GSSD is an adaptive and evolving global knowledge system dedicated to sustainable development based on distributed networking principles and practices. Designed to help identify and develop innovative approaches, enabling technologies, as well as new institutional, financial and regulatory mechanisms, the GSSD domain spans over the complex dimensions of the sustainability challenges - at all levels and all parts of the world. A set of knowledge management, search, and navigation functionalities allow users to customize their own site inputs into the system and/or to tailor specific retrieval queries over the GSSD knowledge base.


Sustainable Development Defined

The view of sustainable development at the core of GSSD centers on human activities, and places human beings in social systems at its core, while taking into account and respecting the imperatives of nature and natural systems. We define sustainable development as:

The process of meeting the needs of current and future generations without undermining the resilience of life-supporting properties or the integrity & cohesion of social systems.

Extending this definition further, we differentiate among four dimensions of sustainability:

- Ecological configuration
- Economic production & consumption
- Governance & politics
- Institutions & performance

To become sustainable, a system must meet four conditions:

(a) Ecological systems exhibit balance and resilience,
(b) Economic production & consumption do not threaten ecological systems,
(c) Governance modes reflect participation and responsiveness,
(d) Institutions demonstrate adaptation and feedback.

If, and only if, these conditions hold will a system dispose toward sustainability.


What is GSSD's Mission?

GSSD is designed to:

(1) Make evolving knowledge about sustainability -- in all its forms -- more accessible to agents of change for public policy, business strategy; and creative ventures by facilitating access to cutting-edge analysis, innovative technologies, and multidisciplinary knowledge;
(2) Facilitate knowledge sharing through customized search engines, quality-controlled knowledge-mining tools, multilingual capacities; and decision-tools to identify options available in technologies, policies, and strategies;

(3) Provide leadership and vision in the use of advanced information and communication technologies for sustainable development, by strengthening capacities for knowledge access and informed decision-making and providing tools.


Why Use GSSD?

Global problems are invariably complex and require a multidisciplinary global approach for analysis, decision-making, and solution. This means that governmental, scientific and industrial stakeholders reach a common understanding of the underlying issues and challenges, while having access to relevant knowledge bases, the basic data, and the relevant expertise and perspectives. All of this must take place in what is, in effect, "real time."

These challenges are particularly daunting in the domain of sustainability where serious uncertainties exist in theory and in practice, as well as powerful contentions in policy and strategy. Different stakeholders in different parts of the world have different views and priorities about what is "real," what is "important" and what can or should be done as a result.

In addition, the communication facilities made possible by the Internet enhances the accessibility of knowledge, data, information, and so forth, to users in all parts of the world - despite the great unevenness in reliability, cost, and extent of connectivity. But, the sheer size of the World Wide Web, the distribution of content over various Web nodes - and the varying quality of content - may compromise the usability of this facility, unless some forms of coherence, quality control, and tracking methods are applied in a reliable and consistent manner.


What are the Deliverables?

GSSD provides seven types of functionalities that, jointly, serve as an integrated and evolving knowledge system:

1.A strategy for integrating & organizing knowledge related to the domain of sustainable development, in multi-dimensional, multi-sector, and international terms;
2.An integrated and wide-ranging international as well as multi-disciplinary knowledge base on sustainable development;
3.A method to represent this knowledge by a plurality of interrelated concepts, and interrelationships that are organized in internally consistent and hierarchical form;
4.A set of selection and retrieval functionalities consisting of search engines and browsers which operate over the system's quality-controlled knowledge base;
5.Enhanced capabilities enabling alternative multi-lingual knowledge provision, search, & navigation capabilities;
6.A platform for housing Reports on new and innovative approaches to the management of sustainability at all levels and in all contexts.
7.A workflow consisting of synchronization and replication providing the ‘cloning' process for all the mirror sites – including the MIT location.

Database also available in Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese.