Brundtland Commission and Report

• DATE: Commission established 1983; report published as Our Common Future in 1987

Mission

The secretary-general of the United Nations, heeding growing concerns about the global environment, convened the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1983. The commission took its name from its head, Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former prime minister of Norway. Representatives of the commission traveled the globe, gathering statements of mounting environmental concerns and possible solutions. It quickly became clear that environmental problems do not respect national boundaries and that only a collective, global effort could initiate change. The commission’s mandate arose from the “accelerating deterioration of the human environment and natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration for economic and social development.”

The Brundtland Commission, in its report to the UN General Assembly, recommended the creation of a long-term environmental strategy to achieve sustainable development. Begun in 1983, the body produced a mission statement that anticipated a continuing effort to the year “2000 and beyond.” The final report looked forward to change brought through cooperation among all countries, regardless of their socioeconomic condition or fundamental resources. The commission hoped to accomplish its goals by integrating environmental, economic, and social objectives to form a comprehensive strategy.

The Brundtland Commission, which published its report Our Common Future in 1987, recommended the creation of a universal declaration on environmental protection and sustainable development in the form of a new charter. The commission recognized the need for broad participation in environmental programs and solutions, so it required that at least half its members come from developing countries and that the voices of governmental and nongovernmental organizations, industry, scientists, and others with environmental concerns be heard and consulted. In an effort to embrace and consider a broad range of views, the commission stressed that there must be a continuing dialogue among not only the scientific community and environmentalists but also all sections of public opinion, particularly youth, as well as those concerned with the fragile balance between development and the environment.

The commission’s message to the General Assembly was not an inflexible mandate but addressed varying environmental concerns for societies rich and poor, developed and undeveloped, resource-abundant and resource-scarce, industrial and rural. It expressed the hope for an inclusive and worldwide cooperative effort. Finally, the commission asked for “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The findings of the World Commission on Environment and Development, as presented in Our Common Future, served as a framework for later environmental discussion. This was clearly in evidence during the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, where the concept of “sustainable development” was firmly set in place as a “worthy universal goal.”

Significance for Climate Change

The Brundtland Report raised awareness of the accelerating human impact on the environment and declared that solutions depended upon cooperative global effort. The paperback version of the report, published late in 1987, warned readers that “Most of today’s decision makers will be dead before the planet suffers the full consequences of acid rain, global warming, ozone depletion, widespread desertification, and species loss.” In response to that prophetic statement, in 2005, a UN Millennium Project report confirmed that sixteen out of twenty-five ecosystems were being critically degraded and demonstrated the negative impact of unsustainable development paths. Further, as if echoing the twenty-two-year-old concerns of the Brundtland Commission, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change demonstrated the negative effects of unsustainable development paths. When Our Common Future was published, the fight against global climate change was a distant consideration, and only four pages were devoted to the subject. It is noteworthy, however, that the report’s central tenet is basic to the challenges of climate change: the need for global cooperation to achieve solutions to global environmental problems.

The Brundtland Report is credited with popularizing the concept of sustainable development and inspiring future international climate and environmental agreements. Its influence was visible at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which produced Agenda 21 and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). That framework later provided the basis for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and, ultimately, the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which nearly every nation pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2015, the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a global blueprint for balancing economic, social, and environmental priorities through 2030. By the mid-2020s, the Brundtland Report remained central to global climate and sustainability discussions.

Bibliography

Bruno, Kenny, and Joshua Karliner. Earthsummit.biz: The Corporate Takeover of Sustainable Development. Food First Books, 2002.

Jarvie, Michelle E. "Brundtland Report." Britannica, www.britannica.com/topic/Brundtland-Report. Accessed 17 Aug. 2025.

Park, Jacob. “Our Common Future Twenty Years Later: Rethinking the Assumptions of the World Commission on Environment and Development.” International Studies Association, 2007.

“The Rio Conventions.” United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-rio-conventions. Accessed 17 Aug. 2025.

World Commission on Environment and Development. Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, 1987.