Sustainable Development

and the

Environment

What is sustainable development?

Sustainable development represents a new standard for judging economic and social development and a new standard for evaluating the effects of transnational corporations in developing nations. It establishes criteria using an elongated time horizon and based on the ability of people to affect their own destiny.

Our understanding of sustainable development involves the answers to four related questions:

Does the economic activity preserve the resources available to future generations?

Does the economic activity contribute to virtuous cycles of economic development for local populations?

Does the economic activity expand the opportunities available to wider segments of the local population?

Does the economic activity promote those social institutions that enhance the ability of more people to affect their own political and economic environment?

Only when an economic activity contributes to each of these areas does it meet the standard of sustainable development.