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Sustainable
development is defined as a pattern of social and structured
economic transformations (i.e. development) which optimizes
the economic and societal benefits available in the present,
without jeopardizing the likely potential for similar benefits
in the future. A primary goal of sustainable development is
to achieve a reasonable and equitably distributed level of
economic well-being that can be perpetuated continually for
many human generations.
Sustainable development implies using renewable natural
resources in a manner which does not eliminate or degrade
them, or otherwise diminish their usefulness for future
generations. It further implies using non-renewable (exhaustible)
mineral resources in a manner which does not unnecessarily
preclude easy access to them by future generations. Sustainable
development also requires depleting non-renewable energy
resources at a slow enough rate so as to ensure the high
probability of an orderly society transition to renewable
energy sources.
Based on similar arguments, sustainable development has
been alternatively defined in various manners also, some
of them are as follows:
"Development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs".
--The World Commission on Environment and Development,
Brundtland Commission 1987.
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