© International Ecological Engineering Society- EcoEng Newsletter 3/2000. All rights reserved.1 Imagining and Creating a Sustainable Future Review of Sustainable technology development, by Paul Weaver, Leo Jansen, Geert van

When the Limits to Growth study (Meadows et al. 1972) found that humankind was on a trajectory towards overshoot of carrying capacity and population collapse,, one of the most common reactions (e.g., Simon and Kahn 1984) was to dismiss the results of the computer model runs, on the theory that technology would be developed that would forever push all limits off into the future. These Cornucopians proclaimed that population growth was something to celebrate, as every birth represented two new hands and one new mind to work on building a better world. Most of these commentaries took it as an article of faith that political and economic systems would ensure that new generations would get the education they needed and the work assignments necessary to develop new technology to push back the limits. The Brundtland Commission raised its own concerns about sustainability fifteen years later (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). This time, the government of the Netherlands rolled up their collective sleeves and started working to find out how the conditions necessary for sustainability could come about. This book reports on part of that effort, the Sustainable Technology Development (STD) project. It is chiefly concerned with how to promote technological innovation in a direction that will help achieve greater sustainability