Genesis, evolution and uncertainties of the concept of sustainability

Abstract

The current meaning of the word sustainability hardly could have been heard before the decade of the eighties. Even though, the global movement that gave rise to it began some twenty years earlier with sensitizing publications such as Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962), which was one of the first publications on environmental impact and ecological awareness.

Some authors and publications mistakenly consider that the conceptual and documentary beginning of sustainability is in the works and disclosures carried out by the World Commission on Environment and Development of the United Nations, which was published in 1987 Our Common Future. Derived from this imprecision and to contribute to elucidating it, in this work the genesis of sustainability located in the advent of the global environmental movement is exposed, as well as the evolution of
sustainability or sostenibilidad (in Spanish), duality of terms which is also clarified here. Sustainable development began in practice with the launch of Agenda 21 in 1992, and whose current vision is represented by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of Agenda 2030.