The classic definition of sustainable development is a straight-forward way of capturing many aspects of sustainable development. Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations. This basic sentence can be expanded into a more complex definition of sustainable development.
Focusing on the Fundamental Needs
Beginning with the focus on human “needs” the definition introduces the concept of minimizing consumption and moving towards the basic human needs. To further understand what sustainable development is, the basic human needs should be defined. This task is daunting as there are exhausted lists of the basic human needs by many organizations. The fundamental human needs include the physical needs for survival that are clean air, potable water, nourishing food, health and shelter from the elements. Often most lists also include some definition of social needs which become difficult to agree on such as love and belonging, security, sexual fulfillment, education, equality, freedom and creative expression.
Globally, it is obvious that many of these basic needs are not being met. Poverty can often lead to physical needs not being met and can leave humans in a distressed state. Desperate for the fundamental needs, unsustainable measures take over many times affecting the environment; decreasing the availability and abundance of clean air, potable water and nourishing food.
Image: Poverty Striken Bangledash's Polluted Waterways
In the modern world, economy plays a large role in obtaining an individual’s basic needs. It seems that the only needs that do not relate to a countries economy are love and belonging. The state of the economy relies on the environment. Our world continually renews its resources and strives to maintain an ecologic equilibrium as it does an impeccable job; it allows our human race and economy to thrive as we live within its carrying capacity. Unfortunately, the focus on the fundamental needs of the human race has been exasperated.
This is especially evident in western societies where people are “consumer whores” for lack of a better term. This can be psychologically linked to consuming to fill social needs. This suggests that some globalization may be required to ensure sustainability on a global scale. As we are all inhabitants of one Earth, there is an obligation for countries to work together to establish the fundamental human needs in parts of the world that are lacking.
Spotlighting the Future and Current Advancements
Another key concept of the traditional definition is spotlighting the future by developing lasting environmental health, economic growth and social equity. The definition places equal value on the needs of the people today with the needs of the future inhabitants. This is extremely imperative when creating new developments, often the focus is on present economic benefits and not on future economic costs from loss of environmental health. Recently, the popularity of creating development that has economic longevity has taken into account the needs of future generations and the reliance on environmental health to meet those needs. Society is become more concerned with the state of the environment and in many countries environmentally friendly items are being sought after.
For example cradle to cradle products which focus on developing products that are used and recycled back into new products. This is opposite of the current cradle to grave paradigm where products are made cheaply, used for a limited time and are put in a landfill. Some examples of cradle to cradle projects certified by a third party certification process by McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) can be found here.
Image: Cradle to Cradle Production
One example of sustainable development being marketed is in Freiburg, Germany in a solar city called Sonnenschiff. They have taken the net zero developments and moved one step up creating residencies and commercial spaces that produce 4x the power they consume. This has been accomplished through implementing passive solar heating and lighting, solar panels, roof top gardens, vacuum insulation, phase change materials, rooftop rainwater recycling and collection, greywater recycling, woodchip boilers, multi-use area and pedestrian friendly.
To learn more about Sonnenschiff solar city click here.
Image: Sonnenschiff Solar City's Roof Top Solar Panels
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