Tags: Globalization, Communities, Sustainability, Environmental problems, Land, Food and Agriculture, Transportation

Over the past twenty years, the concept of sustainable development has emerged as a framework for development that aims to meet the growing needs of the world’s poor while protecting the natural environment. Although the concept of sustainability is not new, it gained prominence in 1987 with the publication of Our Common Future (WCED, 1987), the report from the World Commission on the Environment and Development (the “Brundtland” report). The United Nations established the commission to examine the world’s environmental problems and propose a global agenda for addressing them. The commission found that environmental issues were intimately linked to a range of economic and social factors and could not be addressed in isolation. The report defined sustainability as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The Brundtland report spawned a rich variety of sustainability initiatives at all levels—local, national, and international—to combat these intertwined problems.

Sustainable Communities and the Great Transition.pdf