Page 27 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

22 2. Sustainability, sustainable development, and business sustainability

2.1.1 The Brundtland definition
The term sustainability firstly appeared within the report of the World Commission on
Environment and Development “Our Common Future” in order to describe a new approach
to development which should “meet the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland et al., 1987, p. 41).
This new approach is derived from a progressive acknowledgement of the insufficient pro-
gress made to defeat poverty and to ensure well-being to all human beings as well as of the
environmental boundaries given by a planet with finite resources. As a matter of fact, that was
a time of oil crises and raw material price increase, the fall of the Berlin wall, and the end of the
decolonization process with the consequent questioning of the bipolar/triple pole world
division, the Sahel environmental crisis and the great famine, the raise of consciousness about
finite fossil resources, nuclear catastrophes, and the fruits of unequally distributed growth.
Therefore, the ultimate goal of Sustainable Development is assuring wellbeing to the whole
global population in the present (intra-generational equity) and in the future (inter-generational
equity) at the same time. Consequently, the concept implicitly underpins the need for a long-term
perspective. The World Commission on Environment and Development also acknowledges the
inter-dependence between social, economic and environmental aspects. Sustainability is thus an
invitation to an interdisciplinary approach while coping with development issues.
Except for these theoretical inferences, the Brundtland definition has been largely
criticized for being ambiguous. According to Wackernagel and Rees, this was done on
purpose in order to be widely and transversally accepted (1996 as cited in Giddings et al.,
2002) through interpreting the concept in the most diverse ways (Pearce et al., 1989).
Development is seen as a broader concept than economic wealth and growth. As Sen (1999)
states, development is a set of conditions that allow a subject to realize its potential: any per-
son can function if she/he has the means (physical, psychological, social, relational, …) that
release her/his ability to function. Although the concept of sustainable development has of-
ten been summarized in a the three-pillar approach (normally represented as a three-
intersected-ring sector), for many authors the idea behind it is even wider: Sustainable Devel-
opment is considered to be holistic (Pike et al., 2007). Thus, a three-dimensional approach
does not allow us to see the real potential for inclusiveness of the concept. Development is
then brought by concomitant progress of integrated dimensions.
Some of the major concepts given above can be summarized by Dyllick and Hockerts (2002,
p. 1), defining sustainability as the “societal evolution towards a more equitable and wealthy
world in which the natural environment and our cultural achievements are preserved for
generations to come”. A clear image is also given by Raworth’s Doughnut Economics (2017),
which represents a “sage and just space for humanity” in a doughnut shape where the outside
boundary is made by environmental constraints and sustainability challenges and the inside
one by 11 social elements based on fairness and the wellbeing of humanity; keeping producing
and consuming within the doughnut means developing an inclusive and sustainable economy.

2.1.2 Main approaches to sustainable development
The United Nations Handbook of National Accounting (UN et al., 2003) identifies three
different approaches to sustainable development: three-pillar, ecological, and capital
approaches.