What is Sustainable Development?
Early concepts
The ideas behind sustainable development have been around for a very long time, arguably being central tenets of many indigenous cultures. However, it is generally agreed that the concept was widely adopted following the 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, which suggested the need to integrate global Economic, Social and Environmental needs in order to ensure fair development. The report initially 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 subsequent 1992 Earth Summit resulted not only in laying the foundations for current COPs on Biodiversity and Climate Change, but also provided an overarching declaration on the principles of sustainable development and an implementation plan, Agenda 21.
Global goals
Fast forward to 2000 and the first iteration of global development goals were agreed, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Following lessons learnt from working towards the MDGs, global priorities were reassessed and refined from 2012-2015, resulting in a new set of internationally-agreed development goals, the Sustainable Development Goals.
These emphasised the breadth and interdependence of all of the goals; for example, actions on poverty can often be directly related to actions on climate change or biodiversity. It also emphasised the need to integrate overarching concepts of justice, equity and participation.
Since their launch in 2015, they have slowly been taken up by many actors, hence presenting a common language for discussion of sustainable development action and a shared suite of indicators by which to assess progress towards targets. Indeed, it is important to note that international (and much national) work has focused on the ‘framing’ of sustainable development, i.e. the concepts and how it is assessed, yet these frames are useful for practitioners as they can help ensure that the breadth and interconnection of different needs or rights is not lost.
Sustainable Development now
The SDGs shift us from human centred to nature respecting and from needs to rights. There is now more focus on equity and inclusion, and dignity for all, with no harm to planet; recognising the rights for choice, freedom and agency by poor or marginalised peoples.
For example, a popular model of Sustainable Development combines the notion of planetary boundaries with a social ceiling, indicating the safe and healthy limits within which we can survive (Raworth 2012). Overall, there are now a significant number of frameworks that are all generally pushing towards similar goals whilst focussing on slightly different methods of assessing progress (Centre for Thriving Places 2022).
A Scottish Definition of Sustainable Development?
There are therefore many definitions and understandings of sustainable development. In some ways this impedes shared understanding and action, but providing the principles are broadly understood, allowing people to identify with sustainable development definitions in context can be very powerful. The SDG Network Scotland suggest the following definition:
“Sustainable development is development that recognises the rights and wellbeing of people and nature in Scotland and globally; without compromising the rights and wellbeing of future generations and our natural world”
At this very moment the Scottish Government is reassessing how it integrates Sustainable Development within its activities; whether it is seen as central to all government work or just as a part of National Outcomes monitoring. SDG Network Scotland strongly believe that the rights of people and nature should be central to all parts of governance.
What does Sustainable Development mean in practice?
We have focussed on national and international definitions and assessment of sustainable development, but this doesn’t really give any information on its importance at a personal or local level.
Looking more locally, communities do create Voluntary Local Reviews (VLRs), which map their progress and actions at a local level, whilst organisations will often produce sustainability reports for their stakeholders. Again, both of these often focus on strategic priorities and measurement rather than the use of frames for practical action.
Let us use the SDGs to frame practical action:
If you group the 17 SDGs, you will find a significant number are related to inequalities or insecurities in society, but that these are embedded and dependent upon nature and planetary boundaries. Acting on sustainable development is merely ensuring that these two aspects are considered within any type of economic or societal development.
This seems simple enough, but let’s look at the goals and targets of the SDGs in more detail to get more context:
There is an average of about 10 targets per goal, adding up to more than 160 in total. Lets ignore this information overload for now and focussing on the first, and often seen as central, goal of poverty.
The No Poverty SDG has targets focussing on increasing income, improving welfare, rights to resources or assets and the policies needed to ensure resilience and reduce inequalities.
Each of these targets has more detailed measures. For example poverty is not just measured through income, but also wealth, wellbeing and other measures of destitution. On top of these breadth of measures, the depth and distribution of poverty is also important; i.e. are people just below or very far below a poverty measure and which people are struggling the most, e.g. based on location, race, gender or ethnicity.
Putting it into practice
This underlines two important aspects of putting sustainable development into practice; collaboration is important to ensure knowledge and expertise across areas is well understood, but also that some measures will be less relevant in some circumstances.
UN Habitat have produced advice on VLR development, which can help to put these frames into practice. Learning for Sustainable Development also provide resources that support further learning about sustainable development. SDG Network will also share resources that will support your own actions towards more sustainable development.
Where can I learn more?
Learning for Sustainability Scotland
Scotland’s Regional Centre for Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development works to make sustainability part of the everyday for all learners and educators.
SDG Academy
These free online courses can provide excellent primers in more detailed topics around sustainable development;