Sustainable development has become a buzzword these days. While there is nothing wrong with the concept, can sustainable development really be achieved or is it just an Utopian idea?
The concept is not new though; it’s been around for centuries and can be traced to the sustainable management of forests in 18th and 19th century Europe. The concept as we know it today was however made popular by the UN’s Brundtland Commission (1987) who defined it as - “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The concept has since then become popular. There seems nothing wrong with Sustainable development but it does have its share of critics who argue that the term has been over used and ‘has come to mean too much and nothing at the same time.’

Sustainable development is a complex multidimensional concept, which engages several interrelated components like economics, environment and society. As a concept, sustainable development talks of equality, social justice, economic freedom and above all concern for the future. In this context, it questions our current political, economic and social institutions and even our ethics.
In the present scenario sustainable development symbolizes a conflict between economic development and environment conservation and challenges our current ideas of development. For example, in most developing countries the pressing immediate problems like poverty, unemployment, food, and housing often shadow long-term view of protecting and conserving resources. The short-term goals in these countries contradict with the long-term objective of resource conservation. Similarly in the developed world, environmental goals are impossible to achieve without making a drastic shift in the current lifestyle.

It’s this failure to sacrifice the short-term needs in the developing world and inability of people in the developed world to take a critical view of their consumption, that the long-term environmental concerns are over looked.

In order to move towards a sustainable world, we will have to address these issues along with reviving our moral values and principles of coexistence between man and environment. But can the developed world reduce consumption and give up luxuries to which it has adjusted so well and can the people in poor countries give up their aspirations and desire for a better life, for the sake of protecting the environment? With the present population pressure, widening economic disparity and consumption pattern can sustainable development really be achieved?

The answer to these and related questions are not easy and this explains why we are content with paying only lip service to global environmental problems.