World Commission for Environment and Development

As early as 1987, the World Commission for Environment and Development (WCEF) defined the concept of sustainable development (in the Brundt-land Report Our Common Future) as a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This also implies that environmental conservation is no longer seen as a preferred means of preserving resources for future generations, a tenet held predominantly and unilaterally by the Western world, since ... 

The appropriate technology branch of the environmental movement remained small and obscure until 1987 when the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (dubbed the Brundtland Commission for its chairperson, Gro Harlem Brundtland, then the Prime Minister of Norway) published the book-length study, Our Common Future. In essence, the Brundtland report leveled a fundamental critique at the world industrial system it was not sustainable because it was incompatible with nature. A sustainable system is one that survives or persists throughout its full expected life span. 

What Are the Steps to Implement a Sustainability Audit Process In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) called for the development of new ways to measure and assess progress towards sustainable development (USD, 1997). The refinement of a sustainable development audit process has been ongoing since that initial call to action from the Brundtland Commission yet, to date, a fully mature audit process for assessing sustainable development has not yet emerged. Several notable efforts have been undertaken, however, which have provided a leap forward in the maturation process. 

Development that provides for the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (Definition of UN-World Commission on Environment and Development.)... 

The limits and problems of our globe were the content of the famous BnmdtIand report to the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. The term sustainable development was coined, meaning a development satisfying the needs of the present generation by considering the needs for a sufficient supply for future generations. 

Environmental management has moved on to embrace the concept of Sustainable Development. The 1987 World Commission on Environment/ Development under the guidance of Gro Harlem Brundtland (Prime Minister of Norway) made Sustainable Development the theme of its entire report called Our Common Future. It defined Sustainable Development as development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In the UK in the mid-1990s the Department of Trade and Industry (DU) modified the definition to development which ensures a better quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come. ... 

The eChemPortal is an effort of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in collaboration with the European Commission, the United States, Canada, lapan, the International Council of Chemical Associations, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee, the World Health Organization s International Program on Chemical Safety, the United Nations Environment Programme on Chemicals and environmental non-governmental organizations. 

Shiklomanov I. A. (1997) Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World. United Nation Commission for Sustainable Development, World Meteorological Organization and Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm, 88pp. 

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