Which un conference or report first popularized the term “sustainable development”?

Year | Event/Declaration

1962 Publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson helps launch the modern environmental movement

1970 Earth Day founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson

1972 The Limits to Growth by Dennis Meadows et al. published by the Club of Rome

1983 A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, the National Commission on Excellence in Education.

http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/index.html

1987 The Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, World Commission on Environment and Development Stated and popularized the concept of sustainable development http://www.worldinbalance.net/intagreements/1987-brundtland.php

1990 The Talloires Declaration, University Presidents’ Conference, France First official statement by university administrators committing to sustainability in higher education http://www.ulsf.org/programs_talloires.html

1991 Halifax Declaration, Conference on University Action for Sustainable Development, Canada http://www.iisd.org/educate/declarat/halifax.htm

1992 Agenda 21: Programme of Action for Sustainable Development Report of the United Nations Conference on Environmental and Development,Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June

1993 Kyoto Declaration, Ninth International Association of universities Round Table, Japan http://www.unesco.org/iau/sd/sd_dkyoto.html

1994 National Forum on Partnerships Supporting Education about the Environment, National Science and Technology Council http://www.gcrio.org/edu/pcsd/intro.html

1994 Blueprint for a Green Campus, Yale University Campus Earth Summit http://www.princeton.edu/~rcurtis/earthsum.html

1995 Education for Sustainability: An Agenda for Action (President’s Council on Sustainable Development)

http://www.gcrio.org/edu/pcsd/toc.html

1997 Thessaloniki Declaration, International Conference on Environment and Society – Education and Public Awareness for Sustainability http://www.minenv.gr/4/41/4101/e410109.html

2000 Earth Charter, Born out of an initiative at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/

2000 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Final Report of the World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26-28 April http://www.unesco.org/education/wef/en-docs/findings/rapport%20final%20e.pdf

2002 Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 Aug - 4 Sept, 2002

http://www.un.org/events/wssd/

2002 International Union for Conservation of Nature Commission on Education and Communication Conference

http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cec/

2002 Adoption of the Draft Resolution on the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, at the United National General Assembly, 20 Dec, 2002 http://www.gdrc.org/sustdev/un-desd/un-resolution.html

2003 National Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment: Education for a Sustainable and Secure Future, National Council for Science and the Environment, 30-31 Jan, 2003

2005 The U.N. Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) begins, with UNESCO as the lead agency. The Decade seeks to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning, in order to address the social, economic, cultural and environmental problems we face in the 21st century.

2006 The first Campus Community Partnerships in Sustainability Conference is held at Berea College

2008 The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) is established to empower higher education lead the transition to a sustainable future.

2009 WCSD – World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development - Bonn 31 March – 3 April 2009
http://www.esd-world-conference-2009.org/en/home.html

2009 The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was held. No formal pact was adopted, however a non-binding Copenhagen Accord was drated by the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa that recognized climate change as one of the greatest challenges of the present day and that action to keep temperature increases below 2 degrees C should be taken.

2010 A Global People's Conference on Climate Change was held in Cochabamba, Bolivia on Apr 19-22, 2010, with 35,000 delegates from indigenous peoples, social movements and organizations from 140 countries participating. A People's Agreement on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth was created.

2012 Rio+20 U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development was held in Rio de Janeiro on June 20-22, 2012, with 50,000+ delegates including representatives from government, industry, nonprofits, communities and individuals from across the world. A final report was issued.

Some of the links on this page may require additional software to view.

Download Acrobat Reader Download Quicktime

The concept of sustainable development formed the basis of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The summit marked the first international attempt to draw up action plans and strategies for moving towards a more sustainable pattern of development. It was attended by over 100 Heads of State and representatives from 178 national governments. The Summit was also attended by representatives from a range of other organisations representing civil society. Sustainable development was the solution to the problems of environmental degradation discussed by the Brundtland Commission in the 1987 report Our Common Future.

The remit of the Brundtland Report was to investigate the numerous concerns that had been raised in previous decades, namely, that human activity was having severe and negative impacts on the planet, and that patterns of growth and development would be unsustainable if they continued unchecked. Key works that highlighted this thinking included Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Garret Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons (1968), the Blueprint for Survival by the Ecologist magazine (1972) and the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth report (1972).

The concept of sustainable development received its first major international recognition in 1972 at the UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm. The term was not referred to explicitly, but nevertheless the international community agreed to the notion - now fundamental to sustainable development - that both development and the environment, hitherto addressed as separate issues, could be managed in a mutually beneficial way.

The term was popularised 15 years later in Our Common Future, the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, which included what is deemed the 'classic' definition of sustainable development: "development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".

It was not until the Rio Summit, however, that major world leaders recognised sustainable development as the major challenge it remains today.

More recently, the World Summit on Sustainable Development was held in Johannesburg in 2002, attended by 191 national governments, UN agencies, multilateral financial institutions and other major groups to assess progress since Rio. The Johannesburg Summit delivered three key outcomes: a political declaration, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, and a range of partnership initiatives. Key commitments included those on sustainable consumption and production, water and sanitation, and energy.

Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development - Our Common Future

The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Environment in Stockholm was the first world conference to make the environment a major issue. The participants adopted a series of principles for sound management of the environment including the Stockholm Declaration and Action Plan for the Human Environment and several resolutions.

The Stockholm Declaration, which contained 26 principles, placed environmental issues at the forefront of international concerns and marked the start of a dialogue between industrialized and developing countries on the link between economic growth, the pollution of the air, water, and oceans and the well-being of people around the world. 

The Action Plan contained three main categories: a) Global Environmental Assessment Programme (watch plan); b) Environmental management activities; (c) International measures to support assessment and management activities carried out at the national and international levels. In addition, these categories were broken down into 109 recommendations.

One of the major results of the Stockholm conference was the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).