• The generation principle of the BRUNDTLAND REPORT
• The MILLENNIUM DECLARATION – to improve life conditions for 100 million slum inhabitants until 2020
• The key objectives of the ”COALITION OF SUSTAINABLE URBANISATIONS”

- to help cities realize their crucial contributions to sustainable development
- to strengthen the capacity of local actors and local authorities
- to promote cohesion and collective transfer of knowledge

The project “The Sustainable City” has the overall objective to promote a sustainable development of cities (a sustainable urbanization) from economical, social, ecological and spatial dimensions. The central principle is well known: in the often-quoted words from the 1987 Bruntland report:

“Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable – to ensure that it meets the need of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their needs”
(World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987)

The “millennium declaration” formulated the objective to improve the life conditions for 100 million slum inhabitants until 2020.

From this starting-point the initiative relates directly to the three key objectives formulated by the “Coalition for Sustainable Urbanisation” (first draft: 20 April 2002).