Defining sustainable development: Part 2

* Adopting policy measures and technologies to minimize environmental consequences of urbanization.

* Improving standards for literacy.

* Making primary health care more accessible.

* Improving social well-being, protecting cultural diversity, and investing in human capital.

* Investing in the health and education of women.

* Encouraging participation in decision-making.

Environmental Dimensions

* More efficient use of arable lands and water supplies.

* Improving agricultural practices and technologies to increase yields.

* Avoiding overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

* Conserving water by ending wasteful uses and improving efficiency of water systems.

* Improving water quality and limiting surface water withdrawals.

* Conserving biodiversity by greatly slowing and, if possible, halting extinction and habitat and ecosystem destruction.

* Preventing destabilization of climate or destruction of the ozone layer by human actions.

* Protecting natural resources need for food production and cooking fuels while expanding production to meet the needs of growing populations.

* Using irrigation carefully.

* Avoiding expansion of agriculture on steep hillsides or marginal lands.

* Slowing or halting destruction of tropical forests, coral reef ecosystems, coastal mangrove forests and other wetlands, and other unique habitats to conserve biological diversity.

Technological Dimensions

* Shifting to technologies that are cleaner and more efficient-that minimize consumption of energy and other natural resources and do not pollute air, water, and land.

* Reducing carbon emissions to limit the global rate of increase of greenhouse gases and eventually stabilize the atmospheric concentrations of these gases.

* Over time, greatly curtailing use of fossil fuels, and finding other sources of energy.

* Phasing out use of CFCs to prevent degradation of the Earth's protective ozone layer.

* Preserving traditional technologies that create few wastes or pollutants, that recycle wastes, and work with or support natural systems.

* Rapidly adopting improved technologies as well as improved government regulation and enforcement.