In June 1972, at the United Nations conference on ‘Human Environment’, considering the need for common principles and common outlook to inspire and transforming his surroundings, can bring and guide the people of the world in the development and preservation an opportunity to enhance the quality of life. The importance of social and environmental development for ensuring a favourable future for all the people of the world was first recognised internationally. Stockholm summit has persistently demanded from developing countries to reduce the gap themselves and the developing countries on technology development. Improving environmental conditions in developing countries requires first international cooperation for the benefit of all the people and their common posterity (Declaration, 1972). In 1982 at the General Assembly of the United Nations
2.5 Sustainable Development 35 (UN) established “The World Commission on Environment and Development” (WCED).
Five years later, in 1987, at the Brundtl and Commission committed for seeking ways to maintain a balance between the planet limits and human enterprise (Commission et al., 1987). Sustainable Development (SD) term was first used in the “World Conservation Strategy by International conservation of union of nature and natural resources” (IUCN, 1991) and is understood as ‘sustained growth’, ‘sustained change’, ‘successful development’(Lélé, 1991).
Earth Summit in June 1992 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) issued a declaration and agreements of a detailed 21 points agenda by more than 178 countries on climate change and biodiversity.
Ten years later, the agenda on Sustainable Development was reaffirmed to protect the environment and human lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002, at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Ramsay, 2002). In the Johannesburg declaration, the report states that human needs are basic, but there has been narrowly focused on human development, social justice, poverty alleviation and equity (Ramsay, 2002). It is commonly understood as ‘Societal-level sustainable development’ (Bansal, 2005). The Johannesburg Declaration sought to provide a shared blueprint for the advancement and strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforming on three pillars of sustainability, environmental, economic and social (Hens and Nath, 2005).
The Brundtland document made an effort to close a part of debates while leaving some ambiguity. The focus, however made on human development with an emphasises to meet up human beings’ requirements as well as make sure that everyone achieves a reasonable portion of resources. While many other common terms for sustainable development and sustainability. “Sustainable development to describe attempts to combine concerns with the environment and socio-economic issues” (Brien, 2005). The concept of sustainability has many different interpretations, for example, development and sustainability are based on different assumptions. The sustain means ‘support from the below’ and development means ‘ an act of control’ (Visvanathan, 1991) or process of directed change as a means of achieving objectives (Lélé, 1991). The critics of SD differing sustainability objectives in developing and developed countries often consider care for three pillars of sustainable development, environment, social and economic. The (WCED, 1987) definition of sustainability “is a multidimensional undertaking to achieve a higher quality of life for all people”.The three pillars of sustainability are interdependent and combined elements of sustainable development. Some others define sustainability as a matter of preserving sources for the survival of existing and future generation (Stiglitz, 1997). Activities undertakings to expand the realm of social sustainability are started (Banerjee, 2003).
The sustainable development goals (SDGs) is to produce a set of universal targets that meet an urgent economic, environmental, and social challenges facing our world. The social sustainability is to establish measurable goals for tackling human development issues, such as reducing poverty, providing access to people’s freedom, expanding, equal opportunities for all in all spheres of life, providing access to equal job opportunities,
2 Literature Review 36
sanitation, and health and well being. The Social sustainability in the manufacturing is to expand employee’s freedoms to access equal job opportunities, equality in income, minimising gender discrimination in the job, fair practices, and development of capabilities that lead to creating worker attractiveness in the job (United Nations, 2016).
Sustainable development goals, as evidenced by the policies of the United Nation in transforming agenda 2030 (United Nations, 2015). See Fig.3 for Global indication framework for sustainable development goals. The last few years have seen dramatic changes in socio-economic development. There is a long-standing debate on, how can social sustainability be achieved? Social sustainability issue has become eyespot for many international organizations.
Fig.3 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
(Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2015/09/509732-un-adopts-new-global-goals-charting-sustainable-development-people-and-planet)
“The concept of sustainable development provides an integrated approach to address the emergent and interlinked problems of modern economic development such as ecological destruction, social inequality and the neglect of future generations” (Siebenhüner and Arnold, 2007). Social sustainability is an important process for the European economy is increasingly attractive attention by academic scholars. Among the many social impacts, manufacturing activity may cause, noise production, increase health and safety issues and gender inequalities. During the past decade, social sustainability has become a research topic for manufacturing firms in the European Union (EU). Based on this notion, EU has realised that they can enjoy the attractiveness of working in manufacturing by being concerned about the social wellbeing and future of people in the plant through the creation of new roles, define a process for the people in the factory (Leeuw, 2013). For example, a German-based multinational company, Adidas show growing interested in the social
2.6 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 37