ABSTRACT
Sustainable development was defined in the Brundtland Report in 1987 as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. As regards global governance, the major historic step in the sustainable development discourse was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also referred to as the Earth Summit. After the mid-1990s the concept of sustainable development has been increasingly understood as a balance between environmental, social, and economic pillars, dimensions, or objectives. In practice, the balance between these objectives remains contingent on the indicators used, the time scale chosen, or the actors that are included or excluded, which reflects on the policies put in place. From the start, the sustainable development formula set the stage, among other “win–win” objectives, for reconciling environmentalism and business and corporations’ interests.
