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.

格羅·哈萊姆·布倫特蘭（Gro Harlem Brundtland，1939年4月20日—），挪威政治傢、外交傢、物理學傢，挪威首相及世界衛生組織總乾事。她被視為國際上的可持續發展及公共衛生的專傢。1994年她被授予瞭德國亞琛市的查理曼和平奬(Charlemagne Prize)。在2004年英國報紙金融時報(The Financial Times)將她列為最近25年第4名influental歐洲人(influential European)，在教皇約翰·保羅二世、米哈伊爾·戈爾巴喬夫和瑪格麗特·撒切爾之後。布倫特蘭1961年與挪威國際關係研究所的高級研究員阿恩·布倫特蘭結婚，有4個孩子。