The IRU Charter for Sustainable Development (1996)

The IRU Charter for Sustainable Development (1996)

At the 1992 "Rio Earth Summit", member governments of the United Nations adopted Agenda 21, the comprehensive blueprint for achieving Sustainable Development. Sustainable development has been broadly defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. For road transport, this translates into the challenge of satisfying market demand with the lowest environmental and economic costs possible.

Chapters 27 and 30 of the Agenda underlined the need to strengthen the role of

• non-governmental,
• business and
• industry

partners.

The road transport industry, through its worldwide representative body, the IRU, subsequently developed the IRU Charter for Sustainable Development, unanimously adopted by all IRU members at the IRU World Congress in Budapest in 1996. The Charter is a proactive commitment by the entire road transport industry to drive towards the target of achieving Sustainable Development.

It was Maurice Strong, UN Earth Summit Secretary General, Chairman of the Earth Council and Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, who said at the IRU World Congress in 1996 that, for him, the signing of the IRU Charter was "one of the most important and encouraging events of the post-Rio period". He added that the IRU and its members should "bring it back home to their members and make it operational".

Charter for Sustainable Development

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