Growth and development influence the global ecosystems

The UN-report ”Our Mutual Future” (the Brundtland-report, 1987) first put sustainable development on the international agenda.

Since then the global population has grown from 5 to almost 7 billion people. The total global GDP has almost doubled and the technological development has been in rapid progress. The increasing resource-consumption is influencing biodiversity and ecosystems in a negative direction.

The environmental challenges have become more complex and are profoundly connected to other societal challenges, e.g. health, consumption and nature conservancy. It has become necessary to deal with environmental problems from a wider angle of attack, meaning that solving one problem should not create another (e.g. that utilising biofuels reduces the overall CO₂ emission, but may result in cutting down of tropical forest).

Sustainable development requires collaboration, innovation and follow-up at a larger scale than earlier. The Foundations hope to be able to support these issues with our new programme for environment and sustainability.