sustainable development

Sustainable development is an approach to economic planning that attempts to foster economic growth while preserving the quality of the environment for future generations. Despite its enormous popularity in the last two decades of the 20th century, the concept of sustainable development proved difficult to apply in many cases, primarily because the results of long-term sustainability analyses depend on the particular resources focused upon and criticised for the lack of detail of enforcement.  The design and application of modern environmental law have been shaped by a set of principles and concepts outlined in publications such as Our Common Future 1987, published by the World Commission on Environment and Development, and the Earth Summit’s Rio Declaration 1992