ABSTRACT
Sustainable development became a buzzword in the West in the 1980s and in the Asia-Pacific region about a decade later. There are contentions and confusions over what is ‘development’, how it should be achieved, and what should be ‘sustained’ by sustainable development. Although there is little refutation that there are different strands of sustainability to be considered, such as ecological sustainability, social sustainability, economic sustainability and cultural sustainability, disagreements about the relationships between these different dimensions of sustainability and sustainable development abound. For instance, some may argue that social sustainability, i.e. maintaining existing social norms and introducing changes within social limits, is a social constraint on development, and therefore it is a core element of sustainable development (Munro 1995). Others may define social sustainability as the social conditions necessary to support environmental sustainability which is at the heart of sustainable development, and therefore all social development goals should be considered within the limits of environmental capital (Mitlin and Satterthwaite 1996).
