ABSTRACT
Seemingly simple, intuitively rational and self-evidently expedient, sustainable development is a notion which engenders an instant and almost instinctive attraction. As Redclift (1992:1) suggests, ‘like motherhood and God it is difficult not to approve of it’. Since it first achieved popular recognition following the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1987, sustainable development has rapidly become ‘the watchword for international aid agencies, the jargon of learned planners, the theme of conferences and learned papers, and the slogan of environmental and developmental activists’ (Lélé, 1991: 607). Indeed, the concept is now widely used to legitimate, uphold and promote a wide variety of different agendas and activities. However, many analysts have come to regard it as an insubstantial and clichéd platitude unworthy of further interest or research, and, perhaps even more significantly, theorising of the idea seems to have reached something of an impasse. Whilst it now seems all too easy to dismiss the concept out of hand, we believe that this would be premature. Certainly, we cannot dismiss the material dysfunction and moral unacceptability of present day development so readily. And, importantly, what we must not do, is to reject the idea of sustainable development because we have failed to address the key conceptual and methodological challenges which it presents. This is not a worthy basis for rejection. If we do this, we tacitly accept all that is unsustainable.
