Sustainable development: A mission for social work? A normative approach

The answer to the current social-ecological crisis requires a transition to a sustainable society. Such a transition will touch on all aspects of life, so social work too has to think about the meaning of sustainable development for its practice. Until now, the awareness of ecological limits has remained mainly beyond the scope of the field of social work. However, many social and ecological problems are increasingly linked and this is the very focus of the concept of sustainable development. This article sets out how social work could, on the basis of its own mission, join a process of sustainable development. To this end, we compare the normative framework of the Brundtland view on sustainable development with the mission of social work as implied by its international definition. This analysis allows us to formulate some guidelines on how social work can contribute to a transition to a sustainable society.status: publishe