Sustainable development

Development that meets present needs while preserving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It integrates economic and social progress with environmental protection.

Brundtland Commission: The United Nations commission whose 1987 report popularized the modern definition of sustainable development. Its report gave the concept its widely used intergenerational definition.
World Commission on Environment and Development: A United Nations commission established in 1983 to examine environment and development challenges. It brought the negotiations that produced the modern definition into one international body.
Agenda 21: A nonbinding United Nations action plan for sustainable development adopted at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. It organized the concept into recommendations for international, national, and local action.
Weak sustainability: The view that losses of natural capital can be offset by gains in human-made capital, provided total capital does not decline. It permits some substitution that stricter interpretations of sustainable development reject.
Paris Agreement: A 2015 international treaty that commits countries to limit climate change through national emissions targets and cooperation. It shows how development policy became tied to a shared global response to climate change.
Intergenerational equity: The principle that present generations should act fairly toward future generations. It explains why meeting present needs must not foreclose future well-being.
Our Common Future: The 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, also known as the Brundtland Report. It made sustainable development a widely recognized international policy framework.
Sustainable urban planning: The design and management of cities to support human well-being while reducing resource use and environmental harm. Cities apply the concept through choices about housing, transport, land, and infrastructure.
Strong sustainability: The view that certain forms of natural capital cannot be replaced by human-made capital and must be preserved. It places tighter limits on which environmental losses development can compensate for.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: The 1992 treaty that provides the international framework for cooperation on climate change. Its negotiations are a major institutional arena where development and environmental responsibilities meet.

Linked from 49 pages