1. Our Common Future, the Bruntland Report in 1987 said that sustainable development:

"is development that meets that needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

2. The first to have a say was probably Thomas Jefferson in 1789:

"Then I say the earth belongs to each generation during its course, fully and in its own right, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during its own existence.

3. John Ruskin in 1849 said in The Seven Lamps of Architecture:

"God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the book of creation, as to us; and we have no right, by anything that we do or neglect, to involve them in unnecessary penalties, or deprive them of benefits which it is in power to bequeath"

4. Barbara Ward, is the person generally recognised as starting the idea at the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. When taking over the presidency of the International Institute for Environment and Development - http://www.oneworld.org/iied/, in 1973 she said that the original Institute name be changed to include the word "Development" "without which the concept of preserving the environment has no real meaning for the poorer two thirds of mankind".

5. The concept has been evolving over the last 25 years. There are many different definitions. Most include something like:

"indefinite survival of the human species, quality of life beyond mere biological survival and persistence of all components of the biosphere, even those with no apparent benefit to humanity"

"constancy of natural capital stock and living from the interest"

6. The Wuppeerthal Institute (1998) says:

"The very idea of sustainable development struck the middle ground between more radical approaches which denounced all development, and the idea of development conceived as business as usual. The idea of sustainable development, although broad, loose, and tinged with ambiguity around its edges, turned out to be palatable to everybody. This may have been its greatest virtue. It is radical and yet not offensive"
.

7. Richard Southwood Chair of the UK Round table on Sustainable Development says:

Sustainable Development does not mean we stop developing, but we develop in a different way, like an army which breaks its step before going across a bridge. They get to where they want to go, but in a different way.

8. Jonathan Porritt in Capitalism as if the World Matters (p33) says: …It is the Science of Sustainability that provides the rock-solid foundations upon which the structures of sustainable development are now being raised….that science takes us back to core principles of ecological limits.

9. UK Government, in their ‘Securing the future’ 2005 said: “The goal of sustainable development is to enable all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life, without compromising the quality of life for future generations.”

10. Maureen says: "It is taking care of the future"

11 Longwalker, a Native American Indian (on Jon Anderson "Toltec")