ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2, the key international events and documents that have molded sustainability’s definitions are examined paying particular attention to the ways that sustainability has been used and changed over time. Here, we use the 1987 Brundtland Report as a point of reference for understanding sustainable development and the popular adoption of the term sustainability. The UN-commissioned report on global development, titled Our Common Future, did not introduce the sustainable development concept but popularized the term and brought it into the mainstream. The term was then applied and evolved in several international conferences and agreements including the Rio Conference, the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Rio +20, the Sustainable Development Goals, and in several climate summits (e.g. Kyoto and COP). In the Brundtland Report and in later international agreements, limits to growth are acknowledged but those limits are largely considered as temporary obstacles, particularly among the most affluent developed nations, which seek to continue growth indefinitely. This understanding of sustainability is particularly troublesome. Sustainability remains an imprecise, flexible, discursive concept that is widely adopted in theory but is seldom put into action in any meaningful way.
