With more than 300 definitions of sustainability, it’s little wonder there is some ambiguity over what exactly the term means. The best-known definition comes from Our Common Future (the so-called “Brundtland Report”) prepared by  the World Council on Environment and Development in 1987, which defines sustainable development as that which “…meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

The Earth Summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) held in Rio in 1992 formulated and signed Agenda 21 as a way of achieving sustainable development through global partnership.

Since the Earth Summit the UK Government has confirmed its commitment to sustainable development by publishing its sustainable development strategy 'A better Quality of Life - a strategy for sustainable development in the UK' (1999). This strategy lists the four key elements of sustainable development as:

More recently the UK Government has produced 'Securing the Future- UK Government sustainable development strategy' ( DEFRA, 2005) which identifies sustainable development as having five key principles as shown in the figure below:

Further Information on sustainability can viewed on the government's sustainable development website.

The government's aim is to create prosperous, inclusive and sustainable communities for the 21st century, places where people want to live, that promote opportunity and a better quality of life for all. In Torbay our aims to achieve sustainable communities are set out in the Torbay Community Plan.