ABSTRACT
The publication of the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, by the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, 1987) popularized the conceptual link between developmental and environmental needs. The call for ‘sustainable development’ included the argument that many environmental problems could only be effectively addressed by tackling both social and ecological foundations. Solutions to global environmental problems had to go hand-in-hand with political efforts to tackle inequality of resource distribution and to achieve both intergenerational and intragenerational equity. This report was based on research conducted by an international team and reflected social scientific approaches to the environment that had been developing since the early 1970s. It was also reported to be very influential and, to this day, remains one of the most-cited books on the environment. However, in this study of late modern environmental management, focusing mainly on global warming, it is suggested that the social-developmental dimensions of environmental issues continue to be sidelined and that modernist, technocentric solution frameworks predominate.
