Sustainable developmentSustainable development is defined as balancing the fulfillment of human needs with the protection of the natural environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future. The linkage between environment and development was first made in 1980, when the International Union for the Conservation of Nature published the World Conservation Strategy and used the term "sustainable development."[1] The concept came into general usage following publication of the 1987 report of the Brundtland Commission — formally, the World Commission on Environment and Development. Set up by the United Nations General Assembly, the Brundtland Commission coined what was to become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that "meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."[2]The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into four constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, social sustainability and political sustainability.
