UK 2003 Agenda 2003 - Where next for Sustainable Development

Agenda 2003: Where next for Sustainable
Development?
19.02.03

The Sustainable Development Commission’s mission is to inspire government, the economy and society to embrace sustainable development as the central organising principle.
Our principles for sustainable development are: 

• Putting sustainable development at the centre
Sustainable development must be the organising
principle of all democratic societies, underpinning all
other goals, policies and processes. It provides a
framework for integrating economic, social and
environmental concerns over time, not through
crude trade-offs, but through the pursuit of mutually
reinforcing benefits. It promotes good governance,
healthy living, innovation, life-long learning and all
forms of economic growth which secure the natural
capital upon which we depend. It reinforces social
harmony and seeks to secure each individual’s
prospects of leading a fulfilling life.

• Valuing nature
We are and always will be part of Nature,
embedded in the natural world, and totally
dependent for our own economic and social wellbeing
on the resources and systems that sustain life
on Earth. These systems have limits, which we
breach at our peril. All economic activity must be
constrained within those limits. We have an
inescapable moral responsibility to pass on to future
generations a healthy and diverse environment,
and critical natural capital unimpaired by economic
development. Even as we learn to manage our use
of the natural world more efficiently, so we must
affirm those individual beliefs and belief systems
which revere Nature for its intrinsic value,
regardless of its economic and aesthetic value
to humankind.

• Fair shares
Sustainable economic development means “fair
shares for all”, ensuring that people’s basic needs
are properly met across the world, whilst securing
constant improvements in the quality of peoples’
lives through efficient, inclusive economies.
“Efficient” simply means generating as much
economic value as possible from the lowest
possible throughput of raw materials and energy.
“Inclusive” means securing high levels of paid, high
quality employment, with internationally recognised
labour rights and fair trade principles vigorously
defended, whilst properly acknowledging the value
to our well-being of unpaid family work, caring,
parenting, volunteering and other informal
livelihoods. Once basic needs are met, the goal is
to achieve the highest quality of life for individuals
and communities, within the Earth’s carrying
capacity, through transparent, properly-regulated
markets which promote both social equity and
personal prosperity. 

• Polluter pays
Sustainable development requires that we make
explicit the costs of pollution and inefficient
resource use, and reflect those in the prices we pay
for all products and services, recycling the revenues
from higher prices to drive the sustainability
revolution that is now so urgently needed, and
compensating those whose environments have
been damaged. In pursuit of environmental justice,
no part of society should be disproportionately
impacted by environmental pollution or blight,
and all people should have the same right to pure
water, clean air, nutritious food and other key
attributes of a healthy, life-sustaining environment.

• Good governance
There is no one blue-print for delivering sustainable
development. It requires different strategies in
different societies. But all strategies will depend on
effective, participative institutions and systems of
governance, engaging the interest, creativity and
energy of all citizens. We must therefore celebrate
diversity, and practise tolerance and respect.
However, good governance is a two-way process.
We should all take responsibility for promoting
sustainability in our own lives and for engaging
with others to secure more sustainable outcomes
in society.

• Adopting a precautionary approach
Scientists, innovators and wealth creators have a
crucial part to play in creating genuinely sustainable
economic progress. But human ingenuity and
technological power is now so great that we are
capable of causing serious damage to the
environment or to people’s health through
unsustainable development that pays insufficient
regard to wider impacts. Society needs to ensure
that there is full evaluation of potentially damaging
activities so as to avoid or minimise risks. Where
there are threats of serious or irreversible damage
to the environment or human health, the lack of full
scientific certainty should not be used as a reason to
delay taking cost-effective action to prevent or
minimise such damage. 

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