The Conceptualisation of Sustainable Development: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of its Extensity, Practicability and Veracities

Abstract

The prevalent geopolitical prognosis during Brundtland’s Commission conceptualisation of sustainable development has metamorphosed, even though the basic core values serve as the conceptual basis and guidelines for understanding the SDG goals. Evolving socio-political behaviours have exposed new social complications. Ideological extremism, global warming, insurgency, poverty, food crisis, social inequality and humanitarian crisis have all challenged the suitability and applicability of the conceptual framework for global development. This paper attempts to analyse qualitatively, the underexplored areas of the concept of sustainable development, vis-à-vis its strengths, weakness and limitations by synthesizing an ideal working definition with regards to existing realities, for developmental theorist. It also reviews how environmentalism and human intelligence can symbiotically drive sustainability of biotic and abiotic factors in the planetary system, by advocating an enfranchising bottom-up, frontier-wide and exhaustively deliberated methodologies that amplifies the voice of all social formations in conceptualising new transformational theories or policies for human development.