ABSTRACT
The construction of the notion of sustainable development by the Brundt-
land Commission (World Commission on Environment and Development
1987) expressed the desire to make a compromise between development and
environment. The Commission’s report offered a justification both for eco-
nomic growth in the South (where certainly there were needs to be met) and
for technical changes compatible with Northern interests (justified by the
need to limit the environmental damage of progress). This apparent mutual
concession to the interests of the North and the South overlapped with the desire to solve another kind of dilemma: that related to the scale of eco-
nomic growth, as stated in the debate of the Club of Rome. In contrast to
the ‘‘limits to growth’’ solution put forward during the 1970s (Meadows et
al. 1972), the conjuncture of the 1980s was characterized by the desire to
frame the environmental problem in a way that did not imply limits to the
continued earning of economic profits.
