The Importance Of Sustainable Development On The Environment

Barbed wired barracks, portable potties, and partition-less showers. My grandfather reminisces his time spend at Manzanar Internment Camp. While my grandfather stood in the giant shadow of a 30-foot armed tower, 500-acres of Californian dessert enclosed nearly 12,000 Japanese Americans. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the removal and detainment of anyone in military territory. When “armed police went door to door rounding up Japanese Americans and ordering them straight to the camps” as my grandfather asserted, America’s national fear was exploited. My grandfather at the age of sixteen, lost his home, his family, and notably continued to face several obstacles postwar. Thousands of Japanese Americans during the 1940’s, including Ichiro in John Okada’s No-No Boy, have had their lives reshaped by new territories, boundaries and inner conflicts. The lost of family and friends was prevalent as racial prejudices intensified throughout the nation. While thousands of innocent families were victimized in the Japanese interment camps and imprisonments during WWII, the overwhelming distress led to corrupt relationships and inner turmoil.

Table of Contents Introduction............................................................................................................................ 2 I. The development of global, European and national policies relating to sustainability. 2 1. Changing attitudes of public, politicians and businesses to the environment since 1945 .................................................................................................................................... 2 2. Brundtland definition of ‘sustainable development’ .................................................. 4 3. The international and UK policies to sustainable development since Earth Summit of 1992

The definition of sustainability is the ability to support a long term ecological balance while not harming the environment or depleting its natural resources. According to Robert Goodland and his essay “The Case that the world has reached limits” the world is currently being run unsustainably, “being fueled by inherited fossil fuels is the best single example” (Goodland 602). Fossil fuels are non renewable gases and oils and we are using them to provide 60 percent of the global energy, because of the extensive usage of these nonrenewable fossil fuels, we barely have fifteen years left of reserves. Goodland uses his essay to build on Brundtland’s leads to gain and maintain sustainability, claiming that we need a “new era of economic growth” to meet the needs of sustainability (Goodland 602). Goodland

However, the term “sustainability” has several definitions. One, being the ability of people and organisations to preserve the remaining natural resources and use these resources wisely in order to sustain an environmentally healthy future. The

The universal definition of Sustainability, defined in the Brundtland Report back in 1987 and quoted by Mulder (2007) is “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

World Commission on Environment and Sustainability (Brundtland Commission, 1987), defines sustainable development as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs. Further sustainability is defined as the achievement of policies and procedures which are environmentally sound, economically viable and socially just as per the description given by The University of Wisconsin

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (Brundtland Commission, 1987)

The concept of sustainable development has become a major topic among intellectuals from various fields. Sustainable development has gone through various changes in its definitions and at present does not have a commonly accepted definition. The origination of the concept of sustainable development is debatable. In 1974 at a conference on Science and Technology for Human Development by the World Council of Churches the concept of a “sustainable society” is believed to have been first noted. This early concept focused on equitable distribution of scarce resources and the need for democratic decision making. In 1980 the currently used term of sustainable development emerged in the

The most widely accepted definition of sustainable development is from the Brundtland report, namely, “Sustainable Development is development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”2 This statement contains two main aspects, first that the present generation’s needs are met (intra-generational equity) but more importantly, that it is not made more difficult for future generation to meet their needs (inter-generational equity). Since the report was published, sustainable development has become an integral part of environmental policy and has been the subject of numerous conferences and summits including and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992,3 the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD,

Sustainable development suggests the implementation of state-imposed limitations, with the purpose of reducing the amount of resources and space we overtake and ultimately, the amount of damage we cause to our planet’s future. It requires that we view the earth as a system that both contains space and connects time. We are all interconnected, and the selfish, wasteful lifestyle that a country might live in North America can affect people all around the world, presently even. Generally, sustainable development can be separated into sections-two of them being social and environmental. Social sustainability places emphasis on the importance of public policy-making. It requires a political framework that consists of six areas-natural resource management, measurement and assessment, international trade and investment, climate change and energy, economic policy and communication technologies. Environment sustainability is concerned with the diversity and productivity of natural environments, and requires our generation to innovate activities so that they cause minimal harm to our natural environments. Our future on this earth will directly depend on our ability to introduce and implement the sustainable development techniques discussed in these fundamental sectors.

Sustainable development is defined as “Development that meets the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (IISD, par. 1 ).

Sustainability can be defined in numerous ways. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, sustainability is based on the belief that everything we need to survive directly and indirectly depends on our natural environment (2015). Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions in which humans and nature exist (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). For the purpose of this proposal, sustainability will be addressed from an environmental aspect, as well as an economic aspect. It is important to discuss the impact that apparel choices have on the environment. Many students may be unaware of how their clothing choices effect the environment. There are many reasons why knowledge of sustainability would

Sustainable development is defined in many methods, but the official definition is explained through Our Common Future: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains two key concepts: the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world 's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment 's ability to meet present and future needs.” From my point of view, there are three key points existing in this explanation: the needs of each class in the society, the limitation of development as well as the demands of present and future generation. These three points will be analyzed in detail below.

The simplest definition of sustainable development was given by the World Commission on Environment and Development: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Un.org 1987).”

During the course of the semester, I continue to placed high emphasis on the Brundtland commission because it give birth to the word “sustainable development” which environmental policy makers continue to relied on to enhance environmental protection. Authors of International Environmental Law and Policy for the 21st century, Nanda and Pring, write, “The message of the Brundtland Report was that it is possible to achieve a path of economic development for the global economy which meets the need of the present generation without compromising the chances of future generations to meet their needs” (Nanda and Pring 2013, 27). The Brundtland commission provides is a clear indication that society should place emphasis on creating focus create sustainable economic program aimed at providing renewable resources and reduce our consumption of nonrenewable product. To achieve this concept of sustainability, corporations have a leading responsibility to make this a priority to enact policies and implement governmental regulations in achieving sustainability. With this been said, I agreed with Stuart L. Hart, that multinational corporation have the moral responsible to enhance environmental protection. Hart writes “Business- more than either government or civil society –is uniquely equipped at this point in history to lead us toward a sustainable world in the years ahead”(Hart 2010,19). Over the years, globalization, politics, and business interest have impacted businesses to make