Sustainable Development

By Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope

When I first encountered the trivial term “Sustainable Development,” I remember pausing—not because I didn’t understand the words, but because I felt their weight. It was as if the phrase held a silent promise: that humanity, for once, could learn to walk gently on the Earth without trampling its future. And as I reflect today—not just as an educator, a public servant, or a political observer, but as a Filipino and a father—I realize more than ever how urgently we must embody what those two words truly mean.

The most commonly cited definition comes from the Brundtland Commission’s 1987 report: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development [WCED], 1987). For years, this definition served as my guiding thread, something I repeated in lectures, conferences, and community discussions. But like many truths that appear simple on the surface, its depth reveals itself only when you begin to live it, breathe it, and see where we’ve gone wrong as a society.

What we often overlook is that sustainable development is not just about environmental protection or corporate responsibility—it’s about values. At its heart, it’s a belief system rooted in balance: balancing what we take and what we give back, balancing prosperity with compassion, and balancing human ambitions with ecological humility.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002) gave this balance a framework: People, Planet, and Prosperity. This “triple bottom line” approach taught us that we cannot isolate one element from the other. When we prioritize economic gain without considering environmental costs or social equity without thinking about economic stability, we throw the whole system into disarray. That interconnectedness is not just conceptual—it’s real. I’ve seen it in fishing communities whose coral reefs have been bleached beyond repair. I’ve seen it in families whose farmland has been swallowed by mining operations, leaving them dependent on imported rice. It is the story of imbalance written across every province and island of our archipelago.

When I started teaching environmental politics in university classrooms and talking about sustainable practices on air, I found myself compelled to shift the conversation. Beyond policies and metrics, I asked my students and audiences, “What do you value? What kind of ancestor do you want to be?” Because at the end of the day, sustainable development is not a checklist—it is a reflection of how evolved we are as moral beings.

If we trace the development of human consciousness throughout history, we begin with survival—the basic fight for food, shelter, and security. Once that’s achieved, the human drive often turns to comfort and material success. But what comes next? The philosopher Maslow would argue it’s self-actualization (Maslow, 1943)—a stage where humans begin to understand that their purpose transcends themselves.

Sustainable development asks us to go even further. It asks us to internalize the truth that we are all interconnected. It’s not just a poetic statement—it’s ecological, economic, and social reality. Harm to one, eventually, becomes harm to all. Allowing poverty to persist isn’t simply a moral failure—it destabilizes markets, drives migration, and sows unrest. Ignoring environmental degradation doesn’t just kill fish—it kills livelihoods, food chains, and hope.

This realization often hits hardest when you’re standing in the middle of it. I once joined a mission to a rural municipality in Luzon, where landslides had ravaged an indigenous community after illegal logging operations decimated the forest. As we handed out food relief, a tribal elder approached me and asked quietly, “Sir, will you still remember us after the cameras are gone?” I couldn’t answer right away. That moment still haunts me—not because I lacked compassion, but because I knew that even my compassion wasn’t enough. What they needed—and what all communities need—is lasting structural change, not just episodic charity.

But how do we achieve that change? It begins by refusing to favor one pillar—People, Planet, or Prosperity—over the others. In the past, governments and corporations alike chased “development” at any cost. Profit-driven mindsets ignored ecological thresholds, and in doing so, they created both climate crises and social unrest. Conversely, attempts to address poverty while ignoring environmental resilience proved to be short-lived and unsustainable.

We have to embrace the simultaneity of action. This means businesses must integrate environmental stewardship into their core models, not just append it as corporate social responsibility. It means policymakers must weigh decisions not only on economic growth but also on long-term ecological and cultural impacts. And for us educators, it means infusing classrooms with ethics, empathy, and systems thinking—so that future leaders understand the cost of imbalance.

Dr. Eureta Rosenberg once posed a compelling question: “Is sustainable development about maintaining profits or sustaining people and planet?” (Rosenberg, 2004). For me, the answer is both—but only if we redefine what “profit” truly means. Profit should not be a figure on a spreadsheet. It should be the well-being of a child who grows up with clean air, access to education, and a future not mortgaged by our excesses.

The Earth Charter, drafted in 2000, articulates this vision beautifully: “We must recognize that peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which we are all a part” (Earth Charter Commission, 2000). This is not sentimentality—it’s wisdom, drawn from Indigenous knowledge, spiritual traditions, and ethical philosophy.

The truth is, we will never implement true sustainable development unless we change the way we think. Einstein once stated, "We cannot solve the problems we have created today by thinking in the same way we did when we created them." We need to evolve not only in science and technology but also in compassion, consciousness, and community.

As a Filipino, I carry the responsibility not just to discuss these values in my lectures or radio programs, but to live them. To the youth who are listening: you are not too young to lead this shift. To the policymakers: it’s not too late to course-correct. And to every Filipino: we are all shareholders of this planet. We either survive together or fall divided.

Sustainable development, to me, is not just a political or academic issue—it’s personal. It is a mirror reflecting what kind of world we are choosing to build. And as I continue walking this path—as an educator, an advocate, and a father—I choose to stand with balance, with justice, and with a future that our children can still believe in.

 

References

Earth Charter Commission. (2000). The Earth Charter. Retrieved from https://earthcharter.org/

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396.

Rosenberg, E. (2004). Sustainable development: Maintaining profits or sustaining people and planet. Development Digest.

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