Most of today's decision makers will be dead before the planet suffers the full consequences of acid rain, global warning, ozone depletion, widespread desertification, and species loss. Most of today's young voters, however, will be alive. In this, perhaps the most important document of the decade on the future of the world, the urgency of changing certain policy decisions, some of which threaten the very survival of the human race, is made abundantly clear. The World Commission on Environment and Development, headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, was set up as an independent body in 1983 by the United Nations. Its brief was to re-examine the critical environment, to develop proposals to solve them, and to ensure that human progress will be sustained through development without bankrupting the resources of future generations. In Our Common Future, the Commission serves notice that the time has come for a marriage of economy and ecology, so that governments and their people can take responsibility not just for environmental damage, but for the policies that cause the damage. It is not too late to change these policies; but, it warns, we must act now.

格罗·哈莱姆·布伦特兰（Gro Harlem Brundtland，1939年4月20日—），挪威政治家、外交家、物理学家，挪威首相及世界卫生组织总干事。她被视为国际上的可持续发展及公共卫生的专家。1994年她被授予了德国亚琛市的查理曼和平奖(Charlemagne Prize)。在2004年英国报纸金融时报(The Financial Times)将她列为最近25年第4名influental欧洲人(influential European)，在教皇约翰·保罗二世、米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫和玛格丽特·撒切尔之后。布伦特兰1961年与挪威国际关系研究所的高级研究员阿恩·布伦特兰结婚，有4个孩子。