The debate on the environment received two important impulses for its development in the eighties which led to important changes in research: on the political side, this was the discussion on "sustainable development", on the scientific side it was the upsurge of global change research.
Under the guiding vision of " sustainable development", the Brundtlandt report of 1987 triggered off a discussion which, in a novel manner, combines ecological, social and economic perspectives into an overall concept of development that is sustainable in the future. Although definitions and applications of the term might be imprecise, the idea of "sustainable development" is establishing links between the ecological debate and globally oriented environmental policy. "Global" implies especially that the growing chasm between the wealth of industrial nations and the poverty problems of Third World countries is being made an issue and the subject of international negotiations under the heading of equity in connection with environmental problems.
This means that environmental research has the task of investigating ecological, social and economic aspects in their interrelationships, to bundle these for political decision-makers from the perspective of sustainable, environmentally benign development, and to present them in a manner suitable for decision-making. This requires an interdisciplinary and integrative approach in research and awareness that knowledge must be organised and processed for action.
A second major impulse for the environmental debate, and thus also for environmental research, is the result of global change research. Just as the global character of environmental policy is considered and put into a fruitful relationship to local actions within the concept of "sustainable development", the international frame of reference and world-wide links between research organisations within global change research are constitutive characteristics of a newly emerging area of research going beyond environmental research as such.
In contrast to the debate on "sustainable development", which is concerned with the development of positive visions and the determination of criteria and target indicators, thus attempting to determine orientation parameters for societal action, global change research is proceeding from the assumption of anthropogenic changes to nature and thus encounters the problem of self-endangering by society due to its own means of production. Research is reflexive to the extent that it investigates the impact of societal action on society. Environmental problems are attributed to human actions and thus commit to political action.
Climate change, soil erosion, the reduction of biological diversity and forest decline are all the consequences of human intervention, which may in turn only be steered by further decisions.
This reveals a basic structure of the environmental issue. As technical interventions change nature resulting in further problems for society, there is a need for the development of more, and not of less, competence for intervention. This will, however, have to be exercised according to criteria including one's own susceptibility to risk.
Sustainable development and global change research thus create awareness of two constitutive problems of the newly emerging environmental research:
If this is in its tendency a correct description, environmental research is awarded a leading role in connection with the modernisation of society. On the one hand, it is to investigate the complex relationship between societal development and environmental change, on the other hand it is faced with the problem of feeding this knowledge into decision-making processes. Its feedback to politics and other important areas of action make it a problem-oriented practical science.