Definition of 'Sustainability'
The definition most frequently given for sustainability (or 'sustainable development') is from the 1987 report Our Common Future of the UN's World Commission on Environment and Development (often known as 'the Brundtland Commission'):
"...development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"
In the report sustainability is associated with:- safeguarding the interests of coming generations;
- economic growth that sustains and expands the environmental resource base; and
- "meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the opportunity to satisfy their aspirations for a better life" (paragraph 4).