SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Sustainable Development: Critical Discussion

Sustainable Development: Critical Discussion

Sustainable development is the rational management of human, natural and economic aims to meet the basic needs of humanity. Sustainable development requires several conditions: the conservation of the overall balance, respect for the environment, preventing depletion of natural resources, reducing waste generation and finally the rationalization of production and consumption energy. In fact, this concept was born of two factors: the North / South divide and the pursuit of human development and ecological crisis accompanied by the urgency of protecting the environment. Nature has limited resources, so that an economic system based on exploitation, mass consumption and the monetary benefit is unsustainable. Therefore, the idea of ??sustainable development advocates a development, that takes into account this assumption and allow the improvement of living conditions of human beings through rational exploitation friendly environment (Shukla, 2000, p. 16-80).

There is not much more accurate definition of "sustainable development". Its meaning depends on social power relations between different interest groups who defend this name who are targets, we shall see, largely contradictory. These are indeed officially three types: maintain the integrity of the environment, improve social equity, and improve economic efficiency. According to social workers concerned, environmentalists, industrial states (more or less industrialized), “sustainable development” priorities overlap so completely different, without that meaning that is imposed in the direction common - synonymous with respect for the environment and become an instrument of political marketing and sales is affected.

The concept underlying the term sustainable development has been proposed, with different terminology, above. In the eighteenth century, French economists known as Physiocrats spoke of increasing the "resurgent wealth" without prejudice to the "real background". In the early seventies of last century, the First Report of the Club of Rome on the limits to growth, along with other publications and events, he questioned the viability of global economic growth objective (Shepherd, 2005, p. 54-87). Ignacy Sachs, UN consultant for environmental issues and development, proposed the word "eco" to reconcile the increased production that urgently demanded the Third World, with respect to ecosystems that allow the habitability of the Earth. However, the term did not seem to be liked by most conventional economists and politicians, leading eventually to fall into disuse as it began to use the aforementioned "sustainable development".

The first definition of sustainable development in the 1987 report "Our Common Future", the result of the work of the Committee on Environment and Development United Nations, established by the Assembly of that institution in 1983. The report, known as the "Brundtland Report" since it was coordinated by the Norwegian Gro Harlem Brundtland, established this concept shall be made ??compatible to the environmental, economic and social solidarity perspective. Years later, in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro UN established a Commission for Sustainable Development in order to drive this change in mindset. The main outcome of this summit was a document entitled Agenda 21, which defined an overall strategy for sustainable development worldwide, with particular emphasis on ...