Sustainable Development – A Modern Understanding of the Concept

This article was created to present a broader, more critical view of the idea and concept of sustainable development, which has dominated the discourse on development for several decades. Based on the analysis of the literature on the subject, an attempt was made to state and explain how the original assumptions of the concept should be understood today. The most important contemporary challenges related to sustainable development have been identified. First, a historical analysis of the concepts of development and sustainable development was conducted, based on which it could be noticed that the original assumptions of the ideas have been forgotten. Then, the main dimensions (areas) of sustainable development in the literature of the last thirty years were examined. It has been noticed that the dimensions and their relations were very varied, and, first of all, defined in a rather general way. In an attempt to overcome that inaccuracy, efforts have been made to define the dimensions of sustainable development in a more precise way. Based on the analysis of the literature of the subject, it was determined that it was necessary to define the concept of sustainable development in a broader way, through the prism of 6 hierarchical dimensions: an expanded and modified economic area, a social justice area, an area of environment, an area of needs and rights, a democracy area as well as an area of long-term perspective and relations. The performed research confirmed that if sustainable development was to represent the most important current and future development issues, it should be structured around the key demands raised by scientists.