Sustainomics and Sustainable Development

Contents

Sustainomics and Sustainable Development

Basic Framework

Sustainomics seeks to provide a comprehensive, practical framework for making present and future development efforts more sustainable. Sustainable development has become well accepted worldwide, following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg. World decision makers are now looking at this approach to address many critical policy issues.

The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1987) defined sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Among many subsequent definitions, the sustainable development triangle in Figure 1 shows one widely-accepted concept proposed by Munasinghe, at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. It encompasses three major perspectives—economic, social, and environmental.

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