A sustainable human society has been imagined in many ways. One of these is the definition of sustainable development in the Bruntland Report, Our Common Future (1987) as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
While the Bruntland definition provides a high-level vision, more is needed to apply the concept. Basic principles for social and ecological sustainability, based on physics, have been articulated by the science community and are captured in a framework known as The Natural Step The Natural Step principles are the “system conditions” that society must embrace to be sustainable.
In the sustainable society, nature is not subject to the systematic increase of:
1. concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust
2. concentrations of substances produced by society
3. degradation by physical means
4. in that society, people are not subject to conditions that systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.
Together, the Bruntland definition and The Natural Step Framework system conditions provide the sustainable development goal that buildings must strive to reach. Other decision-making tools for sustainable community development include “Smart Growth” and the “One Planet Living” frameworks. Reviewed by Guiseppe Strazzeri.