A short history lesson on sustainability

摘要

The S word was apparently part of the New Zealand Values Party lexicon long before the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) propelled the notion of sustainable development to world attention in 1987. Peoples' movements and both science-based and populist publications in the 1960s and 70s directed attention to growing environmental and social concerns. Realising it was in the gun, business got on board with the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development was subsequently born - in a bid, no doubt, for business to become not just part of the problem of unsustainable development, but part of the solution.