Sustainability in social work and social policy

One aspect of intergenerational justice that was postponed from our discussion in the previous chapter was the responsibility of present generations to hand on to future ones a physical environment which can sustain at least the quality of life which we have enjoyed. But the social policies of the twentieth century were all based on the idea that current rates of economic growth could continue indefinitely. It was only when environmentalists started to draw attention to the fact that the global economy’s demand for natural resources was rapidly coming to exceed their supply (Brundtland Commission, 1987, p. 26), and the phenomenon of global warming was identified, that this assumption came under scrutiny.