2006/2007 Annual Report - International Institute for Sustainable ...

By Alanna Mitchell
LOOKING BACK; LOOKING AHEAD
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Twenty years after the launch of the Brundtland Commission’s report on sustainable
development, IISD sat down with both of its Canadian commissioners—Maurice
Strong and Jim MacNeill—to reflect on the report’s legacy.
The report, Our Common Future, which MacNeill wrote, introduced the world
to the concept of “sustainable development,” a phrase that has since become part of
the everyday lexicon of humankind.
But it was far more than a phrase. Instead, it was seen as a wholly new way of
viewing the human relationship to the other creatures of the world.
Before the Brundtland Commission, care of the environment typically meant
trying to fix things after development had happened.
After the Brundtland Commission, it meant recognizing that the economy relies on
a healthy environment and that, if properly managed, the environment and the
economy can support each other.
The report, which also introduced the world to the emerging dangers of climate
change, led directly to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992; to the World
Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002; and sowed the
seeds of scores of international agreements and national policies.
Governments all over the world now talk the talk of sustainable development: it
has become the language of political rhetoric. The report led directly to the
It’s been 20 years since Brundtland.
What’s changed?
Jim MacNeill still remembers the final all-night
meeting of the Brundtland Commission. As
Secretary-General of the Commission, it was his job
to be the lead author and to help the 23 Brundtland
Commissioners agree on the final report.
It was a hard slog. The Commissioners came from
all over the world—industry, academia and politics.
Their backgrounds were widely different, steeped,
as MacNeill says, by “the rivers of misinformation
and paranoia that flowed through the Cold War
world of the ’80s.”
That final night in Tokyo in February 1987, after 900
days of consultations with experts and the public
over five continents, the discussions went all night in
a session marked by “serious drama,” he said.
The sticking points were explosive and intractable:
population and nuclear energy.
The stakes were high.
During the 900 days of the
Commission’s consultations,
environmental disasters had
abounded, leaving citizens
around the world mired in
anxiety: starvation in Ethiopia, the Sahel and other
parts of Africa; the deadly chemical disaster in
Bhopal, and other chemical spills in Mexico City
and on the Rhine; the dying forests of Europe; an
expanding ozone hole; early scientific findings on
climate change; and the nuclear catastrophe at
Chernobyl.
All of this meant that the report had to strike the
right chord and that the Commissioners had to
avoid dividing along the “Cold War fault lines”—
East versus West, North versus South, planned
economy versus free market—in order to make
sure the report got its message across, he said.
establishment of institutes—including IISD—and conferences and university
curricula on sustainable development. It galvanized civil society and much of
industry with a bold new concept.
But what else did it lead to? Has anything really changed in 20 years?
Has the world lived up to the great promise that the Brundtland Commission
report revealed?
“Sustainable development is development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs.”
Definition from Our Common Future, the report of the Brundtland Commission (formally known
as the World Commission on Environment and Development), April 1987.
1987 Commissioners Jim MacNeill, Gro Harlem Brundtland and Volker Hauff at a recent meeting.
In the end, they succeeded.
“Environmental awareness was on the upswing,”
said MacNeill. “We caught that. People were looking
for a new direction.”
The report came out with a flourish that April,
having a far more intense effect on citizens, industry
and government than any of the Commissioners
had expected, says MacNeill.
“It was mind-bending and it changed mindsets,” he
says, pointing to changes in boardrooms, scientific
institutions, non-governmental organizations, university
research programs and government policy. It continues
to drive the thinking of much of civil society.
Photo courtesy of Jim MacNeill.