Rethinking sustainable development through evolutionary resilience: an open debate

Over the last three decades, the concept of sustainable development has been adopted (and shaped) by scientists, experts and politicians to include most of its actions. In many cases, the instrumentation of the concept detaches it from the breadth, demand and complexity that characterised it when considering the way it was embodied in the original document on which it is based — Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (1987).

The sustainability, as an integral part to qualify the progress models, structured in the Brundtland report (1987), was simplified as the modes of transposition for scientific, technical and political use were disaggregated. Eliminating some of the original objectives, the plan sustainability was withdrawn from where it should be included — the civilisational plan. Recent assessments identify these weaknesses and recognise in the evolutionary resilience reference a formula for strengthening the sustainability as the main purpose of humanity.