Chapter 1: Introduction

Sustainable development has been popularly defined as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, a conceptualisation emanating from the 1987 Brundtland Report, Our Common Future (WCED, 1987, p. 43). The concept centralises four main pillars – social inclusion, environmental stewardship, economic prosperity and good governance (Sachs, 2015) – and concretises the possibilities for the harmonious co-existence of these pillars in order to ensure sustainable lifestyles for present and future generations. Another conceptualisation of sustainable development categorises the ‘interdependent and mutually reinforcing’ pillars according to the ‘3Ps’ – people, planet and prosperity (UNESCO, 2016, p. 4). The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report succinctly articulates that ‘sustainable development is an organising principle for global development that supports the well-being of both people and planet’ (UNESCO, 2016, p. 3). While the concept itself has been contested and variously defined with emphasis on different imperatives, it is undoubtedly a critical developmental paradigm for the global community given the various social, environmental and economic challenges facing the world today.