Sustainable Development and the Paper Industry - A Canadian Perspective, 1995 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Peter E. Wrist

Pulp & Research Institute of Canada

The 1987 report of the World Commission on Environment and Development -

-Our Common Future”(l), concluded that

-environment and development are inseparable, and that, while many of the development paths of the past and present are clearly unsustainable, they expressed the conviction that humanity has the ability to make development sustainable (2). They also recognised that sustainable development must become a goal not just for developing nations but for industrial ones as well(3). Sustainable Development was defined by the Commission as development which ‘meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs(4). In discussing the relationship between needs and resources the potential adverse impacts of rapid population growth on sustainability were noted as important factors that must be managed well. While short run impacts of economic development in developing counties might well lead initially to more rapid population increases, there is strong evidence that, over the longer term, the increasing levels of living standards and of education which accompany economic prosperity eventually lead to population stability. While the importance of public health, of social values and of cultural beliefs were discussed extensively in the 1987 report, the emphasis on environment and economic development in the Commission’s mandate has left a strong impression in many minds that the thrust of strategies for achieving sustainable development lies in making trade offs and compromises between environmental protection and economic efficiency and growth, a gain in one area being made at the expense of a loss in the other. This interpretation is erroneous, the concept is far more radical than a system of win- loose trade offs. Instead it calls for a new approach to development in which the goal is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs(5).