The concept of sustainable development rejects old ideas of a trade-off between environmental maintenance and economic growth
According to the principle of sustainable development, and unlike ecocentric ideologies of some earlier publications (for example Meadows (1972), Schumacher (1973)), the need for continued economic development and growth is fully recognised, but it should be promoted in a manner which does not jeopardise the position of vulnerable people nor deplete the future viability of the Earth's environment and resource base.
Sustainable development should improve environmental quality, and in many cases increase the value of the environmental stock. Economy-environment interactions are to be seen as mutually complementary aspects of a single development process.
Are economic development and environmental well-being mutually exclusive?