ABSTRACT
This Chapter argues that sustainable development stresses the trade-off between continuous economic growth and the sustainability of the environment. The concept of sustainable development stresses the interdependence between economic growth and environmental quality, but it also goes further in demonstrating that the future is uncertain unless we can deal with issues of equity and inequality throughout the whole world. It is possible to make development and environmental protection compatible and to begin to deal with the problems caused by inequity between North and South by following sustainable strategies and by re-orienting those areas of economic activity that are most damaging to the environment and its inhabitants. The Brundtland Report, commissioned by the United Nations to examine long-term environmental strategies, argued that this would require quite radical changes in economic practices throughout the world. The enormous expansion of world trade has been a characteristic of the spread of capitalism and fundamental to the internationalization of the industrial system.
