Sustainable development is the practice of using guidelines for environmentally responsible and energy savings to create new development projects and to maintain and retrofit older projects. It can include using green materials in new construction, designing projects that can harvest their own energy to reduce the load on a power grid, or incorporating green space in order to counterbalance the green space removed to build the onsite facilities. There is a heavy emphasis on making sure that what is built can be maintained and repaired in a way that minimizes the degradation of the original development so that the lifespan of a facility is longer than normal.
Sustainable development involves satisfying the needs of the present population without endangering the capability of future populations to satisfy their own needs. It’s about improving the well-being of everyone wherever they are and achieving this milestone collectively. Sustainable development also digs deeper. This means we want companies to expand, people to have the best jobs, everyone to afford nutritious foods wherever they live, quality and affordable education for everyone, freedom of speech without violence, and our economies to grow exponentially. We want to develop innovative technologies while keeping the environment safe.
“Sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Sustainable development is not just about the environment. Its focus is much broader than that. It's all about meeting the diverse needs of people in different communities, social cohesion, creating equal opportunity to ensure a strong and healthy society. Sustainable development also focuses on finding better ways of doing things without affecting the quality of our life.
There are 3 components of sustainable development – economic growth, environmental stewardship, and social inclusion. Countries are recognizing the importance of conserving natural resources, people are switching to cycling instead of driving that will improve their health, farmers are practicing climate-smart agriculture and industries are realizing how much they can save through energy efficiency.
Understanding sustainable development and its goals is the first step to learning what we can do to make it happen. There are many initiatives already in place, but still many roadblocks to sustainable development that have to be overcome.
- Goals of Sustainable Development
- There are three primary goals of sustainable development:
- To minimize the depletion of natural resources when creating new developments.
- To create a development that can be maintained and sustained without causing further harm to the environment.
- To provide methods for retrofitting existing developments to make them into environmentally friendly facilities and projects.
Sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it 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.
The satisfaction of human needs and aspirations is the major objective of development. The essential needs of vast numbers of people in developing countries for food, clothing, shelter, and jobs – are not being met, and beyond their basic needs, these people have legitimate aspirations for an improved quality of life. A world in which poverty and inequity are endemic will always be prone to ecological and other crises.
Sustainable development requires meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the opportunities to satisfy their aspirations for a better life. A society may in many ways compromise its ability to meet the essential needs of its people in the future – by overexploiting resources, for example. The direction of technological developments may solve some immediate problems but lead to even greater ones. Large sections of the population may be marginalized by ill-considered development.
Sustainable development involves more than growth, it requires a change in the content of growth, to make it less material- and energy-intensive and more equitable in its impact. These changes are required in all countries as part of a package of measures to maintain the stock or ecological capital, to improve the distribution of income, and to reduce the degree of vulnerability to economic crises.
Sustainable Development is a Goal
- End poverty in all its forms everywhere
- End hunger, achieve food security, improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture
- Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all age
- Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
- Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
- Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all
- Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all
- Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation
- Reduce inequality within and among countries
- Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable
- Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
- Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
- Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development
- Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
- Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all, and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels
- Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a set of global goals for fair and sustainable health at every level: from the planetary biosphere to the local community. The aim is to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity, now and in the future. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.