European Union Sustainable Development Strategy must be a principle guiding the many choices each citizen makes every day, and also the political and economic decisions. Sustainable development requires changes in thinking, in economic and social structure and in consumption, consumer culture and production patterns.
Sociology of Environment, Environmental Movement, and Ecology, cover the topic of sustainable development. Societies such as the Easter Islands, the Anasazi in southwestern U.S., the Polynesians in the Pitcairn Island have been known to collapse due to environmental degradation.
In July 2009 the Commission adopted the 2009 Review of European Union Sustainable Development Strategy. It underlines that in recent years the EU has mainstreamed sustainable development strategy into a broad range of its policies. The review takes stock of European Union Sustainable Development Strategy policy measures in the areas covered by the European Union Sustainable Development Strategy and launches a reflection on the future of the European Union Sustainable Development Strategy and its relation to the Lisbon strategy. The review is complemented by Eurostat's bi-annual monitoring report on sustainable development. The European Council in December 2009 confirmed that Sustainable development remains a fundamental objective of the European Union under the Lisbon Treaty. Sustainable Development Strategy will continue to provide a longterm vision and constitute the overarching policy framework for all Union policies and strategies.
Knowledge systems for sustainable development
David W. Cash, William C. Clark, Frank Alcock, Nancy M. Dickson, Noelle Eckley‡,
David H. Guston, Jill Jager, and Ronald B. Mitchell. The challenge of meeting human development needs while protecting the earth's
life support systems confronts scientists, technologists, policy makers, and communities
from local to global levels. Many believe that science and technology must play
a more central role in sustainable development, yet little systematic
scholarship exists on how to create institutions that effectively harness
science and technology for sustainable development. This study suggests that
efforts to mobilize science and technology for sustainability development are
more likely to be effective when they manage boundaries between knowledge and
action in ways that simultaneously enhance the salience, credibility, and
legitimacy of the information they produce.
Sustainable Development: Conventional versus
emergent alternative wisdom
David C Korten - Development (2005) 48, 65–69.
Abstract: To open the Dialogue section of Volume 48, we start with two pieces by
David C. Korten, a leading 'alternative' writer. The first was written in 1993
to present his then current thoughts on the conventional and alternative wisdom
on sustainable development. That most of its arguments remain relevant nearly
twelve years later is a useful reminder of how little the basic frame of the
sustainable development debate has changed during this period.