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The Principles of Sustainable Development
Moral and social principles:
Within a sustainable society, people- follow David Hume's → theory of utility and agreeableness;
- are «human» in its proper sense and do not attempt to dominate nature;
- assume a custodian's accountability for resources essential to meeting their needs and take a steward's responsibility for the resources required for meeting their wants;
- show the behavioral tendency to use less than what is physically, technically, legally or financially possible;
- increase contributions to meeting the needs of other people within their society and worldwide; and
- promote and protect other peoples' capability to do and be things of value.
Policy principles:
Within a sustainable society, policies- enforce warrant corrective action in the face of environmental or human threats even if science is not yet conclusive;
- make polluters pay; i.e. ensure that those actors primarily responsible for degradation pay for clean-up and amelioration;
- make sure that the burden of proof is on those who would intervene into critical life support systems;
- ban (ex ante) human interventions that are incompatible with ecosystem functioning;
- increase the economic value of natural resources;
- promote and protect peoples' rights, intra- and intergenerational equity as well as political accountability and participation; and
- integrate economic, social and environmental considerations through holistic impact assessments.
Ecological principles:
Within a sustainable society,- nature's adaptive capability (including biodiversity) is maintained and nature's carrying capacity is respected through eliminating contribution to systematic increases in (1) concentrations of substances produced by society; (2) concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth's crust; and (3) physical degradation of nature through over-harvesting and other forms of modification.
Business principles:
Within a sustainable society, businesses- produce useful goods and services;
- provide solutions instead of products;
- consider the roles of effectiveness and efficiency in decision making;
- operate in an environmentally compatible state of industrial material flows and energy use; i.e. produce goods and use production technologies only that are consistent with nature's metabolism;
- apply adaptive and anticipatory management approaches; and
- integrate economic, environmental and social considerations in decision-making processes through holistic impact assessments of both, the goods and services produced as well as the actions required to produce them.
System principles:
Within a sustainable society,- measures and actions are adjusted and re-calibrated through feedback loops and adaptation.