Environmental Problems and Solutions: The Sustainable Development Path

In 2017, an ecological alarm swept across social media: there is so much excess plastic in the world that it could completely cover a country like Argentina. Another way to picture this enormous tsunami of plastic, which pollutes oceans and continents alike, is to multiply the weight of New York’s iconic Empire State Building by 25,000. That gives us the 8,300 million tonnes of plastic that humans produced between 1950 and 2015, most of which is still somewhere on this planet. This figure matches the study “Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made” (Science Advances, 2017), which put all the plastic ever made by humanity at about 8,300 million tonnes. According to the same analysis, reported by the University of California (2017), about 6,300 million tonnes of plastic waste had been generated by 2015, and only about 9% of it had been recycled. That low recycling rate still holds: according to the OECD Global Plastics Outlook (2022), only around 9% of plastic waste is ultimately recycled worldwide.But as we know, this is not the only ecological disaster humanity has to face. Shrinking green spaces that confine wildlife and push animals such as the giraffe toward extinction (it was listed as “Vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List in 2016, after its population plunged by nearly 40% in three decades), or air pollution and its greenhouse effect, which is driving the planet’s temperature up unchecked, are just a few of the many other environmental problems that exist. In fact, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that 2024 was the warmest year on record, with a global average temperature about 1.55 °C above the pre-industrial level (1850–1900).There are many proposals and strategies for reversing these disasters, but what is still missing is will, the main driving force, which has to come from people themselves if this whole disaster is ever to start being solved.Among the proposals for a better future, the one with the greatest reach and impact stems from the concept of sustainable development, under which nations draw up a strategic plan, a concerted action, to design and drive a model of economic growth that respects and promotes environmental conservation and social balance.

Understanding sustainable development

Once we understand that we must look for an alternative to the economic system we live in, one based on the overexploitation of natural resources, mass consumption and profit as the only goal, and which is rapidly draining the vital energy of a finite world such as the Earth, the urgent need becomes clear: we must create real development that also improves the quality of life of the planet’s inhabitants, whether human, animal or plant; that is compatible with rational exploitation, meaning that resources are replenished or renewed at the same time as they are used and exploited; and that, of course, protects the environment.This is the setting in which the concept of sustainable development was born. Its most accurate definition, set out by the UN Brundtland Commission in 1987, is: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”Suffice it to say that this kind of development has to meet the needs of the present, by generating economic activity capable of providing the goods the world’s population needs, while at the same time taking into account the needs of future societies, with strategies that reduce to zero the damage done by a consumerist economic activity that generates waste and pollution.Meeting these expectations requires business projects that act now in anticipation of future needs. At the following link you can see some examples of projects carried out along these lines of respect for the environment and social justice.

Characteristics that define sustainable development

For a business project that we take part in or create to be described as self-sustaining, it must first of all include a relentless search for the best way for the economic activity to perform its functions while maintaining or improving the environment, and never degrading it.Likewise, it must ensure that the economic activity improves the quality of life of all the Earth’s inhabitants, uses natural resources efficiently, promotes recycling and the reuse of materials as much as possible, develops and implements so-called green or clean technologies, does everything it can to restore damaged ecosystems, promotes self-sufficiency, whether local or regional, and recognizes and expands the importance of nature for the well-being of human societies.In this respect, special emphasis should be placed on the role of education, since it is future generations who must keep these ideas alive and develop them further so that they take root in the global community as a new paradigm, one in which wealth is distributed fairly with complete respect for nature, which acts as the main driving force of production processes.What is needed, therefore, is a change in human consciousness that starts with the most basic education and transforms the relationship between people and nature, putting an end to the old, outdated ideas that modern humans are beyond the reach of natural laws, that success, and what we are destined for, depends on dominating and controlling nature, and the absurd belief that the Earth holds an unlimited quantity of resources, all at humanity’s disposal.Ultimately, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, are of tremendous importance: they are meant as a universal call to take the appropriate measures now to put a definitive end to the great problems of the present and the future, such as poverty, while protecting the planet and ensuring that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

Last updated: September 26, 2026