Sustainable development is an approach aiming to balance economic growth with environmental protection and social equity, ensuring present needs are met without compromising future generations. It entails preserving ecosystems, reducing pollution, and promoting resource conservation while addressing poverty and inequality. Sustainable economic progress is crucial, but must be achieved without harming the environment or marginalizing communities. Inter-generational equity is a core principle, emphasizing responsibility for future generations. Collaboration among governments, businesses, and society is essential. Initiatives include renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, and responsible consumption. International frameworks like the UN Sustainable Development Goals guide global efforts toward a more sustainable future.
Sustainable Development Quotes
1. “Investing in women’s lives is an investment in sustainable development, in human rights, in future generations – and consequently in our own long-term national interests.”
— Liya Kebede
2. “Sustainable development requires human ingenuity. People are the most important resource.”
— Dan Shechtman
3. “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.”
— Kofi Annan
4. “Humanitarian response, sustainable development, and sustaining peace are three sides of the same triangle.”
— Antonio Guterres
5. “Yes, we have ruined the Earth and have done an exceptionally good job of it. Yes, we should look at sustainable development. But we cannot afford to do things sequentially, but parallelly and make sure that we do not repeat our mistakes.”
— Rakesh Sharma
6. “So-called ‘sustainable development’… is meaningless drivel.”
— James Lovelock
7. “It is critical for us to cultivate consciousness and compassion towards our environment, create awareness, galvanize people, and build sustainable innovations for sustainable development.”
— Dia Mirza
8. “If you always have consciousness of gender equality at the heart of your policies, then you will have much more democratic, much more sustainable development.”
— Isabella Lovin
9. “Global sustainability is now the only avenue to future inclusive progress that can deliver the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate agreement.”
— Johan Rockstrom
10. “I am committed to lending my voice and participating in action campaigns to support the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals that must be achieved by 2030.”
— Aidan Gallagher
11. “Resources businesses must contribute to sustainable development if we are to continue to have access to resources.”
— Cynthia Carroll
12. “Simply put, girls and women are the keys that will unlock sustainable development. They are also at the center of the healthier and more resilient societies we desire.”
— Tedros Adhanom
13. “The UPA’s strategy of ‘inclusive growth’ remains the foundational pillar of economically, politically, and socially sustainable development.”
— Sanjaya Baru
14. “I went to art school in Chicago for a year at Columbia College. I had this whole master plan of getting into sustainable development and green architecture and construction, so I wanted to go to business school and then get my masters in construction and development.”
— Nico Tortorella
15. “Climate change is destroying our path to sustainability. Ours is a world of looming challenges and increasingly limited resources. Sustainable development offers the best chance to adjust our course.”
— Ban Ki-moon
16. “The African Union has to act in order to put an end to armed conflicts that undermine the continent, to fight against the devastation caused by AIDS and other contagious diseases, to promote sustainable development of its member states.”
— Omar Bongo
17. “As the international community comes together to create rules for developing and deploying technology, America and its allies and partners aim to advance peace, protect human rights, promote sustainable development and defend the open Internet for the benefit of all.”
— Linda Thomas-Greenfield
18. “The Green Climate Fund is very much a strategic building block in the architecture for financing sustainable development.”
— Isabella Lovin
19. “I always run into these Ph.D.s. They write and write and write about sustainable development. Then these guys ask me, ‘But, how do you do it?’ They are scared to death to do anything.”
— Jaime Lerner
20. “The global commitment for the Sustainable Development Goals offers a profound opportunity to tackle the structural, social, and economic changes needed to end AIDS.”
— Tedros Adhanom
21. “My next goal is for Shenzhen to become the model of environmentally-friendly and sustainable development.”
— Wang Shi
22. “Sustainable development is the pathway to the future we want for all. It offers a framework to generate economic growth, achieve social justice, exercise environmental stewardship and strengthen governance.”
— Ban Ki-moon
23. “Climate change knows no borders. It will not stop before the Pacific islands and the whole of the international community here has to shoulder a responsibility to bring about a sustainable development.”
— Angela Merkel
24. “Sustainable development is a fundamental break that’s going to reshuffle the entire deck. There are companies today that are going to dominate in the future simply because they understand that.”
— Francois-Henri Pinault
25. “Population needs to be stabilised for sustainable development.”
— Atal Bihari Vajpayee
26. “What pleases me most is that sustainable development is on almost everybody’s agenda now.”
— Maurice Strong
27. “Sustainable development is a proven catalyst for Xerox innovation.”
— Anne M. Mulcahy
28. “If Canada could simply apply the basic principles of sustainable development, such as the internalization of costs and ‘polluters pay,’ it would have long-term beneficial effects, both environmental and economic.”
— Andrew Nikiforuk
29. “Building a ‘Green Gabon’ has always been a central pillar of my government, and in 2014, I introduced a new legal framework that puts environmental protection and sustainable development firmly at the heart of our future economic growth.”
— Ali Bongo Ondimba
30. “We need economic growth, yes, but growth can be jobless, so a sustainable development framework for employment must include a job creation strategy.”
— Sharan Burrow
31. “Including women in climate policy and solutions can enhance the results, leading to more economic growth and sustainable outcomes. However, we cannot take for granted that gender equality and women’s empowerment in the field of climate change and sustainable development will happen automatically.”
— Patricia Espinosa
32. “A safe and nutritionally adequate diet is a basic individual right and an essential condition for sustainable development, especially in developing countries.”
— Gro Harlem Brundtland
33. “It’s widely recognized that there is no peace without development and no development without peace; it is also true that there is no peace and sustainable development without respect for human rights.”
— Antonio Guterres
34. “As to the Amazon itself, the transition from conservation to sustainable development was a huge awakening since conservation was a western concept and strategy to encourage the developing world to protect biodiversity resources for the sake of future generations and the wellbeing of the planet.”
— Yossi Ghinsberg
35. “Runaway climate change would condemn millions to a life of poverty and cause us to fail to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. This is not an acceptable outcome.”
— Paul Polman
36. “For our part, Japan aims to be a ‘partner growing together with Africa’ and do all it can to help the continent’s efforts to achieve sustainable development.”
— Fumio Kishida
37. “The Paris Agreement underlines the urgency to implement climate action in support of sustainable development.”
— Tedros Adhanom
38. “Brazil’s commitment to sustainable development is a deep-rooted one. It permeates our public policies and our actions abroad.”
— Michel Temer
39. “Nevertheless, the concept of sustainable development is now known – even amongst those who haven’t accepted it – and it’s recognized, debated and followed by an increasing number of businesses.”
— Maurice Strong
40. “There is increasing recognition that violence against women is a major barrier to the fulfilment of human rights and a direct challenge to women’s inclusion and participation in sustainable development and sustaining peace.”
— Antonio Guterres
41. “During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development.”
— Gro Harlem Brundtland
42. “Also, it is interesting that developing countries, with China and India perhaps in the lead, where the future of the global environment will be decided are now on board with the case for sustainable development.”
— Maurice Strong
43. “That the AIDS pandemic is threatening sustainable development in Africa only reinforces the reality that health is at the center of sustainable development.”
— Gro Harlem Brundtland
44. “We are convinced that universal health coverage, with strong primary care and essential financial protection, is the key to achieving the ambitious health targets of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) and to avoiding impoverishment from exorbitant out-of-pocket health expenses.”
— Tedros Adhanom
45. “Africa’s economies are gaining ground and can develop their full potential with the right partner. Siemens wants to support their sustainable development – with solutions and projects in Africa, for Africa.”
— Joe Kaeser
46. “In my view, there is an urgent need to communicate with the public and help to explain where there is consensus, and where are there doubts about the issues of sustainable development.”
— Jeffrey Sachs
