Sustainable Development
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| The Concept |
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"Sustainable Development should meet the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs." The Brundtland report, Our Common Future, 1987 |
| Sustainable Development balances three principal requirements: |
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The needs of society (the social objective); |
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The efficient management of scarce resources (the economic objective); |
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The need to reduce the load on the eco-system in order to maintain the natural basis for life (the environmental objective). |
By 2050 our planet will need to support some ten billion people - compared to about six billion today.
This raises huge challenges.
How do we provide food, clothing and shelter for this rapidly growing population without depleting the world's resources and eroding the inheritance of future generations?
The answer is Sustainable Development, a concept which seeks to balance economic and social progress with concern for the environment and the careful stewardship of natural resources.
For Sustainable Development to work, society must meet the needs of the population and address social and economic inequality. But Sustainable Development also means managing resources efficiently and maximising the benefits we get from them so as not to overload the world's eco-system.
While most agree on the objective, how we achieve it is the subject of heated debate and calls for action by governments, businesses, organisations and ordinary people around the world.
Industry has a key role to play. Within the chemical industry, we're contributing vigorously to the debate while developing solutions to help make Sustainable Development a reality.
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