The concept of sustainable development has been debated for decades now. Although the definition of development has been a major area of controversy, certain characteristics were evident early on. After World War II, when the world was struggling with extreme poverty, food scarcity and chronic diseases, development initiatives were commonly defined in terms of socioeconomic structural transformation in pursuit of economic growth, and the objective was to create improved conditions for people existing in a precarious state and to provide better health care, education and job opportunities. This typical model of development was well accepted during the mid- to late 1940s because people were looking for a way to move out of the deplorable conditions in which they existed. The promise was Émile Durkheim's concept of a scenically modern, technologically advanced society (Ritzer 2008). In this sense, development implies a clean transformation from a starting point, a state that is not preferred, to an end point or a desired state. The 1940s change process was accompanied by the establishment of the now leading development agencies such as the World Bank, United Nations Development Program and many others (Hulse 2007). Such multilateral institutions developed a variety of global programs and worked intensely with governments to implement them at the national and local levels.

By 1972, the concept of sustainability was formally introduced, as it pertained to development at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, Sweden. The question of maintaining sustainability in the wider context of economic growth and development was being contested: how can the rate of economic growth be maintained with earth's finite resources? Although the discussion commenced, however, it didn't gain momentum for the course to change. The development strategies employed at that time continued until the well- known environmental conventions were adopted by the world's nations in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The undivided motivation for this agreement was the massive pollution coming from factories that contaminated water sources and soils— yes, ironically, the same factories that had provided advancement in jobs and income after World War II. The pollution was soon perceived as an invisible killer surrounding and affecting everyone. Yet instead of tackling the source of the problem, that of growing industrialization and human consumption, the world decided to draw a new portrait of sustainable development.