Sustainable development concepts decade by decade

1 The 1930s to the 1950s
2 The 1960s and 1970s
3 The 1980s and 1990s
4 The Millennium
5 2010 to 2020
6 2020 to 2030
7 Related articles on Designing Buildings

[edit] The 1930s to the 1950s

Theories around limited resource management and changes in climate stem back as early as 1896, in a seminal paper by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground (1896), which first predicted that changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (referred to as carbonic acid) levels could substantially alter the surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. In the 1930s, Hotelling's rule (1931) looked at economics with the added perspective of limited resources, and in 1938, Guy Callendar connected carbon dioxide increases in Earth's atmosphere to global warming. In the first book by the marine biologist Rachel Carsion, The Sea Around Us (1951), she hints at notions of climate alterations through the poetry and science of the sea.

During the winter of 1952 in London, England, specific weather caused what is known as the Great Smog, which engulfed the capital, and in just a week, it was later calculated that some 8–12,000 people died as a result. As such, it led to the passing of the 1956 Clean Air Act, which banned the use of smoky solid fuels in urban areas.

In 1956, a scientific paper by Marion King Hubbert first introduced the theory of peak oil, predicting that US peak oil production would occur between 1965 and 1971.

In 1957, the first direct measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Earth’s atmosphere were carried out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, at just under 300 parts per million (ppm). This data, along with meteorological data sets from places such as the Met Office from as early as 1853 and the Hadley Centre from the 1950s, became the first climate related data sets that continue today and have become a key element in the growing evidence of carbon dioxide-related climate change, with levels from around 2015 surpassing 400ppm.

[edit] The 1960s and 1970s

In the 1960s books questioning approaches to urban planning, such as The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs (1961) and Rachel Carson's second book, Silent Spring (1962), looked more deeply at environmental science and the impacts of pesticides. 1969, the same year man landed on the moon, saw The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich and, finally, with more direct reference, the Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth by R. Buckminster Fuller.

Meanwhile, further weather events such as smogs in New York City and Los Angeles and environmental disasters such as the Santa Barbara oil spill, which caused 4 million gallons of crude oil to be released into the Pacific Ocean, and the Cuyahoga River fire, which only lasted half an hour but highlighted many years of unregulated factory waste being dumped there, which had smothered the river in a foot of oil, These all contributed to increased public awareness and action and led to various acts passing through Congress in the following years, and it was in 1968 that the United Nations decided to convene the first UN Conference on the Human Environment planned for Stockholm in 1972, including the increasingly prominent environmental topic of acid rain.

The 1970 saw the establishment of the first Earth Day in April, in many ways because of the perspective of the moon landing and the images of the Earth from outer space, perhaps increasing awareness of the Earth and a self-sustaining environment to be protected. The publication The Limits to Growth by D. Meadows and J.R. Williams (1972) studied the patterns and dynamics of the human presence on Earth and pointed towards environmental and economic collapse under a business-as-usual scenario.

The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in June 1972, led to the first global set of principles for future international cooperation on environmental issues and the establishment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Just one year later, in October 1973, the first oil crisis, spurred by the Fourth Middle East War, caused oil prices to rise and had the knock-on effect of dramatic inflation. This in turn increased interest in the nature of limited resources, alternatives, better management, and new economic models, for example, by revisiting some of Hotelling's ideas from the 1930s.

Individuals and organisations were establishing a specialism in the field of environmental impact that was gaining some traction. An example of this in the UK was the establishment of the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT), which was founded in 1973 on a disused slate quarry in Mid Wales, evolving from a community to a visitor centre to an educational charity specialising in sharing practical solutions for sustainability. In 1975, the American Marketing Association (AMA) held its first workshop on ecological marketing and published one of the first books on green marketing.

In 1978, what is regarded as the first environmental product labelling scheme or eco-label was established in Germany. Der Blaue Engel, or Blue Angel, assessed products and services in connection with the protection of the environment and health.

[edit] The 1980s and 1990s

In the 1980s, a decade after the UN conference and its principles for the future, it was highlighted that very few issues around the environment had been addressed. As a result, in 1983, the World Commission on Environment and Development was established by the UN Council. Better known as the Brundtland Commission after its chairperson, the former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland. Its aim was to unite countries in the pursuit of sustainable development, and it also developed the most commonly used definition of sustainable development. The brief of the commission was significant and challenging, re-examining critical issues relating to the environment and development to formulate innovative, critical, and realistic actions. To propose new cooperation models to break away from existing patterns of development, to influence policy, raise awareness, understanding, and "commitment to action on the part of individuals, voluntary organisations, businesses, institutes, and governments”.

The Brundtland Report, 'Our Common Future', was published in 1987. It catalogued, analysed, and synthesised written submissions and expert testimony from senior government representatives, scientists and experts, research institutes, industrialists, representatives of non-governmental organisations, and the general public. It highlighted the conflict between globalised economic growth and the acceleration of ecological degradation and redefined the notion of economic development with that of sustainable development, which it defined as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

One year later, in 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Its role was to provide policymakers, institutions, and the public with regular scientific assessments of the current state of knowledge about climate change. Its first task was to prepare a comprehensive review and recommendations with respect to the state of knowledge of the science of climate change, the social and economic impact of climate change, and potential response strategies and elements for inclusion in a possible future international convention on climate. (Since 1988, the IPCC has had six assessment cycles and delivered six assessment reports, the most comprehensive scientific reports about climate change produced worldwide.)

1990 saw the publication of the first Assessment Report (FAR) by the newly established IPCC, which underlined the importance of climate change as a challenge with global consequences and requiring international cooperation. In the same year, what is generally regarded as the first environmental certification scheme for the built environment was launched by the UK Building Research Establishment (BRE), known as BREEAM. The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology (BREEAM) assesses sustainable value under a number of categories: management, health and wellbeing, energy, transport, water, materials, waste, land use and ecology, pollution, and innovation.

In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), or the Earth Summit, was held in Rio de Janeiro. The Rio Summit was created as a platform for sustainability to be discussed beyond the reach of member states and, in particular, to cooperate internationally on development issues after the Cold War. The outcomes of the event were the Rio Declaration with 27 universal principles, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the Declaration on the Principles of Forestry Management. It also highlighted the role of local communities and local governments in the causes and solutions of environmental issues, which was formalised in Local Agenda 21, Chapter 28 of Agenda 21, adopted by 178 governments at the time.

In 1993, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) was founded, and in the following years, it developed the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification scheme known as LEED, which was finally launched as a pilot in 1998 and formally offered as a building rating system in 2000.

In 1995, the first Conference of the Parties (COP) was held in Berlin, Germany, highlighting the need for increased international action, followed immediately by COP 2 in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1996, COP 3 in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, and the announcement of the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol, based on the principles and provisions of the convention, bound developed countries under the principles of “common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities” with emission reduction targets for 37 industrialised countries and economies in transition and the European Union. 1998 saw COP4 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and finally COP5 was held in Bonn, Germany, in 1999, the same year that the global population was recorded as having reached 6 billion people.

[edit] The Millennium

In September 2000, at the Millennium Summit in New York, the United Nations Millennium Declaration was signed by 189 countries. It represented a commitment to a global framework called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) designed to create agreement to globally combat extreme poverty and hunger, child mortality, disease, improve maternal health, primary education and illiteracy, gender equality and the empowerment of women, create a global partnership for development, and ensure environmental sustainability. Replacing the term to describe the current epoch as the holocene with the term anthropocene to mark the significance of the impact of humans regained traction.

The work of Keiner and Kim on Transnational City Networks for Sustainability (2007) showed that between the launch of the local Agenda 21 in 1992 and the Millennium Declaration, there was a boom in sustainability-related networks. These were seen as a way of supporting local action on a global scale, as described by Lafferty, W. M., in Sustainable Communities in Europe (2001). However, by the time of the Millennium, many of these networks had all but disappeared, with the suggestion by A. Labaeye and T. Sauer in City Networks and the Socio-Ecological Transition: A European Inventory (2013) that the market had effectively reached saturation point by mid-2000.

In terms of building certification schemes, both global and national frameworks, a handful of the earliest and best-known schemes, such as BREEAM, Pasivhaus, Energy Star, LEED, and NABERS, for example, were launched around the time of or just before the Earth Summit. However, it was during the Millennium Year that the majority of building certification schemes (some 30 or more) were launched, often nationally based models or national variations of known certification schemes, with a few others being launched in the next decade. The reasoning behind this may have been down to the legally binding agreements to reduce emissions signed by most countries at the government level.

In 2002, 10 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 65,000 delegates from over 185 countries convened in South Africa for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Issues discussed included measures to cut poverty, improve sanitation, improve ecosystems, reduce pollution, and improve energy supply for poor people. The event was significant in that the US didn't attend and was an was an early indication of a change of political power, which eventually led the country to effectively pull out of the Kyoto Protocol as they didn't ever ratify the agreement. It was also in 2002 that the European Energy Performance Buildings Directive (EPBD) mandated that the energy performance of all new and renovated buildings measuring 1,000 m2 and above had to be certified and displayed (Directive 2002/91/EC, 2002).

In 2004, both Russia and Canada ratified the Kyoto agreement, thus signing up to reductions in the first phase up until 2012 (though Canada became the first country to later pull out after ratification). By 2006, the emissions of China (despite ratification) had surpassed those of the US by 8%, at the same time as Al Gore, the previous US Vice President, released his climate change documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth'. Climate COPS were held yearly, though from the first in the Hague they ended with what many considered a failure to build on previous agreements in Copenhagen, amid what was known as the climate-gate scandal. In June 2007, the German Sustainable Building Council was officially founded with 121 founding members. In 2009, its first 16 buildings were awarded the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen, or DGNB, sustainable building certificate, and Austria became an official partner, with Switzerland, Denmark, and then China following in the following years.

[edit] 2010 to 2020

Along with governance issues of the last decade, 2010 brought with it some criticism of certification systems, for example with a lawsuit against the LEED certification scheme and the USGBC for false claims in energy savings, amongst other claims. The $100 million lawsuit against LEED was finally dismissed by the Federal Judge around one year later. The case had brought into question some aspects of the effectiveness of the now-growing business of building certification schemes. Further studies of LEED-certified buildings continued to question and test the effectiveness of the certification schemes, along with the extra costs they add to a project. A number of high-profile press articles, such as Forbes (LEED-Certified Buildings Are Often Less Energy-Efficient Than Uncertified Ones) and USA Today (In the U.S. building industry, is it too easy to be green?) continued the line of enquiry questioning the effectiveness of the LEED certification scheme in the US. Not long after LEEDv4 was launched in 2014, which hoped to dispel at least some of the ongoing criticisms of the scheme,.

By the middle of the decade, two significant and somewhat successful international events took place, the first being the Paris Agreement (COP21 2015), in which, after yearly COP events, countries representing 98% of global emissions signed a legally binding agreement to reduce emissions and work together on climate adaptation; these included the US, Canada, and China. The agreement was essentially contracted at the governance level to keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C, meaning global emissions needed to be reduced by 45% by 2030 in order to reach net zero by 2050.

A year later, the much-publicised follow-up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), were launched. 17 goals, with a somewhat more specific 169 targets that all 191 UN Member States agreed to try to achieve by the year 2030. The 17 goals are: no poverty (SDG 1), zero hunger (SDG 2), good health and well-being (SDG 3), quality education (SDG 4), gender equality (SDG 5), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9), reduced inequalities (SDG 10), sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11), responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), life below water (SDG 14), life on land (SDG 15), peace, justice, and strong institutions (SDG 16), and partnerships for the goals (SDG 17). Of these goals, those most relevant to construction included the SDGs 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, and 17 and were somewhat all-encompassing, with a raft of associated key performance indicators.

Ironically, in the same year, one of the UK's most prominent certification schemes for the housing sector was scrapped by the government at the time. The Code for Sustainable Homes, also managed by the BREEAM Centre at the Building Research Establishment (BRE) under contract to the Department for Communities and Local Government, was launched in 2006 as an all-encompassing certification scheme for housing. The scheme assessed homes at the building level but also covered certain aspects at the community and urban planning level, such as infrastructure and accessibility. The reasons for its final closure were associated with what was considered to be further red tape barriers to development, with some of the requirements intended to be brought into Building Regulations updates. It had come under some criticism for its effectiveness and the extra costs of schemes relating to certification.

Despite setbacks and some criticism, by 2018, building certification schemes had continued to become a significant business. The LEED rating system, owned by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), had more than $60 million in annual revenue, with 200,000 LEED-certified individuals, 92,000 total projects, 39,000 certified projects, 1.6 million registered or certified homes, 6,000 certified schools, 2,900 certified local government buildings, and 1,000 certified state government buildings. Whilst in the same year the BRE Group of companies, the organisation responsible for BREEAM, delivered increased revenues of £54.1m in 2017/18, bringing a net profit of £2.1m. Although this was for a range of activities broader than BREEAM alone, by this time it was estimated that over 2.5 million BREEAM-branded schemes globally were certified or in progress by the middle of the decade, and many other schemes were well established in their regions.

[edit] 2020 to 2030

In 2023, the UN published further details on its agenda 2030 'Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development', a series of measurable targets and goals relating to people, planet and prosperity that should be achieved by 2030. Indeed the period up to 2030 is considered to be now one of the most significant in terms of climate change and essentially the last opportunity to slow down what many consider the likely effects of runaway global warming. The impacts of actions during this decade are in effect still being written.

A variety of concepts, regulations and standards have been developed in various countries, though the impact of these and how they lead towards more sustainable development by 2030 remains to be seen. Sustainable development concepts that are likely to become increasingly significant in the UK, Europe and globally in order to achieve the global goals. Some examples of sustainability related concepts developed and implemented during this time are: The UK Biodiversity net gain policy, the EU Taxonomy regulation in 2021, the corporate sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) (2021), and the sustainability reporting standards (ESRS) (2023) to name a few.