Understanding Sustainability and Sustainable Development
Dr. Siby K. Joseph
Director, International Online Fellowship Program on Nonviolence and Peace
(IFPNP)
Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan, Wardha, Maharashtra, India
1. Introduction:
While addressing the fellows of the IFPNP last year, I
stated that "sustainability" has become an overused cliché, causing
confusion about what it stands for. I also referred to Michael D. Lemonick’s
(former editor at Scientific American and Time) article,
"Top 10 Myths About Sustainability," published in Scientific
American Special Editions Vol. 19, No. 1s (March 2009).
These ten myths reveal that sustainability is not merely
about the environment, nor is it a synonym for "green" or recycling.
Achieving it does not mean lowering our standard of living, nor can it be
accomplished solely through consumer choices, grassroots activism, population
limits, or technology.
He concludes that: “You cannot really declare any
practice 'sustainable' until you have done a complete life-cycle analysis of
its environmental costs. Even then, technology and public policy keep evolving,
and that evolution can lead to unforeseen and unintended consequences. The
admirable goal of living sustainably requires plenty of thought on an ongoing
basis.”
Even though he calls these statements myths, they highlight
real-world concerns. Ultimately, these myths serve as a diagnostic map, showing
exactly where society experiences confusion, vulnerability, and friction in the
transition to a sustainable future.
If you refer to the meaning of the term
"sustainability," you can see that it refers to something that lasts
for a longer period of time. For example, according to the Cambridge
Dictionary, sustainability means "the quality of being able to continue
over a period of time." In relation to the environment, it states that
it is "the quality of causing little or no damage to the environment
and therefore able to continue for a long time." Linking it further
with natural resources, the Cambridge Business English Dictionary defines it as
"the idea that goods and services should be produced in ways that do
not use resources that cannot be replaced and that do not damage the
environment," as well as "the ability to continue at a
particular level for a period of time."
The term development is closely linked to the
question of sustainability. Therefore, I will use the same keywords for our
discussion on sustainable development:
- Development
- Progress
- Growth
- Sustainability
- Evolution
- Balancing
Here also, I use the process of evolution to
understand what sustainability and sustainable development mean. Bringing
sustainability into the discourse was the result of crises and a continuum of
development concepts and frameworks that emerged from time to time. When we
trace the thread of evolution across different stages of the concept of
development, we begin with the Second World War and move toward the era of Late
1980s–2015: Development as Sustainability.
As we are discussing this theme independently, I think we
should start our analysis from that same foundational framework—1940s–1960s:
Development as Growth—because this model caused severe damage to the
environment, and the modern discourse on sustainability can be traced soon
after that.
2. Preparing the Ground: The Club of Rome (1968) and The
Limits to Growth (1972)
The formation of the Club of Rome in 1968 was a major
landmark that contributed toward evolving discussions on the sustainability of
the present model of development. The mission of the Club is to promote an
understanding of the global challenges facing humanity and to propose solutions
through scientific analysis, communication, and advocacy. The Club of Rome
believed that the theory of continuous growth propagated by mainstream
economists would ultimately result in a planetary collapse. Thus, they decided
to focus on the theme "The Predicament of Mankind" in June
1970.
In 1970, the Club of Rome commissioned an international team
of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to study the
implications of continued worldwide growth. They examined the five basic
factors that ultimately limit growth on this planet: population increase,
agricultural production, non-renewable resource depletion, industrial output,
and pollution. This research resulted in the publication of The Limits to
Growth (1972).
The message of the book also offers a note of hope:
- If
the present growth trends in world population, industrialization,
pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the
limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next
one hundred years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and
uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.
- It
is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of
ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future.
The state of global equilibrium could be designed so that the basic
material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has
an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential.
These conclusions directly dismantled the post-war
assumption of infinite economic expansion (such as Rostow’s stages of growth)
and introduced the concept of planetary carrying capacity, proving that
exponential consumption on a finite planet leads to systemic collapse rather
than endless prosperity. It actually served as the intellectual blueprint for
sustainable development. It should be noted that the authors used the word "sustainable"
fifteen years before the 1987 Brundtland Report popularized it.
3. UN Environment Programme (UNEP) – 1972
The Limits to Growth brought into the limelight the
impact of the foundational framework—1940s–1960s: Development as Growth—that
we discussed in the last session. As a result, from the 1970s onwards,
environmental issues were added for the first time to the roster of
international concerns, which resulted in the organization of the United
Nations Conference on the Human Environment (also known as the Stockholm
Conference).
It was an international conference convened under United
Nations auspices, held in Stockholm, Sweden, from June 5–16, 1972. It marked a
turning point in the development of international environmental politics. This
conference adopted a declaration of principles and an action plan to fight
pollution. The first principle asserts that: “Man has the fundamental right
to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a
quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and he bears a solemn
responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future
generations.” It was to further the goals of this major international
conference that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was founded.
4. The Brundtland Commission and Our Common Future
(1987)
Building on the momentum generated by the Stockholm
Conference, the international community sought a comprehensive long-term
framework to reconcile economic aspirations with ecological limits. Following a
General Assembly resolution in December 1983, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the then
Secretary-General of the United Nations, asked the former Prime Minister of
Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, to create an organization independent of
the UN to focus on environmental and developmental problems and solutions.
The 1983 General Assembly of the United Nations established
the Commission with Resolution 38/161, "Process of preparation
of the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond." In
A/RES/38/161, the General Assembly suggested that the Special Commission, when
established, should focus mainly on the following terms of reference for its
work:
- (a)
To propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable
development to the year 2000 and beyond;
- (b)
To recommend ways in which concern for the environment may be translated
into greater co-operation among developing countries and between countries
at different stages of economic and social development and lead to the
achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives which take
account of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment,
and development;
- (c)
To consider ways and means by which the international community can deal
more effectively with environmental concerns, in the light of the other
recommendations in its report;
- (d)
To help to define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and
of the appropriate efforts needed to deal successfully with the problems
of protecting and enhancing the environment, a long-term agenda for action
during the coming decades, and aspirational goals for the world community,
taking into account the relevant resolutions of the session of a special
character of the Governing Council in 1982.
As per the UN resolution of 1983, the World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED) was established, and it published a
report entitled United Nations Report of the World Commission on Environment
and Development: Our Common Future in 1987. The document also came to be
known as the Brundtland Report after the Commission's chairwoman, Gro
Harlem Brundtland.
This report provided the guiding principles for
sustainability and sustainable development as we generally understand the term
or the concept in modern parlance. The Report pinpointed that global
environmental challenges were primarily the result of the enormous poverty of
the South and the non-sustainable patterns of consumption and production in the
North. It called for a policy prescription that clubbed development and the
environment together and coined a new term called sustainable development.
The terms sustainability and sustainable development became
popular in the discourses of development with the publication of this report.
It underlined the need for sustainable and enduring development. The Report inter
alia stated:
“No single blueprint of sustainability will be found, as
economic and social systems and ecological conditions differ widely among
countries. Each nation will have to work out its own concrete policy
implications. Yet irrespective of these differences, sustainable development
should be seen as a global objective.”
The report defined the concept of sustainable development in
the following words:
“Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable
to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs. 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. But technology and social organization can be both
managed and improved to make way for a new era of economic growth. ..., but
sustainable development requires meeting the basic needs of all and extending
to all the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations for a better life ...
Sustainable global development requires that those who are more affluent adopt
lifestyles within the planet’s ecological means - in their use of energy, for
example. Further, rapidly growing populations can increase the pressure on
resources and slow any rise in living standards; thus sustainable development
can only be pursued if population size and growth are in harmony with the
changing productive potential of the ecosystem. .. sustainable development is
not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which the
exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of
technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with
future as well as present needs.”
The Report widened the very notion of sustainability:
“Sustainability requires views of human needs and
well-being that incorporate such non-economic variables as education and health
enjoyed for their own sake, clean air and water, and the protection of natural
beauty. It must also work to remove disabilities from disadvantaged groups,
many of whom live in ecologically vulnerable areas, such as many tribal groups
in forests, desert nomads, groups in remote hill areas, and indigenous peoples
of the Americas and Australasia.”
These ideas were adequately represented in defining what
sustainability is. In the Charter for the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) Sustainability Committee, sustainability is defined as:
“the integration of environmental health, social equity
and economic vitality in order to create thriving, healthy, diverse and
resilient communities for this generation and generations to come. The practice
of sustainability recognizes how these issues are interconnected and requires a
systems approach and an acknowledgement of complexity.”
Critical Perspectives on the Brundtland Framework
Though the report seeks to reform the pattern of
development, the changes it suggested were not fundamental or drastic in their
very nature. That is why Amartya Sen wrote:
“I argue that this way of understanding sustainability,
while a great improvement, is still incomplete. There are important grounds for
favouring a freedom-oriented view, focusing on crucial freedoms that people
have reason to value. Human freedoms include the fulfilment of needs, but also
the liberty to define and pursue our own goals, objectives and commitments, no
matter how they link with our own particular needs. Human beings are reflective
creatures and are able to reason about and decide what they would like to
happen, rather than being compellingly led by their own needs—biological or
social. A fuller concept of sustainability has to aim at sustaining human
freedoms, rather than only at our ability to fulfil our felt needs.”
Similarly, Ben Purvis, Yong Mao, and Darren Robinson,
while analysing the three pillars of sustainability, raise a pertinent
question:
“‘Sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’, … are
often so intertwined in the literature that they remain difficult to tease
apart. It is through this conflation though that economic growth-centred
‘development’ becomes an implicit part of ‘sustainability’, skipping over the
questions: Development of what? Development for whom? Such strategic ambiguity
allows this fuzzy concept to be utilised by any actor for their own means.”
In August 2026, I had the opportunity to participate in the
National Seminar on “Intellectual Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity:
Synthesis, Challenges, and New Possibilities,” organized by the Faculty of
Humanities and Liberal Arts, Scope Global Skills University, Bhopal. The theme
of my address was Sustainability, Gandhi, and Traditional Ecological
Knowledge.
While analysing the Brundtland Report, I described it as an
assertion of the myth of growth-driven sustainability. First, it claims that “technology
and social organization can be both managed and improved to make way for a new
era of economic growth.” In my analysis:
“This statement is inherently contradictory; this
proposed ‘new era’ relies entirely on unlimited material consumption—the core
tenet of modern industrial development. Rather than challenging the status quo,
it seeks to rescue global capitalism through clever technological engineering.”
Secondly, the framework completely fails to respect the laws
of nature or enforce absolute planetary limits to prevent further ecological
damage. Instead, the report asserts that boundaries are merely “limitations
imposed by the present state of technology and social organization.” My
critique presented in the seminar was as follows:
“This perspective is
extremely dangerous because it treats nature’s limits as flexible variables.
Under this logic, the modern solution to an environmental crisis is never to
halt exploitation, but rather to hide it by upgrading technology to extract resources
more efficiently.
Consequently, this entire concept remains fundamentally
anthropocentric and approaches ecological survival from a purely managerial
point of view. Its ultimate goal is simply to find ways to ‘absorb the effects
of human activities,’ completely disregarding the intrinsic value and balance
of the biosphere and its fragile ecosystems.”
That is why the whole discourse on sustainable development
is often looked upon as an ingenious attempt to control the damages created by
unbridled economic growth and to justify the continuance of the existing
pattern of development with cosmetic changes. However, this report was a
milestone in the development discourse because it raised doubts about the
continuance of the existing pattern of development and underscored the need for
economic and environmental reforms.
5. Major Global Summits and Frameworks (1992–2012)
The Earth Summit (1992): Establishing the Global
Blueprint
Twenty years after the first United Nations Conference on
the Human Environment, the UN—through its historic Earth Summit in
1992—sought to help governments rethink their policies on economic development
and find ways to halt the destruction of irreplaceable natural resources and
the pollution of the planet. The United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit, which took place in
Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, was a landmark event bringing together Heads of
State and Chiefs of Government, officials of international organizations, and
representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and others. Two
multilateral treaties—namely, the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological Diversity—were
opened for signature. The outcome of the Summit was the adoption of Agenda
21, which provides a wide-ranging blueprint for action to achieve
sustainable development worldwide.
(Connection to our upcoming COP-31 dialogue): The United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is an international
treaty adopted in 1992 that aims to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations to
prevent "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate
system." It established a basic framework for global climate action,
and later agreements—such as the Kyoto Protocol (2005) and the Paris Agreement
(2016)—have built upon it by setting specific, binding commitments for
countries to reduce emissions and limit global temperature rise.
The ICPD Programme of Action (1994) and the Beijing
Platform for Action (1995)
As the concept of sustainability continued to evolve,
global summits also integrated human rights and gender equity as foundational
pillars of sustainable development:
- The
ICPD Programme of Action (1994): Adopted at the International
Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo, Egypt, from
5 to 13 September 1994, this document laid out a far-sighted plan for
advancing human well-being that places the human rights of individuals,
rather than numerical population targets, at the centre of the global
development agenda.
- The
Beijing Platform for Action (1995): Resulting from the Fourth World
Conference on Women held in Beijing from 4 to 15 September 1995, the
Beijing Declaration explicitly connected gender justice to our core theme
of balancing three distinct pillars:
“We are deeply convinced that economic development,
social development and environmental protection are interdependent and mutually
reinforcing components of sustainable development, which is the framework for
our efforts to achieve a higher quality of life for all people. Equitable
social development that recognizes empowering the poor, particularly women
living in poverty, to utilize environmental resources sustainably is a
necessary foundation for sustainable development. We also recognize that broad-based
and sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development is
necessary to sustain social development and social justice.”
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (2002)
The World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in
Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002 (also known as Rio+10), reaffirmed
its commitment to sustainable development to ensure an equilibrium between
nature’s resources and human needs. Directly echoing the Club of Rome’s concept
of limits, it asserted that development which comes at the cost of natural
resources should not exceed the carrying capacity of the planet. The challenge
before the Summit was how to reconcile development and economic growth with
environmental sustainability. The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable
Development clearly stated:
“We assume a collective responsibility to advance and
strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars of sustainable
development - economic development, social development and environmental
protection - at the local, national, regional and global levels.”
Rio+20 (2012)
Coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of the Earth
Summit, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development—popularly
known as Rio+20—was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012. The
objective of the Conference was to secure renewed political commitment for
sustainable development, assess the progress and gaps in the implementation of
the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development, and address new
and emerging challenges. It decided to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) that would build upon the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) and converge with the post-2015 development agenda. The Conference
also adopted groundbreaking guidelines on green economy policies.
6. Sustainable Development Goals: The 2030 Agenda
Finally, to chalk out the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs), on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, a summit
of world leaders was held in New York in September 2015. It adopted the 17
Sustainable Development Goals endorsed by all 193 Member States of the UN. The
UN Secretary-General’s remarks at the Summit for the adoption of the
development agenda clearly indicated the new global goals of the UN and the
paradigm shift in its approach to peace and development. Ban Ki-moon said:
“We have reached a defining moment in human history. The
people of the world have asked us to shine a light on a future of promise and
opportunity. Member States have responded with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development. ... It is a universal, integrated and transformative vision for a
better world. It is an agenda for people, to end poverty in all its forms. An
agenda for the planet, our common home. An agenda for shared prosperity, peace
and partnership. It conveys the urgency of climate action. It is rooted in
gender equality and respect for the rights of all. Above all, it pledges to
leave no one behind.”
The resolution named “Transforming Our World: the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development,” adopted on September 25, 2015, placed
before all countries of the world a plan to achieve these goals over a period
of 15 years. It aims to end poverty and hunger, protect the ecosystem, and
ensure peace and prosperity for future generations. The 17 Sustainable
Development Goals of the United Nations are the following:
- End
poverty in all its forms everywhere
- End
hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote
sustainable agriculture
- Ensure
healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
- Ensure
inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all
- Achieve
gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Ensure
availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
- Ensure
access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
- Promote
sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive
employment and decent work for all
- Build
resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable
industrialization and foster innovation
- Reduce
inequality within and among countries
- Make
cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
- Ensure
sustainable consumption and production patterns
- Take
urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
- Conserve
and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable
development
- Protect,
restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably
manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land
degradation and halt biodiversity loss
- Promote
peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide
access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive
institutions at all levels
- Strengthen
the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for
Sustainable Development
Further, these Sustainable Development Goals served as the
theme for the International Day of Peace 2016: “The Sustainable Development
Goals: Building Blocks for Peace.” The International Day of Peace in 2016
served as a reminder to humanity about the significance and role of sustainable
development in achieving everlasting peace.
Where We Stand :2030 Agenda
With just four years left to achieve the SDG targets, there
is a clear gap between ambition and reality on the ground. This is clearly
evident from Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026
Li Junhua, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social
Affairs, in his introduction to The Sustainable Development Goals Report
2026, wrote on where we stand regarding the 2030 Agenda:
“Of the 139 targets for which we can compute reliable
historical trends, only 36 per cent are on track or making moderate progress.
Nearly half (49 per cent) are moving too slowly, and 15 per cent have slipped
below their 2015 baselines. The world is far from eradicating its most pressing
challenges. One in 10 people still lives in extreme poverty. Food insecurity
remains well above 2015 levels, affecting 2.3 billion people. About 2.1 billion
people (roughly one in four people) lack access to safely managed drinking
water services. More than 150 million children are stunted. Maternal mortality
remains nearly three times the global target, and everyday discrimination –
still felt by one in five people worldwide – continues to limit human
potential. These shortfalls are compounded by intersecting planetary and
humanmade crises. In 2025, global temperatures reached 1.43°C above
preindustrial levels, and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) reached its highest concentration
in 2 million years. Violent conflict surged to its highest levels in decades,
reversing years of development in mere months, forcibly displacing 118 million
people.
Meanwhile, official development assistance collapsed by a
record 23 per cent in 2025, eroding the financial foundations that the poorest
countries rely upon. As the annual SDG financing gap in developing countries
hovers around $4 trillion, global military spending climbs to record highs.
Because these crises are linked, they demand integrated solutions.”
Conclusion:
These findings from The Sustainable Development Goals
Report 2026 reveal the limitations of existing notions of sustainability.
Some goals are even contradictory to the achievement of others. The basic issue
is that we are trying to solve crises within the same framework of unbridled
economic growth, which goes hand in hand with militarism, militarisation,
profiteering, and exploitation. If we do not tread a new path—one which demands
a complete restructuring of our lives, goals, and missions—our targets will
remain out of reach.
In our previous IFPNP session, your own breakout groups
pinpointed the real root of this failure while discussing need versus greed.
You rightly observed that while growth is merely quantitative, true development
is qualitative and holistic— and it should be grounded in the philosophy of Sarvodaya
(the welfare of all) and starting with Antyodaya (uplifting the last
person). You also raised the challenge of knowing exactly "how much is
enough"—recognizing where legitimate need ends and destructive greed
begins, despite the fact of how subjective our wants are.
Truly sustainable development demands an altogether
different approach, rooted in the alternative approaches to development we
discussed in the last session—many of which carry a deep Gandhian imprint and
principles. By embracing the path of Ahimsa (nonviolence toward humanity
and nature), the ideal of Aparigraha (non-possession), voluntary
simplicity, and Trusteeship—and the Gandhian dictum that the Earth provides
enough for every person's need, but not every person's greed—we can move beyond
the cosmetic reforms suggested by advocates of existing patterns toward a
genuinely balanced and peaceful future.
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