Rio Declaration on Environment and Development

The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development was created in 1992 as an improvement upon the Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, and as a reaffirmation of its commitments.

The goal was to establish new equitable global partnerships among States and key sectors of societies, to work “towards international agreements which respect the interest of all and protect the integrity of the global environmental and developmental system, recognizing the integral and interdependent nature of the Earth, our home” (UNEP, 2003).

There is no one act that implements sustainable development in Canadian law. However, sustainable development is now a common thread in most acts and policies as it demands that the social, economic and environmental conditions be considered in the law. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Alberta Environmental Assessment Regulations are important pieces of legislation implementing the concepts of sustainable development into human activities. Both aim to take a cradle-to-grave-and-thereafter approach to development to minimize negative effects and maximize benefits to the environment, social conditions and the economy. The extent of impact is determined by establishing the pre-project baseline condition and then predicting what impacts will be during project construction, operation and after reclamation. Changes are then directly monitored during construction, throughout its operation and after closure.