DSS5101 Chap.1 Brundtland and the Dimensions of Sustainable Development
Brundtland and the Dimensions of Sustainable Development
A definition with two working parts
The course begins with Our Common Future, the 1987 Brundtland report. Its definition, development that serves today’s needs while protecting the capacity of later generations to serve theirs, is familiar enough to be skimmed. The report itself insists the sentence contains two key concepts. One is needs, with the basic needs of the poorest placed first.
The other is limitations, meaning the constraints that technology and social organisation place on what the environment can provide over time.
Because those limits depend on how societies organise themselves, the report can argue in the same breath for a new era of growth, provided growth changes its content.
Why environment and development are one question
The report treats the environment as the common setting of every life and development as the effort to better one’s circumstances within it, and argues that neither can be handled apart from the other.
It also frames sustainability as fairness in two directions: between generations, since future people have no vote on present choices, and within the present generation, since the poor must receive a fair share of the resources growth requires.
Those two equity ideas reappear throughout the course, from the pledge to leave no one behind to the arguments over who should cut emissions first.
Three pillars or four dimensions
The Week 1 outline sets two frameworks side by side. The three pillars, environmental, economic and social, are the version most students already know.
Holden and colleagues, writing in 2014, derive a stricter set of four primary dimensions from the same report: safeguarding long-term ecological sustainability, satisfying basic human needs, and promoting equity within and between generations.
They treat these as non-negotiable and non-tradable, and they give each a threshold for 2030, from an ecological footprint of at most 2.3 global hectares per person to a renewable share of energy of at least 27%. Economic growth does not appear as a dimension. In their reading it is a possible means of meeting the four, which is their central objection to the triple bottom line.
On their numbers no country yet sits inside all four limits at once.
The chapter works a country through the thresholds, shows where the footprint figure comes from, and places the framework on the spectrum from weak to strong sustainability.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The Brundtland definition and its two key concepts, needs and limitations
- 02
Environment and development treated as a single problem
- 03
Equity between generations and within the present one
- 04
Three pillars set against four primary dimensions
- 05
The 2030 thresholds and how the footprint ceiling was derived
- 06
Weak, strong and very strong sustainability
Worked example · free
Placing a policy claim on the sustainability spectrum
- 2Name the substitution the argument assumes.
- 2Place the argument on the spectrum and say why.
- 2State the test a strong-sustainability reading would apply.
Key terms
- Sustainable Development
- Development that satisfies present needs while leaving future generations able to satisfy theirs, as the 1987 report defines it.
- Intergenerational Equity
- Fairness between people alive now and those not yet born, who carry the consequences of present choices without a voice in them.
- Intragenerational Equity
- Fairness among people alive at the same time, within and between countries, including a fair share of resources for the poor.
- Triple Bottom Line
- A model that balances environmental, social and economic outcomes, criticised for letting economic growth be traded against the other two.
- Strong Sustainability
- The position that some natural capital, such as the global climate and certain ecosystems, is critical and has no substitute in any other form of capital.
- Ecological Footprint
- A measure of the biologically productive area needed to support consumption, used by Holden and colleagues as the indicator for ecological sustainability.
- Sustainable Development Space
- The region inside all four thresholds at once, which Holden and colleagues use to judge whether a country's development is sustainable.
Brundtland and the Dimensions of Sustainable Development FAQ
What are the two key concepts in the Brundtland definition?
Needs and limitations. Needs refers to the basic needs of the poorest people, which the report places ahead of everything else. Limitations means the constraints that technology and social organisation place on what the environment can supply now and in future, which the report treats as changeable rather than fixed.
How do the four primary dimensions differ from the three pillars?
The pillars ask for a balance between environment, economy and society. The four dimensions, derived by Holden and colleagues from the same report, drop economic growth as a goal and add equity within and between generations. They also forbid trading one dimension against another, so each has to be met on its own terms.
Why do Holden and colleagues say economic growth is not a dimension?
They argue that growth is a possible means of meeting basic needs and the other dimensions, not an end in itself. Treating it as a pillar lets gains in output be counted against environmental losses, which is the substitution their framework is designed to prevent.
Does any country meet all four thresholds?
Not on their data. The paper reports that no country currently meets all four thresholds together, and only 23 of the 154 countries with data meet the ecological and basic-needs thresholds jointly. High human development has so far gone with a high footprint.
What is the difference between weak and strong sustainability?
Weak sustainability only requires the total stock of capital to be maintained, so natural capital can be run down if other capital grows. Strong sustainability holds that some natural capital is critical and irreplaceable, which rules certain losses out whatever compensation is offered.
Where does the 2.3 global hectare ceiling come from?
It is derived from the report's low-energy scenario. Allowing world energy use to rise only modestly while population grows implies a cut of about fifteen per cent per person, and applying that cut to the footprint of the mid-1980s gives roughly 2.3 hectares per person.
Assessment move
Learn the definition as two concepts, not one sentence, then practise sorting real arguments you meet in the news into weak or strong sustainability. When a claim offers compensation for a loss of nature, the sorting question decides how you should judge it, and it is the habit every later chapter relies on.
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