Sustainable development is a concept of development which fulfills our present needs without endangering the needs of future generations.

Sustainable development encompasses the reduction of poverty, reduction of pollution, as well as the reduction of potential risk of pollution and preservation of biodiversity. More pointedly, sustainable development requires economic, ecological, political and cultural sustainability, which affects our lives, as well as the lives of future generations, who deserve same levels of cofmort as us without the pressure of solving the problems which we have created.

Sustainable development is generally considered synonymous with the enviromental conservation, that is, attempts to preserve the biodiversity of the planet Earth and meet many ecological challenges which mankind and invidual societies alike have to face.

The concept of sustainability is best illustrated by the example of jungles or large arboreal systems: trees are self-renewing, new trees grow constantly and old trees die. Nature itself is sustainable in the sense that it sustains life across long periods of time. However, man has become part of the natural cycles, which has made imperative moderation and renewability: unrewable resources must be used in moderation whereas renewability is a time period in which resources can be renewed.

Throughout the 1990s the relationship between economy and ecology underwent transformation. Also, the concepts of economic development and economic growth stopped being synonymous. Exploitive economic development caused global ecological problems and brought about an ever widening gap between developed and undevelpod countries. All this made it necessary for national governments and international organizations to take into account ecological and distrubutive consequence of economic policies.

The concept of sustainable development refers to the understanding of the foremost importance of environment, formulating longtern policies of sustainable development and insistance on policies which reduce the differences between the rich and poor at all levels.

The indicators of sustainable development point out the weak links between economy, environment and society and indicate possible resolutions of these.

One of the biggest challenges in creating the indicators is that the most pertinent indicators are generally those for which there are not sufficient data whereas those least pertinent are generally easiest to create in terms of available data.

Developing the indicators of sustainable development, at a level of local community, region, society or even at a larger level, a system is created by which a continual evaluation of the following is made possible: environment, resources, demographics, life quality and economic activities within a given territory.

The indicators of sustainable development should be comparable to those of other local communities, or regions within a state, but ought to be comparable to those outside national borders. Any indicators of sustainable development at a national level should be comparable to their equivalents at international level.