This is the old United Nations University website. Visit the new
site at http://unu.edu Environment and Sustainable Development
Introducing the Work of the UNU Centre ESD Programme The
Environment and Sustainable Development Programme (ESD) is one
of two academic programmes of United Nations University Centre
(the other is the Peace and Government Programme). That the
“total amount of human activity must be kept within the limit of
capability of the Earth both in the regional scale and in the
global scale” is a crucial tenet for solving our environmental
problems. When the impact of human activity exceeds sustainable
limits, environmental problems inevitably occur. The Earth
imposes two kinds of constraints on human activities: (1) the
limitation of finite resource supplies, and (2) the functional
capacity of the ecosystem. The first of these constraints is
exemplified by an impending crisis in petroleum supply;
production will reach a peak within two or three decades, and
thereafter suffer a sharp decrease.