Bhilwara Consulting

Sustainable Development Concept

Sustainable development is defined as a pattern of social and structured economic transformations (i.e. development) which optimizes the economic and societal benefits available in the present, without jeopardizing the likely potential for similar benefits in the future. A primary goal of sustainable development is to achieve a reasonable and equitably distributed level of economic well-being that can be perpetuated continually for many human generations.

Sustainable development implies using renewable natural resources in a manner which does not eliminate or degrade them, or otherwise diminish their usefulness for future generations. It further implies using non-renewable (exhaustible) mineral resources in a manner which does not unnecessarily preclude easy access to them by future generations. Sustainable development also requires depleting non-renewable energy resources at a slow enough rate so as to ensure the high probability of an orderly society transition to renewable energy sources.

Based on similar arguments, sustainable development has been alternatively defined in various manners also, some of them are as follows:

"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".

--The World Commission on Environment and Development, Brundtland Commission 1987