Brochure on sustainability - Klasmann Deilmann

Pressing problems –
global solutions
Over the last few decades we have learned to be more aware of our environment and to
protect it. Our planet is no longer seen as an inexhaustible reservoir of resources intended
for us to create a ‘paradise on earth’ and to be exploited for this purpose. We have long
known that Earth as a biosphere is susceptible to human intervention and can exist in the
long term only if its sensitive balance is maintained.
The first major responses arising from this new awareness ranged from nature conservation
and the recycling of resources such as paper, plastics and glass to diverse energy reduction
measures, the development of resource-saving technologies and an organic boom in the
food industry.
In this context, a notion which goes a significant step further is now becoming established:
that of sustainability. This refers to the awareness that everything in the world is
inter connected. The world we live in is a complex unit that must be viewed as a whole. It
is no longer simply a matter of environmental protection, organic products or fuel-efficient
cars. When we are talking about sustainability, then what we are talking about is – quite
literally – everything. Sustainability embraces the planet as a whole, the natural world,
humans and animals, individuals and society, resources and technology, present and future.
It has long been recognised that the world’s most pressing problems are global in nature
and thus cannot be solved only at local level, with global warming being one example.
However, previous efforts have not turned the situation around and isolated technical
solutions – such as the development of ultra-fuel-efficient cars – are, in and of themselves,
completely insufficient. What is needed instead is a radical and worldwide transformation
of both production and consumption, with business and society working hand in hand.
The principle of sustainability originated from forestry and goes back more than 200 years
to the German forestry scientist Georg Ludwig Hartig. He wrote that the amount of wood
removed from a forest must never exceed what can grow back – so that the woodland is
never completely cut down but allowed to continually regenerate.
In 1983, the United Nations set up the ‘World Commission on Environment and
Devel op ment’, which in 1987 published what was called the Brundtland report. This
contains a statement which has since become key to the definition of sustainability:
“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
(Source: www.nachhaltigkeit.info)
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