ISU students, representatives of U.N. member states and concerned global citizens gathered in Rio de Janeiro this past June for the U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, or Rio+20. 

According to the conference website, sustainable development is meeting the current needs of a population without hindering the ability of future generations to meet said needs on their own.

Dylan Clark, junior in global resource systems, said sustainable development is “about finding the balance between social, environmental and economic growth.” 

The U.N. member states, while having different priorities, he said came together in order to find common goals, which were finalized and laid out in a document titled “The Future We Want.” Clark, along with five other ISU students, attended the conference as members of the Major Group of Children and Youth, one of nine civil society groups.

The ISU delegation began their experience before the conference actually took place by attending preparatory meetings and side events, said Lea Hoefer, senior in global resource systems.  

Negotiations on the content of the document took place during these meetings and were finalized before the conference began. 

Briana McNeal, senior in global resource systems, added that the final document will “detail what countries commit to in the move towards a sustainable world.”

The group, while not permitted to speak during the document negotiations, was able to keep track of document changes and help form the position for Major Group of Children and Youth on the content of the document. 

Outside of the negotiations, civil society group members were able to lobby for the changes they desired to see present on the document.

According to the Rio+20 website, there were two major themes discussed at the conference: how to build an economy that supports sustainable development and reduces poverty, and how to “improve international coordination for sustainable development.” 

While an agreed-upon document was formed at the end of the preliminary events, the majority of civil society groups, such as Major Group of Children and Youth, left the conference dissatisfied with the outcome.

Civil society groups felt the lack of commitment from the governments to implement change in their home countries weakened the document.  

Rather than making progress, these groups felt that U.N. member states compromised the changes they wanted to see in order to see a document completed, and they voiced their dissatisfaction in the form of protest. 

Among the other protests, the ISU students held up signs stating specific issues that they wished had been addressed.

Hoefer said Rio+20 is important because “creating a sustainable world — in all aspects, social and economic, as well as environmental — is going to be one of the great challenges of our generation.” 

She said it is important to remember sustainable development “should not just be a cause taken up by hardcore environmentalists. It should be something that everybody thinks about.”