Brundtland Commission and Report

Last reviewed: December 2016

Date: Commission established 1983; report published as Our Common Future in 1987

Mission

The secretary-general of the United Nations, heeding growing concerns about the global environment, convened the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1983. The commission took its name from its head, Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former prime minister of Norway. Representatives of the commission traveled the globe, gathering statements of mounting environmental concerns and possible solutions. It quickly became clear that environmental problems do not respect national boundaries and that only a collective, global effort could effect change. The commission’s mandate arose from the “accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social development.”

The Brundtland Commission, in its report to the U.N. General Assembly, recommended the creation of a long-term environmental strategy to achieve sustainable development. Begun in 1983, the body produced a mission statement that anticipated a continuing effort to the year “2000 and beyond.” The final report looked forward to change brought through cooperation among all countries, regardless of their socioeconomic condition or fundamental resources. The commission hoped to accomplish its goals by integrating environmental, economic, and social objectives to form a comprehensive strategy.

The Brundtland Commission, which published its report Our Common Future in 1987, recommended the creation of a universal declaration on environmental protection and sustainable development in the form of a new charter. The commission recognized the need for broad participation in environmental programs and solutions, so it required that at least half its members come from developing countries and that the voices of governmental and nongovernmental organizations, industry, scientists, and others with environmental concerns be heard and consulted. In an effort to embrace and consider a broad range of views, the commission stressed that there must be a continuing dialogue among not only the scientific community and environmentalists but also all sections of public opinion, particularly youth, as well as those concerned with the fragile balance between development and the environment.

The commission’s message to the General Assembly was not an inflexible mandate but addressed varying environmental concerns for societies rich and poor, developed and undeveloped, resource abundant and resource scarce, industrial and rural. It expressed the hope for an inclusive and worldwide cooperative effort. Finally, the commission asked for “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The findings of the World Commission on Environment and Development, as presented in Our Common Future, served as a framework for later environmental discussion. This was clearly in evidence during the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, where the concept of “sustainable development” was firmly set in place as a “worthy universal goal.”

Significance for Climate Change

The Brundtland Report raised awareness of the accelerating human impact on the environment and declared that solutions depended upon cooperative global effort. The paperback version of the report, published late in 1987, warned readers that “Most of today’s decision makers will be dead before the planet suffers the full consequences of acid rain, global warming, ozone depletion, widespread desertification, and species loss.” In response to that prophetic statement, in 2005, a U.N. Millennium Project report confirmed that sixteen out of twenty-five ecosystems were being critically degraded and demonstrated the negative impact of unsustainable development paths. Further, as if echoing the twenty-two-year-old concerns of the Brundtland Commission, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change demonstrated the negative effects of unsustainable development paths. When Our Common Future was published, the fight against global warming was a distant consideration, and only four pages were devoted to the subject. It is noteworthy, however, that the report’s central tenet is basic to the challenges of climate change: the need for global cooperation to achieve solutions to global environmental problems.

Bibliography

Bruno, Kenny, and Joshua Karliner. Earthsummit.biz: The Corporate Takeover of Sustainable Development. Oakland, Calif.: Food First Books, 2002. From Rio to Johannesburg, the book details corporate accountability to environmental interests and the need to achieve sustainable practices in the twenty-first century.

Park, Jacob. “Our Common Future Twenty Years Later: Rethinking the Assumptions of the World Commission on Environment and Development.” Paper presented at the International Studies Association Forty-eighth Annual Convention. Chicago: International Studies Association, 2007. Comments on the practical applications of the Brundtland Report for business and on industrial environmental practices that have gained growing acceptance in the United States.

World Commission on Environment and Development. Our Common Future. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. The Brundtland Report, detailing the need for global cooperation to address mounting environmental concerns in the late twentieth century.

Derived from: "Brundtland Commission and Report." Encyclopedia of Global Warming (Online Edition). Salem Press. 2013.