The Evolution of Sustainable Development Theory: Types, Goals, and Research Prospects

TLDR

Sustainable development is a key strategy for global transformation, yet its practice is hampered by misinterpretations, especially the debate over strong versus weak paths and intra‑ versus inter‑generational justice. The study aims to clarify the evolution and objectives of SD through literature survey, induction, and normative analysis, and to contextualize these within China. The authors employed a literature survey, inductive reasoning, and normative analysis, incorporating Chinese contexts, to trace SD’s conceptual evolution. The study identifies three developmental stages of SD, traces its global implementation and goal evolution from resource sustainability to MDGs and SDGs, argues for strong sustainability as the accepted concept, and highlights culture, governance, and life‑support systems as key enablers.

Abstract

Sustainable development (SD) has become a fundamental strategy to guide the world’s social and economic transformation. However, in the process of practice, there are still misinterpretations in regards to the theory of SD. Such misinterpretations are highlighted in the struggle between strong and weak sustainable development paths, and the confusion of the concept of intra-generational and inter-generational justice. In this paper, the literature survey method, induction method, and normative analysis were adopted to clarify the gradual evolution and improvement process of the concept and objective of SD, to strengthen the comprehensive understanding of the SD theory. Moreover, we also tried to bring in the situation and concepts of China. The results show that the theory of SD has gone through three periods: the embryonic period (before 1972), the molding period (1972–1987), and the developing period (1987–present). SD is gradually implemented into a global action from the initial fuzzy concept, including increasing practical wisdom. The goal of SD evolves from pursuing the single goal of sustainable use of natural resources to Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This paper argues that the theory of strong sustainability should be the accepted concept of SD. Culture, good governance, and life support systems are important factors in promoting SD.