Thinking About Sustainability on a Global Scale

Taking a new report issued by the UN's Global Sustainability Panel as his jumping off point, Sachs explores the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainable development, the foremost global issues of our time. "The GSP rightly notes that sustainable development has three pillars: ending extreme poverty; ensuring that prosperity is shared by all, including women, youth, and minorities; and protecting the natural environment."

Sachs see the promise of technology, coupled with an embrace of common values, as the key to solving our collective challenges.

"The benefits of information and communications technologies can be found in every area of human activity: better farming using GPS and micro-dosing of fertilizers; precision manufacturing; buildings that know how to economize on energy use; and, of course, the transformative, distance-erasing power of the Internet....Yet getting from here to sustainable development will not just be a matter of technology."