ABSTRACT
Sustainable development is generally seen as a ‘good’ thing. Like democracy, no two people understand it in the same way, but few would argue against it (Lafferty 1996). The most quoted definition was given by the Brundtland Commission in its report Our Common Future. The Commission defined it as: ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED 1987: 23). The logic of sustainable development appears inescapable. On the one hand, scientific evidence is mounting in support of the notion that there are environmental limits to economic growth, and that we are approaching these limits rapidly. On the other hand, there are political and moral limits that suggest we must maintain global economic growth. The Brundtland Report expressed a widely held view that putting the brakes on global economic development is politically unacceptable. But it also argued that it is morally unacceptable to impose such a slowdown on those nations that depend on global growth to pull themselves out of poverty.
