Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

International Environmental Issues

Laura Lucia Rodrguez Pea

Sustainable development: what is it and how can it be achieved? A challenge

that concerns to everyone.

Firstly is necessary to understand what sustainable development is; there are many
definitions and interpretations of sustainable development one of them is:
"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs." From the World
Commission on Environment and Developments (the Brundtland Commission) report
Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). However the
development is usually seen as the achievements of the present goals and the interest
not always take in count the environment or the future generations. The term
sustainable development came into the public arena in 1980 when the International
Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources presented the World
Conservation Strategy (IUCN 1980). (Allen & Edwards, 1995).
Usually the development is related with the economic wealth and actually it involves a
lot of factors that are commonly forgotten; for this reason many academics have made
an analysis concluding that the sustainable development depends on how well we
balance social, economic, and environmental objectives--or needs--when making
decisions today (World Bank ) this is reflected in the next diagram.

Source World Bank

This demonstrates that the focus of sustainable development is far broader than just
the environment. It's also about ensuring a strong, healthy and just society. This means
meeting the diverse needs of all people in existing and future communities, promoting
personal wellbeing, social cohesion and inclusion (sustainable development
commission).
Nevertheless these objectives are not balanced in the way that the sustainable
development proposes, one of the problems consist in the interest of the governments
and the states because they considered that the commercial and industrial
development is more relevant than the protection and preservation of biodiversity and
nature, thus there is always priority and shortcomings in the aspects that compose the
sustainable development.

Currently there are few states that have made policies and changes in their
governments to start applying the parameters of the sustainable development an
example of this is Canada, because since 2008 they have a Federal Sustainable
Development Act this provides a whole-of-government view of actions to achieve
environmental sustainability, is integrated into core federal planning and reporting, and
is supported by a robust measurement strategy. (Government of Canada, 2014) Also
Canada makes indicators about air and climate, nature, etc. in every province of the
country, this demonstrates how they concern about this subject, but the real question
is: do they really apply all what they say in their strategies about sustainable
development? To answer this is properly to make a search and investigate not only the
government but also the local news and the context in the country. According to this
since 1992 At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Canada and numerous other
participants committed to developing national strategies for sustainable development.
Canada chose to make selected federal departments and agencies responsible for
sustainable development within the sphere of their mandates (Office of the auditor
general of Canada, 2013), these strategies can be reflected in programs like
Sustainable Cities International (SCI) it is a registered non-profit based in Vancouver,
Canada. With a core team of directors, volunteers and a network of international
associates, SCI works with cities around the world to bring about change towards
urban sustainability. SCI focuses on building human capacity within cities so that
innovation and change can occur. (sustainable cities team, 2010) Like this there are
many programs in Canada that actually are being applying, this can give a little hope to
the goals of sustainable development.

Nonetheless these efforts in some countries are not enough, because the damage that
all the big industries and many developed countries made is not proportional with the
actions to take care not only the nature but also the wealth in every sense for the
current and future generations. To accomplish this, is required the awareness from the
people around the world specially because there is a believing that sustainable
development is a reduction of nature merely to a natural resource base, a reduction
that values nature only in terms of the use that these resources have for human
beings. (Baker, 2006) If the people in the world keep thinking that the resources and
the environment are there only to satisfy the needs and to create an economic wealth
the planet might be suffer many changes that sooner or later will be damaging or even
ending with the whole life that exist today.

Also the media, social network and the press have created a consumption of standard
of living, the believing that every person has to have the most recently car, phone and
clothes have created a society that is worry all the time for satisfy their individual
needs, this causes consumerism in a very large way and that provokes not only the
indiscriminate use of the resources to create products but also tons of garbage that
ends in the ocean or in the country, damaging the soil and killing the endemic animals
that lives there.

In addition to the fact above, is possible to deduce that one of factors that contribute to
the contamination and the environment destruction is precisely the indifference from
the human been, because everyone is so concern about their individual interests and
wealth that the common resources and the nature are considered just like another
subjects in the international agenda and not as the priorities, taking this in count the
assumption that helps to build this believing is the fact that the technology is the
solution or that natural disasters happen and affect only to developing countries, these
kind of thoughts limits the possibility of achieve someday hopefully soon the
sustainable development, this analysis can be grounded by Baker when said that A
development model based on individualistic consumption, rather than fostering social
cohesion, leads to increase inequality, especially in an economic system subject to
cyclical recession. (Baker, 2006)

The sustainable development model is a challenge to the conventional form of

development. Conventional approaches see development as simply modernization of
the globe along Western lines. (Baker, 2006) To achieve the goals that sustainable
development proposes, is indispensable to conceive the nature and the resources as
something finite and essential for living these aspects are well known by the people but
what is really important now is the fact that the strategies and solutions to protect the
planet must be taking seriously now and the states worldwide must apply policies not
only to economic wealth but also to make sustainable development a reality. This
cannot be possible as long as the human race keep destroying the jungles, woods,
oceans and even destroying other people, one of the main things to achieve the
sustainable development is the education, and not only geared toward the children and
future generations, entrepreneurs and leaders need to understand how the world as is
known today can be end soon if new philosophies arent apply.

Therefore the education can be the most helpful tool to make everybody understand
how critical is the situation of the environment now, maybe with this people can be
united not only because of music, diets or what is trendy in the moment but for one big
reason that should be in the mind of everyone the protection of the environment and
the sustainable development. Also is important to now that the little actions can always
make a difference if everybody starts to apply even little changes in their life like
recycling, buy local and organic food or simply consume less there will be big
differences; if this purposes are being applying in cities like Vancouver why cant this be
possible worldwide? Well it is, is simply as a change of how the people assume the
standard of living, with social media and press collaborating for one big green goal is
possible that maybe the environment protection becomes trendy.

One of the most important things is that the human been still doesnt recognize that the
environment should not be protected just for the fact that is necessary for the human
race it should be protected also because is the home of the animals, plants and simply
is the only planet habitable for the live, according to this, the resources not only belong
to the people, the nature and the environment is not a property. Thus to achieve a
sustainable development is required not only think about the needs of the present is
necessary to apply solutions also efficient to the future. The results maybe could be
reflected slowly but every state and country start to thinking in a balance between
economy, social and environment maybe for the future generations sustainable
development will be a reality and not just an utopic thought or goal of only very few
people.
Bibliography
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