Concept of Sustainable Development:

The concept of sustainable development  lays  more  emphasis  on  equity which  is different  from  the importance given  to  the  principle of efficiency in economic literature. In  its report, the World Commission on  Environment  and  Development, 1987,  puts  stress on achieving international and inter-generational equity for achieving a  level of growth which  can be  sustained over time. This would facilitate the use of resource base for improvement in the average quality of life of present and future generations. Economists, in the past, have considered sustainable development in the context of intergenerational efficiency with a possibility of non-declining consumption of resources. This would be possible by reinvesting into the creation, exploration and search of the renewable and non-renewable resources thus augmenting natural capital. This approach has  been questioned as all resources are not  substitutable and cannot be created at the pace it is being consumed. 

In  fact, natural capital can be  considered as a set of primary  inputs with man-made capital and  labour as agents of substitution (Hanley 2004). This would imply that both types of inputs need to be used  in higher quantities to  increase the level of output.

There is, therefore,  the problem of constraints imposed by the limits on the use of natural resources. There is a lot of discussion based on  the concept of ecological sustainability which could at times challenge the concept of consumer sovereignty. To keep the welfare of the future generations in  mind, there should be allocation of resources in a manner that there  is stability in the system which can lead  to levels of development to  be sustained over time. In other words, there is need to question the levels  of consumerism  that contemporary societies  in  developed  world and  the elite of the developing countries have achieved.