1. What does sustainable development actually mean?

Your life must be more sustainable, your country must be more sustainable, the world must be more sustainable. The effect of climate change is becoming apparent in more and more places. With all the negative consequences that come with it.

“But what exactly is sustainable development?"

In this first blog out of a series of multiple blogs about sustainable development, I start by explaining what sustainable development is. And I tell you more about the concept that I came up with that allows everyone to live more sustainably. Sustainable development is not a possibility but a necessity. In addition to a brief framework on the subject of sustainability, I will take you along in my vision on sustainable development. Do you also notice that the term sustainable development has been used more and more frequently in recent years? In recent years I have read a lot and thought about the theme of sustainable development. Sustainable development is often associated with solar panels, climate change or an ecological footprint. But sustainable development is more than just taking care of our planet.

Definitions of sustainable development

What are existing definitions of sustainable development and how did they arise? The UN Commission Brundland already made a report in 1987 (Our common future) and prepared a definition:

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs"

This definition comes from an ecological perspective. Planet Earth does not offer inexhaustible resources to provide for the development of humanity. There are several other definitions:

1.      In 1994 business writer John Elkington came up with a definition that is more substantive: "sustainable development is a development in which the 3 elements people, planet, profit (ppp) must be in harmonious balance with each other".

2.      As early as 1981, Freer Sprekley mentioned the term "triple bottom line (3BL)" in a publication called "Social audit - a management tool for cooperative working".

3.      In 1997 John Elkington deepened the term "triple bottom line" in his book "Cannibals with forks: the Triple Bottom Line of 21st century business". Triple Bottom Line is a framework within accountancy which takes the 3 elements (social, environmental and financial) into account when determining the value of a business activity.

What stands out is that the concept of sustainable development has mostly business origins. But is a business perspective applicable to everyone?

Time for a new definition?

I believe that the concept of sustainable development should not only be viewed in a business sense, but it relates to all of us. and is becoming increasingly urgent for all of us. What stands out is that the existing definition of J. Elkington (PPP) is a description of what matters (people, planet, profit) but does not call for action. If you adjust the nouns (PPP) in the definition to an active form, you come to the following definition that I call the HES-principle(see Fig 1):

"Sustainable development is a development of humanity in which the actions humanlove, environmental care and self-reliance are in harmonious balance with each other".

Fig. 1: HES-principle

Humanlove in English is a non-existing word. I’m a native Dutch-speaking person. In the Dutch language there’s a word, naastenliefde, which means something like “love for your fellow human beings”. In English this word is translated as charity but in Dutch there’s a different word for that; liefdadigheid. In my mind the word humanlove covers the exact load. The most important thing in the HES-principle is the balance. When you score less high at one of the corners of the triangle, you are no longer in balance. This means that when, for example, self-reliance is low: You cannot take good care of others and you cannot take good care of the environment. But this also means that if you do not take good care of the environment, you will no longer be able to take care of yourself in the longer term. Then you can think: you can take good care of the environment without taking care of your fellow man, as long as you are self-reliant? Then that balance isn't that important, is it?

“That thought does not hold true to the fact that we must all live on the earth”

So when fellow residents of our earth cannot take care of themselves properly, the environment will be less well cared for on balance. And that is harmful to all of us.

Sustainable-Householding web platform

Because I would like to contribute to sustainable development - in the sense of the balance explained above - I started building a web platform that promotes sustainable development a few years ago. The platform consists of five parts that have three goals around the theme of sustainable development The five components are: news, information centre, shopping centre, product experiences and forum.

Three goals

1.     The first goal is to provide information through a news page and Info Centre where (registered) users can create and share articles.

2.     The second goal is to offer consumer products. The products receive a rating according to the HES-principle. Users can also leave a product review that is included in the rating. "This makes it possible for users to consciously make sustainable purchases".

3.     The third goal is to offer communication options to platform users. There is a website section (product experiences) where users can create, share and read product reviews. There is also a forum where users can communicate with other users. 

This web platform offers users the possibility to make more sustainable choices based on the three actions of sustainable development. I think humanity needs such a platform and I encourage everyone to start using it! The platforms approach of stimulating sustainable development is unique in a sense that it takes all 3 aspects of sustainable development into account when buying products and does what a platform is supposed to offer, that is defragmentation around a certain topic, in this case sustainable development.

Future vision:

The current way in which humanity is developing is not sustainable (enough) in my eyes. Yet I do not see the future as bleak. I increasingly read back to the realization that we cannot continue to develop this way. I feel that the urgency is felt more and more often. Every person wants to be happy. I define "being happy" as "living in love without fear." I think sustainable development also means: "develop into an emotional state of love that makes us all happy". Everyone wants to be happy. And so my vision for the future is that ultimately everyone wants to develop in a sustainable way. Love leads to peace (harmony), fear to the opposite. The question is when the pain and anxiety that non-sustainable development entails is large enough to cause a broad-based awareness that change is needed to be happy.

The author

Niels van der Weijde is a Sustainable entrepreneur. He is the founder and owner of web platform Sustainable-householding.com. He studied Life Science & technology at TU Delft . During his studies he developed his interest in sustainable development and Corporate Social Responsibility. At the end of 2012 he had to deal with physical complaints. At the beginning of 2013, Niels was diagnosed with MS. But this does not prevent him from continuing with the web platform.

Contact

If you are interested in this concept as a result of reading this article, I invite you to share this article within your network and / or to contact me via a PM.