Four Challenges of Sustainability (2006)

Abstract

T he concept of sustainability first came to public notice in Wes Jackson’s work on agriculture in the late 1970s (Jackson 1980), Lester Brown’s Building a Sustainable Society (Brown 1980), and The World Conservation Strategy (Allen 1980). The Brundtland Commission made it a central feature of its 1987 report, defining it as meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). Their definition confused sustainable growth, an oxymoron, and sustainable development, a possibility. Ambiguities notwithstanding, the concept of sustainability has become the keystone of the global dialogue about the human future. But what exactly do we intend to sustain, and what will that require of us?