Sustainable development - "ongoing improvement of the world system according to a legitimately constructed social preference relation" or "keeping things from getting worse and making things better"

The world is in crisis - danger and opportunity.  The world is a complex system, in the sense of having variable-delay feedback loops and, from various points of view, random influences.  Counter-intuitively, good choices can seem adverse and poor choices compelling.  Agendas can gravitate toward choices whose main effect is to serve the most influential.

Sustainable development can be thought of as "keeping things from getting worse and making things better". This is a comprehensive concept. It includes the familiar developmental, economic and environmental priorities and anything else that matters:

• equitableness of society (what about extreme and increasing inequality??)
• legitimacy of the social choice mechanism (does insecure computerized voting threaten democracy?)
• national security (preserving core values like valuing interests of others, ending genocide)
  
• endowment management / taxation policy of educational institutions and not-for-profits
• corporate culture of service to people   
  
• the aesthetic of safeguarding for all the heritage of the planet

Reference "The Pursuit of Sustainable Development as a Duty of States Under International Law"