The Brundtland Report: Pioneering Sustainable Development for Our Common Future

Part A

The Brundtland definition of sustainability, its interpretation and how it has enabled the concept of sustainability to be put into practice

The Brundtland report of 1987 which is also referred to as ‘Our Common Future,’ alerts the world to the need to urgently make progress in terms of sustainable economic development without harming our environment or depleting the available natural resources (Humphreys, 2017). An international team of politicians, development and environment experts and civil servants published the report which provided a sustainable development key statement. Their definition of sustainable development is the type of development which meets the current needs while not compromising the future generation’s ability to meet its needs (Wadelin, 2019).

This Brundtland definition has been interpreted as one focusing on the human interests and needs as well as is concerned with safeguarding the future generations’ global equity through redistributing resources to all poorer states to promote these countries’ economic growth (Murray, Skene and Haynes, 2017). The Brundtland report suggested that all humans must be able to acquire basic needs. The report further suggests that economic growth, social equity and environmental maintenance are all simultaneously achievable and every state can fulfil both their economic potential and resource base. Lastly, the Brundtland definition of sustainable development suggests that achieving sustainable growth and equity would need social and technological change (Wadelin, 2019).

The matters that must be kept in mind while considering the various aspects of sustainability

According to the Brundtland report, there are three fundamental sustainable development components which must be accounted for when considering sustainability (Nam, 2015). These include the environment, the society and the economy.

To achieve sustainable development, the environment must be conserved as well as the resource base must be enhanced through gradually shifting or changing the manner that states use technologies and develop. Regarding social equity, the developing countries need to be free to fulfil the basic needs of food, employment, water, energy and sanitation (Nam, 2015).

It is noted in the Brundtland report that these can only be achieved with the help of a sustainable population level. Lastly, economic growth is an essential factor to consider in the sustainability process particularly reviving the growth where developing nations are allowed to have equal quality growth (Nam, 2015).

The outcomes which can be anticipated if equal consideration is not given to all sustainable development aspects

Under the unsustainable environment, the current ecosystem cannot maintain its biodiversity, its population and its overall functionality over a long period (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2017). The equilibrium is not encouraged in the natural system which encourages negative growth. For example, during the Great 2008 Recession, all the sustainable development aspects were not put into consideration. The recession showed that weakness in any of the sustainable development pillars could result in another weak pillar like the environmental pillar. As a result, many countries either postponed or cut back stricter investment or environmental laws because their budgets had deficits. Furthermore, numerous environmental firms or NGOs experienced income fall because of the recession (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2017).

In case the recession widened significantly to a worse state, states would pay even less attention to the environmental pillar because eating would be put first instead of protecting the environment. The social pillar is also critical. For example, in regions where there is an outbreak of war, environmental sustainability is usually given zero priority. Additionally, countries which live in extreme poverty often pillage the environment with little or no thought for the next generations. Therefore, it is necessary to take all aspects of sustainable development into consideration when developing solutions for sustainability challenges (Schaltegger and Wagner, 2017).

How to measure sustainability and the main problems with the current methodology

There are indicators which can be used to assess the progress of sustainable development. These include: economic output, social justice, biodiversity conservation, ecological footprint, well-being of citizens, emission of greenhouse gas, waste production in all sectors, mobility and transport, air pollution and its ecological impacts, air quality, river quality, soil quality, management of water resource and sustainable societies (Wadelin, 2019).

Sala, Ciuffo, and Nijkamp (2015) also claim that Sustainability can be measured through assessing or evaluating the performance of the economic, environmental and social principles. A conventional method used in measuring the performance of sustainability is by evaluating a project or program against the current best practices. Applying sustainability as a measure or a metric means taking into account the environmental, economic and social performance usually known as ‘the Triple Bottom Line.’ The primary challenge with this current methodology is that although the three major principles should be estimated or measured, they fail to provide a system of measurement by themselves. The method offers a chance to consider different performance measurements and sustainability in processes of decision making but fails to mandate choices or values (Sala, Ciuffo, and Nijkamp, 2015).

Part B

Real and perceived barriers which need to be overcome to achieve a sustainable and circular economy

Financial and economic barriers need to be overcome particular in cases where the main attention is put on economic development as precedence instead of people’s welfare or rights as well as instead of environmental limits and processes (Ormazabal et al., 2018). To overcome these barriers, there is need to change the global perspective from looking at the environment as a component of the economy to viewing it as a component of the environment. That is, an environment whose services are properly maintained. There are also innovational barriers which occur because many educational sectors lack research which is innovation-oriented. To solve this problem needs a connection between the economy and research institutes which can help avoid challenges linked to the transfer of knowledge as well as its application in life (Ormazabal et al., 2018).

Social barriers like unsustainable production and consumption patterns of wealthy people, population growth, entrenched inequities, and limited awareness of sustainable development and marginalisation of poor people inhibit sustainable development (Rizos et al., 2016).

There are also political barriers like inadequate environmental, social and economic methods for projects, plans and policies which combat sustainable development implementation. Poor evaluation and monitoring systems and the absence of a certain clearly defined targets at the local, national and global level as well as the lack of data and measurement to follow progress lead in insufficient information for decision-making. Putting in place a dynamic process which is improved requires a strengthened evaluation and monitoring strategy of sustainable development which aims at enhancing its effectiveness (Rizos et al., 2016).

A government can also assess its socio-economic effects the projects of development instead of focusing solely on the outcome of such projects (De Jesus and Mendonça, 2018). There are also institutional barriers which come about due to institutional inexperience in running all democratic system mechanisms in developing countries. To overcome this challenge requires models and laws which allow innovation (De Jesus and Mendonça, 2018).

References

• De Jesus, A. and Mendonça, S., 2018. Lost in transition? Drivers and barriers in the eco innovation road to the circular economy. Ecological Economics, 145, pp.75-89.
• Humphreys, M., 2017. Sustainable Development in the European Union: A General Principle. Routledge.
• Murray, A., Skene, K. and Haynes, K., 2017. The circular economy: An interdisciplinary exploration of the concept and application in a global context. Journal of Business Ethics, 140(3), pp.369-380.
• Nam, U.V., 2015. Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Division for Sustainable Development Goals: New York, NY, USA.
Ormazabal, M., Prieto-Sandoval, V., Puga-Leal, R. and Jaca, C., 2018. Circular economy in Spanish SMEs: challenges and opportunities. Journal of Cleaner Production, 185, pp.157-167.
• Rizos, V., Behrens, A., Van Der Gaast, W., Hofman, E., Ioannou, A., Kafyeke, T., Flamos, A., Rinaldi, R., Papadelis, S., Hirschnitz-Garbers, M. and Topi, C., 2016. Implementation of circular economy business models by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): Barriers and enablers. Sustainability, 8(11), p.1212.
• Sala, S., Ciuffo, B. and Nijkamp, P., 2015. A systemic framework for sustainability assessment. Ecological Economics, 119, pp.314-325.
• Schaltegger, S. and Wagner, M., 2017. Managing the business case for sustainability: The integration of social, environmental and economic performance. Routledge.
• Wadelin, G., 2019. Lecture 2: Sustainability and the Circular Economy [Lecture Notes].