ABSTRACT
Sustainable development is a much-focused concept by government, scholars and industries. Scholars in different fields have described and explained it through different angles. Biologists generally believe that sustainable development is to strengthen production and regeneration capabilities of the ecology and environment. Sociologists hold that it means to increase the living quality of humanity without surpassing the limits of the ecological system. Economists, from the perspective of cost-effectiveness, think that the objective of sustainable development is to continuously bolster social well-being on the basis of protecting the environment. In 1987, the World Commission on Environment and Development presented a widely accepted authoritative definition of sustainable development in its report to the United Nations, Our Common Future: sustainable development is a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This definition was more systemically defined in the first comprehensive human sustainable development plan, Agenda 21, which was published at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and the Rio Summit on Earth (Rio+20). Agenda 21 divides sustainable development into four dimensions; namely, social and economic dimensions, conservation and management of resources for development, strengthening the role of major groups and means of implementation. Each dimensionis further divided into four levels; namely, the primary systems of sustainable development (economy and society, resources and environment, public and community, means and capabilities), fundamental aspects, plan areas and action initiatives. Agenda 21 also fully respects the differences among countries, especially the differences in responsibilities and obligations between developed and developing countries, and has developed more than 2500 action plans in 78 programme areas, including poverty alleviation, protection of diversity in the atmosphere, oceans and life, promotion of sustainable agriculture and change in ways of consumption and production to avoid excessive waste of resources. It has become a programmatic document guiding the international community to achieve sustainable development.
