Sustainable Development: A Critique

Many development theories and models have come our way to attempt to mitigate and eventually eradicate poverty and inequities in the human world. In 1987, another concept was put forward. Sustainable development was coined in the Brudntland report, Our Common Future. It says that sustainable development makes our world meet the present needs but not compromising in the process the needs of the future. It has emphasis on the environmental consideration of development process.

Now it is agreed that development is a holistic transformation, not just economic, political, or social aspects but which includes environmental.

Sustainable development sounds and looks good and promising. It is able to charm the hard critics of economic development and environmentalists. In fact, it has been appropriated by transnational corporations, governments, and civil society groups in their discourses to further their interests. It becomes a tool to retain the status quo of those in power by masking their enterprises and actions as legitimate and within a development framework that is generally accepted.

As individuals, sustainable development does not come to this level. It seems that its domain is in the drawing board and meeting tables of CEOs and Heads of States who decide for major activities and projects. It does not come permeate our everyday lives where decisions are also made. As a matter a fact, it does not go down to the level of those who can’t make a decision for themselves because they don’t have the power to decide or they allow others to decide for themselves.

Sustainable development seems to be another model which legitimizes some interests – the elite. Of course, they want anything to be sustained because they reap the benefits of the present and the future projects.