As Hartmut Bossel mentions, there are some words that cannot be clearly defined because they carry several meanings, and that would be the case of "Sustainability" (Bossel 7). Moreover, he states that:
“Sustainability” therefore has physical, material, ecological, social, cultural, psychological and ethical dimensions. Human society can be sustainable only if it is sustainable on all of these counts. A tall order, but there is one more important requirement: sustainability must remain a dynamic concept. Societies and their environments change, technologies and cultures change, values and aspirations change, and a sustainable society must allow and sustain such change. (Ibidem)
Embarking in a sustainable path requires conscious decisions from all stakeholders, who will have to accept development without tangible growth of, for instance, levels of non-renewable energy and non-recyclable materials consumption (Bossel 8). Sustainability is a never-ending journey, requiring all types of contributions from everybody, which is not an easy task, but there is no other choice (Bossel 9). As USA President Barack Obama said when launching his 2015 America’s Clean Power Plan, “We only get one planet. There is no Plan B.”[1]
The creation of the term "sustainable development" is often attributed to the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), to Eva Balfour, founder of the Soil Association, or to Wes Jackson, an American geneticist and biodynamic farmer, but the first time the concept impacted public domain was in the World Conservation Strategy (WCS) issued by the World Conservation Union in 1980 (Reid xiii).
One might say that Gro Harlem Brundtland had is mind clear when in 1983 chaired the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). Later in 1987, the well-known Brundtland Report was named 'Our Common Future' and came into light with the definition of Sustainable Development, “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Chapter I.3. Paragraph 27).
The pillars of sustainable development were for the first time articulated as: economic growth, environmental protection and social improvement. The conflict between progress associated to social wealth and economic expansion and environmental disrespect was widely discussed during the meeting, opening routes to find balanced solutions among all stakeholders. If, on the one hand, economic growth is mandatory for improving social conditions, it should not be linear that it has to be on expense of environment destruction and pollution (Brundtland Report). In a nutshell, it introduced the need for a balanced respect between our current actions to drive human development and the heritage of future generations.
Since Mr. Brundtland stated in his Chairman’s Forefront (Ibidem) that “environmental degradation, first seen as mainly a problem of the rich nations and a side effect of industrial wealth, has become a survival issue for developing nations,” the world has evolved to a broader consensus of actions needed from all nations, no matter the development status or social model, to solve a planet issue.
The WCED addressed important stakeholders without exempting profit-oriented companies, from “the one-person business to the great multinational company with a total economic turnover greater than that of many nations, and with possibilities for bringing about far-reaching changes and improvements” (Ibidem).
Later on, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 - the "Earth Summit" - engraved the concept of “Sustainable Development” deeply in all kinds of stakeholders, from polititians, to academics, private entrepreneurs or environmental organizations (Reid xiii).
Further to the “Earth Summit”, the European Union included in its principles since 1991 the notion of "sustainable economic and social development" (EU Maastricht Treaty, Article 2nd, 11) and in 1997 added further "integration of environmental policies into all other policies" with the objective of promoting sustainable development (EU Amsterdam Treaty, Article 1st, 7).
To summarize, the awakening of a global sustainable development consciousness by late eighties, brought by the Brundtland Commission, sets the tone for most of the actions we have experienced to build “Our Common Future,” enforming in a great measure the contemporary enterprise leader’ mindset about sustainable management. Sustainability must have a "consistent goal" in "all institutions at all levels from local to global" according to Robert Costanza (16). The inference to be taken is that all for-profit organizations should have their own sustainability goal. To turn this objective into reality, i.e., managing for sustainability, it is mandatory to promote long-term thinking, the use of a sistematic implementation model and trained sustainability professionals (Ibidem).
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[1]See on <https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-reveals-new-climate-change-initiative-we-only-get-one-planet-there-is-no-plan-b-10436273.html>
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