The Importance Of Sustainable Development

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Sustainable development, as its name suggests, is a concept continually elaborating. The most commonly used definition, according to World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), is the development which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987). It shows the importance of considering benefits for both current and future generations and strongly supports economic development, while it also implies when accessing environment and natural resources, human beings tend to take an anthropocentric view, that the primary goal is to satisfy human needs. With no regard for earth as a life-support system, a development will not be considered sustainable. Therefore, by taking economic, social, environmental issues into accounts is a key approach to develop sustainably in different contexts.
According to Griggs et al. (2013), the improvement of life quality should be within the scope of earth’s ability to support human well-beings. They mentioned that the twin priorities for sustainable development goals(SDG) must be both the earth’s life-support system and poverty reduction . It is also noticeable that different from the common understanding, which often puts clean air, ecosystem services and biodiversity into the category of environmental sustainability, Griggs et al. (2013) separate them and categorize them as people and planet, depend on which they benefit. Similar to the main points of