Exploiting the synergies

摘要

As a concept and practice, sustainable development emerged on the global scene in 1972, with the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. Four decades on, in the year that the United Nations is due to set its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the idea remains fuzzy around the edges. Jeffrey Sachs's The Age of Sustainable Development sharpens our understanding. It is, in my view, the best, most comprehensive and most articulate exposition of sustainable development ever written. Sachs is a rock-star economist, leading thinker in sustainable development and senior UN adviser. The Age of Sustainable Development is based on his excellent massive open online course (MOOC) of the same name.