International Experiences on Sustainability

Citation

by Walter Leal Filho, E. (2003), "International Experiences on Sustainability", Management of Environmental Quality, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 158-159. https://doi.org/10.1108/meq.2003.14.1.158.1

It has been a decade since many important agreements on environmental protection and sustainability were adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), commonly known as the “Earth Summit” held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 1992.

Along with Agenda 21, a set of agreements and conventions were prepared and their implementation has been was pursued since, with variable degrees of success. There has been much investment in efforts towards pursuing the goal of sustainable development and the number of nations undertaking work in this field has increased significantly. Many international organisations have also done extensive work in providing guidance for sustainable development, be it in respect of rainforests conservation or the protection of coastal and marine resources. Moreover, it is conspicuous that national governments and communities are increasingly experimenting with sustainable development models.

Despite the progress that has been made since the “Earth Summit” some needs still remain, for example:

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  the need for assessments of progress achieved in all aspects of the post‐UNCED agenda;

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  the need to identify challenges that need to be addressed with renewed commitment;

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  the need to identify new challenges that are arising and need to be addressed;

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  the need to consider options for concerted action on outstanding cross‐sectoral issues.

On all of these topics, implementation efforts have occurred at the international, national, and sub‐national levels. There is also a wide range of projects, institutions and initiatives, which have been taking place and which have provided a concrete contribution to the cause of sustainable development, that are unfortunately little known. This perceived need for information on international perspectives on sustainability is addressed in this book. It gathers a set of papers that provides a synthetic overview of the effectiveness of implementation activities and initiatives at various levels, bringing together various clusters of organisations and approaches. While a special emphasis is given to Germany, from where reports on the work of the German Council for Sustainable Development, the German International Co‐operation Agency and the German Federal Environment Foundation are documented, examples of other initiatives taking place in Europe and North America are provided.

Some papers have outputs which have been taken into consideration at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) – a process which is in fact reviewed in chapter 1 – and identify some major new developments and outstanding problems needing further attention. Last but not least, the book provides concrete examples of governmental, inter‐governmental, and non‐governmental successful or promising efforts, showing that sustainability as both a process and as a goal may be pursued in different ways. This book, a compendium of international experiences on sustainability, will reassure those already working in this field that this is an area worthy investing more time and efforts. To the same measure, it shall inspire others to become more active, encouraging them to be involved in pursuing the concrete recommendations made in Rio and in Johannesburg to the international community for the next ten years and beyond.