Sustainable development themes

Sustainable development, in the most common definition, is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It recognises fundamentally that the environment, social development, economic development and good governance cannot be tackled in isolation but need to go hand in hand if they are to be sustainable.

Sustainable development is concerned with systems of interconnected actions, consequences and challenges. It requires that individual people, communities, businesses, organisations, governments or cultures think beyond themselves to understand how their own sustainability influences and is influenced by others.

To clarify the complexity of sustainable development, and to illustrate its diversity, we've identified key themes. In most cases, each theme is closely related to just about all other themes. Visit the themes below to find articles and a timeline of key milestones.

To find out more about different definitions of 'sustainable development' and how they came about, see Sara Parkin's article 'Meaning of sustainable development'.

Biodiversity / conservation

Children

Across the world, thousands of children die from poverty every day. Many are forced into hard and dangerous labour, are subject to abuse, have minimal education and little prospect of fulfilling their potential. Protecting and nurturing children is an essential part of a global sustainable development.

Climate change / ozone depletion

Climate change is for many the greatest challenge, as it has such a significant impact on all other sustainable development issues. As such climate change has united many sustainable development activists. But rising global temperatures present still the greatest known threat to sustainable development of our time.

Democracy

Having democratic rights to influence decisions made on your behalf is seen by many as one of the key human rights of all people – for human freedom, empowerment, peace and security. Sustainable development is often challenged by democracy through, for instance if a populous will not give government the mandate to make changes that it wants and needs to make to secure a sustainable future for its people.

Desertification / soil erosion

Over-production, deforestation, water mis-management and climate change can all contribute to fertile land degrading to desert, and healthy soil being vulnerable to erosion. This makes a threat for agriculture, buildings, habitats, water supplies and other aspects of sustainable development.

Disaster relief

Support, relief and capacity building in the wake of large-scale disasters, either natural or man-made, is one of the main focuses of international aid. Such disasters mean that lives and livelihoods, infrastructure and development are severely disrupted or destroyed. But sometimes it takes a significant disaster to alert wide-scale attention to long-existing problems and their underlying causes.