economic,

and social pillars with differences most

pronounced in characterizing the social

pillar. Three major variants of social

development are found, each of which

seeks to compensate for elements miss-

ing in the narrow focus on econom-

ic development. The first is simply a

generic noneconomic social designation

that uses terms such as “social,” “social

development,” and “social progress.”

(2015) goals of the Millennium Decla-

ration of the United Nations; the two-

generation goals (2050) of the Sustain-

ability Transition of the Board on Sus-

tainable Development; and the long-term

(beyond 2050) goals of the Great Transi-

tion of the Global Scenario Group.

UN Millennium Declaration

To mark the millennium, heads of

state gathered in New York at the United

Nations in September 2000. There, the

UN General Assembly adopted some

60 goals regarding peace; development;

environment; human rights; the vulner-

able, hungry, and poor; Africa; and the

Another way to define sustainable development

is in what it specifically seeks to achieve.

The second emphasizes human develop-

ment as opposed to economic develop-

ment: “human development,” “human

well-being,” or just “people.” The third

variant focuses on issues of justice and

equity: “social justice,’’ “equity,” and

“poverty alleviation.”

United Nations. 16 Many of these con-

tained specific targets, such as cutting

poverty in half or insuring universal

primary school education by 2015. For

eight of the major goals, progress is

monitored by international agencies. 17

In 2004, these agencies concluded that

at existing rates of progress, many

countries will fall short of these goals,

particularly in Africa. Yet the goals still

seemed attainable by collective action

by the world community and national

governments. To do so, the Millenni-

um Project, commissioned by the UN

secretary-general, recently estimated

that the additional financial resources

Goals

Another way to define sustainable

development is in what it specifically

seeks to achieve. To illustrate, it is help-

ful to examine three sets of goals that use

different time-horizons: the short-term

12 E NVIRONMENT

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