ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the history, definition and applications of sustainable development, explains its origins, reviews the pertinent academic information available concerning the concept, and explores the view that sustainability may indeed offer enlightened vision for the future. The evidence is undisputable—sustainable development is generating attention throughout the world. Evolving from the environmental movement that swept across the US and Europe in the mid-1970s, sustainability is both a buzzword and an ideal and that is defining a new era. The theory of sustainability is rooted in the 1960s environmental movement when “problems such as overpopulation, resource depletion, decreasing water supplies, air pollution and the spread of chemicals, heavy metals in nature came into focus”. Sustainable development is often defined as the ability to meet the needs of the present without hampering the ability of generations to meet the needs. The resolution of commonalities among subsystems provided a theoretical basis for the interrelated and complex nature of processes inherent in living systems.
