Sustainable development has been a very lively issue in our days and has come to be accepted by more and more people. Consi-dering sustainable development ethically and observing the relation-ship of human beings with nature, with other humans and with society, we might say also that it is a new idea not only for development, but for civilization as well. Sustainability is the basis of values in moving from the pattern of industrial civilization to that of a new civilization for humankind.

Sustainability is not a new concept; it originated from the idea of "natural balance" in the 18th century. There was a saying in the West, that God in his wisdom designed our real world, which enabled people to live forever in a state of natural equilibrium. Although it is bad that the antelope should be eaten by the lion, in this way the lion gets its food and the excessive reproduction of antelopes is con-trolled. However it seems that people have not paid enough attention to the concept of a natural balance.

Sensitive to the damage of the natural environment and the abuse of natural resources through industrialization, Frederick Engels, by the end of the last century, warned that this large scale damage to the harmony between man and nature would at last be punished by nature. With regard to social development the same was noted and criticized by Karl Marx. But still it was not sufficiently recognized by people.

Not until 1962, upon the publication of The Quiet Spring, written by Rachel Carson an American marine biologist, did people begin to consider the co-existence of humans and nature. The well-known report of Rome, The Limits of Growth, was published in 1972. The question was raised in the report was whether social production could increase indefinitely and whether world development could be sustained. But to the best of my knowledge, the word "sustainability" is not found in the report. Instead, the key words were "balance" or "global balance" which derive from a research forecast based mostly on the system dynamics designed by Jay Forrester, Professor at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This holds that if one takes a series of variables such as birth rate, death rate, resource availability, degree of environ-mental pollution, etc., as data-in, then the data-out will forecast an increasing birth rate, death rate, etc. It should be made clear here that balance here is a "moving balance", not stagnancy or negative balance. That is, using new technology, people hopefully can re-generate resources and recycle minerals. It is from this concept of "natural balance" that we have the more active concept of "sustainability".

It was in The Protection of the Natural World Program, 1980, and Constructing a Sustainable Society, 1981, that we find the concept of "sustainability". This was defined clearly in the report, Our Common Future, presented by the United Nations Environment and Development World Committee in 1987. Since 1990, some additions and principles for realizing sustainability have been worked out.

In the former Norwegian Premier’s report, Our Common Future, commissioned by the U.N., the key point to the concept "sustainability" is development. The report deals not with sheer "sustainability", but with "sustainable development". In a broad sense this could be defined as the strategy for promoting harmony among people and between humankind and nature. The "report" reasons as follows:

- The concept of need or "requirement", especially the fundamental needs of the poor of the world, should be given first priority.

- The concept of "limit" is the limit of the possibilities of technology and social organization for meeting human needs.

Therefore, the targets of economic and social development should be determined in view of the sustainability of all countries whether developed or developing, and whatever be the economic system. Sustainability should be the agreed strategic framework. The needs to be considered for sustainability are not only those of economic life, but also of education, health, fresh air and clean water, natural scenery, environmental protection, etc.

Consequently, the essence of sustainable development is, while developing the economy, to pursue the harmony, co-existence and co-prosperity of man and nature. This does not take as the target sheer economic increase. In other words, sustainable development is first of all a reflection on the traditional mode of industrial develop-ment, or a criticism to the limitation of industrial growth. The formu-lation of sustainable development is a great step forward with regard to the outlook on the development for mankind for it shows that human beings seek to create civilization at a higher level. This is the new starting point for the idea of civilization.

In view of the relationship between man and nature, sustaina-bility as the idea of new civilization requires establishing a new ecological civilization. This requires that development turn from the traditional mode of industrial civilization to a new mode of ecological civilization. The mode of development of traditional industrial civilization was founded on the view that "man is the master of nature", which "he should conquer ". This encourages human beings to draw endlessly from nature in the process of modernization; it maintains that human beings can be more wealthy and happy by continuously exploiting and utilizing natural resources. Dominated by such ideas humans deal with nature in a vicious way, resulting in a "vicious circle".

Ethics should make clear that human beings have also a moral responsibility towards nature. Previously, one talked only about morality in the field of relationships among people or between man and society, but never that man should also take moral responsibility towards nature. This is not only a serious problem in reality, but also an important advanced in moral philosophy.

Regarding the relationship between man and nature. The new civilization demands that people take responsibility to respect nature. It holds also that humans exits in nature and in harmony with nature, and that both develop in a coordinated manner. Humans do not live above or outside nature, but are included in the whole of nature. To love and pay great attention to the whole of nature, to ecological balance, to all biological genera, and to the unregenerable resources of the earth — all these are demanded by the new idea of civilization and its new ethics. For survival and development people have to exploit nature, and it is rational to expend a certain amount of natural resources, but we must not take nature as a "slave" or as "something conquered" which is to be treated at will.

Sustainable development is concerned with the civil relation-ship both between humans and nature and among people. The first definition of sustainable development was that "social development should meet the requirements of both contemporary and future generations" (1987). Five years later a complement was added: "The development of some people should not harm others" (1993). This shows that fairness is the fundamental principle for the relationship among the people in the framework of sustainable development. It demands that the present developing subject restrain to a certain degree its own development efforts.

Firstly, it calls for fairness among generations, especially to future generations. This emphasizes that contemporary development should not be at the expense of future generations. What we leave for later generations should be at least more than what our ancestors left us, so that our descendants have enough natural resources to develop further. The basic aim of sustainable development is to enable development to improve over the generations.

Secondly, fairness and equality within the same generations is called for. This stresses that development in any region and country should not be at the expense of development in other regions and countries, and that backward regions and countries should be especially protected. Due to the limitation of natural resources, any uncontrolled exploitive behavior would be harmful to the surrounding regions and countries, and lead to negative consequences. The key point of sustainable development is to prevent and eliminate the polarization between the poor and the rich in a certain region, country or even in the whole world. People in poor areas often exploit resources excessively for food and clothing, while the rich abuse the resources predatorially for luxurious enjoyment. Only by a fair disposition of the resources which reduces the polarization between the rich and the poor can the development of the whole be sustained. As the basic target of development is to meet necessary "requirements", the needs for the survival of the poor should be given greater priority than those of the rich. Only in this way can the aims of sustainable development be realized.

The fairness principle within a generation or between genera-tions represented by sustainability is an extension of the original fairness principle. At first, people understood fairness as equality, for instance, that everyone is to be given equal property. Later people understood it as an equal chance, not an equal result. Now, people understand it as the fairness in exacting from nature and in enjoying what is given by nature. This type of fairness between two genera-tions or within a generation is a new idea of civilization.

Sustainable development demands dealing correctly not only with the relationship between humans and nature, and among people, but also with the relationship among various fields of social civilization. For sustainable development to be truly realized, the society must advance and the degree of the social civilization improved.

Social civilization includes material, spiritual and system civilizations. The construction of material civilization and spiritual civilization supplement and improve each other. Onesidedness in either of them would be harmful to the sustainable development of the society.

Spiritual civilization is the pursuit of social well being at a high level. Included in sustainable development are the development of spiritual civilization as well as full development in economy, society, environment and the quality of the population. As the level of social civilization advances, human beings, beside their material requirements, require ever more spiritual civilization and the full development of human quality. This would not be possible without the development of spiritual civilization, which therefore is a topic inherent in the idea of the new civilization of sustainable development.

It would be more in accord with reality and more scientific to distinguish system civilization from spirit civilization, or, to divide social civilization into three parts: material, spiritual and system, so as to make manifest its implied theoretical and practical meanings.

System civilization could be distinguished into various levels as basic system, system, and concrete institutions or specific rules, and so on. The degrees of civilization in the societies with different basic systems are comparable in certain historical conditions. For instance in the present historical condition we say that the basic system of socialism is a better and superior civilization than that of capitalism. But in specific management systems, the West might have something advanced which deserves being followed, or could be said to be more civil and scientific.

The aim of emphasizing the system civilization is to note the sustainability of social development. For some regions or countries without reforming the basic social system, or without a high level of system civilization, it evidently is not enough to emphasize only spiritual civilization and moral norms, because the basic system might be the first obstacle in the way of socially sustainable development.

Hence, to start from the demand of sustainability, it will be necessary to demand the improvement of social civilization in all its dimensions, including the construction of material, spiritual and system civilizations. In constructing material civilization, our main task is to deal properly with the relationship between man and nature; in spiritual civilization to improve the quality of human life and the relationship among people; in system civilization to improve the relationship between the individual and society or group.

What is more, sustainable development must have lofty thought and morality as its impetus. The quality of its morality and thought is the kernel of a nation’s civil quality. If we take sustainability as a new idea of civilization, then we have to promote a more perfect spiritual civilization and a more lofty morality for such a sustainable developing society.

Sustainability demands the full improvement of social civilization. This requires strengthening and increasing not only material civilization, but also the construction of spirit civilization as well. This is the starting point and kernel of a new notion of civilization.

The transition from industrial to a new civilization calls for a new axiology, ethics, and outlook toward environment, history and so on. Various new theories will be produced in present and future practice, but from what has been said above we can expect that sustainability will be the norm of values for the new era.