What is meant by “sustainable development” and “sustainability”?
In 1987, The World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by the Prime Minister of Norway, Mrs Gro Harlem Bruntland, published a report Our Common Future (The Bruntland Report) which brought the concept of sustainable development onto the international agenda. It also provided the most commonly used definition of sustainable development describing it as “Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” This principle has been incorporated in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties on European Union, as well as in the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21, adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), meeting in Rio de Janeiro 3 to 14 June 1992. The European Community and its Member States subscribed to the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 and committed themselves to the rapid implementation of the principal measures agreed at UNCED. The Bruntland report described seven strat
