ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emergence and evolution of sustainable development that ultimately obtained formal international recognition at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It deals with the perspective on the need to explicitly recognize employment as an essential component of sustainable development. The United States environmental movement began when the nation's communities became increasingly aware that the industrial and agricultural processes that contributed to the nation's economic growth were simultaneously distressing ecosystem integrity and biological diversity. As national environmental agendas began to be established throughout the world, the 1970s witnessed the emergence of a concern for the human environment in the international arena. The impetus for this development was the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment that was held in Stockholm on June 5–16, 1972. Developing nations could look forward to rapid economic growth by joining a more equitable international economic system.
