What Next for Sustainable Development?: Our Common Future at Thirty

Sustainable development brings together a series of normative themes related to negotiating environmental limits, to addressing equity, needs and development, and to the process of transformation and transition. To mark the 30th Anniversary of Our Common Future (1987), that first placed sustainable development on the global agenda, the editors have brought together a group of international scholars from a range of social science backgrounds. They have discussed these same themes – looking backwards in terms of what has been achieved, assessing the current situation with respect to sustainable development, and looking forwards to identify the key elements of the future agenda. This book presents a series of critical reflections on these enduring themes. The overriding concern is with the present and with the future as the editors seek to explore the question: What next for sustainable development?

Edited by James Meadowcroft, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, David Banister, Emeritus Professor of Transport Studies, School of Geography and the Environment and Senior Research Fellow, St Anne's College, University of Oxford, UK, Erling Holden, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Oluf Langhelle, University of Stavanger, Kristin Linnerud and Geoffrey Gilpin, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway