Sustainability Language

Development, Impact & Global Frameworks

Brundtland Commission

The UN commission chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland whose 1987 report "Our Common Future" coined the canonical definition of sustainable development.

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Definition

Formally the World Commission on Environment and Development, convened by the United Nations in 1983 and chaired by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. Its 1987 report "Our Common Future" defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" — the definition on which virtually all subsequent sustainability discourse builds.

References

Encyclopaedia Britannica

WCED convened 1983; Brundtland chairing; Our Common Future 1987; canonical definition; path to Rio 1992.

Overview

What it means

The Commission's lasting contributions are threefold: the canonical definition, with its explicit intergenerational-equity principle; the framing of environment and development as inseparable — locating environmental degradation in both the poverty of the global South and the unsustainable consumption of the North; and the institutional pathway it opened, leading to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, Agenda 21 and ultimately the SDGs.

How it is used

"Brundtland definition" is standard shorthand for the intergenerational formulation in law, policy, standards and education; the report is the customary starting citation for any treatment of sustainable development's origins.

Why it matters

It transformed environmentalism from a constraint on development into a framework for rethinking development itself — the conceptual foundation of the entire field this dictionary covers.

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