Practical Sustainability Strategies, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 2Development of the Sustainability Concept and CSR

In 1983, the United Nations convened the World Commission on Environment and Development and was chaired by Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland who was the Prime Minister of Norway at the time. The agenda of this commission was the concern with the accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social development. The final report was published in 1987 as “Our Common Future” [1] and resulted in the definition of sustainable development, or sustainability for short:

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

This has become now well-known as the Brundtland definition of sustainability, but there are many other definitions that really all mean the same—protecting the environment so it will be available for the people forever. A definition developed for the Center for Sustainable Enterprise at the Illinois Institute of Technology—Stuart School of Business [2] is:

The practice of sustainable development assures that the natural resources and energy we use to provide today's products and services will not deny future generations the resources necessary to meet their needs while building and preserving communities that are economically, socially and environmentally healthy.

The impact on the environment can also be presented as a mathematical ...