The Key Principles of Social Sustainability from the Sustainable Development Perspective: A Comparative Review

Abstract

The concept of sustainable development, which stands on the three pillars of sustainability, termed as environment, social, and economy has been gaining global attention recently. Yet, the efforts in implementing sustainable development concept seemed to be imbalanced, since the environmental and economic aspects receiving more attention than the social aspects. This matter needs to be addressed promptly as the principal aspirations of sustainable development were triggered by the issues associated with all three pillars of sustainability. The failure to pay attention to the social pillar of sustainability is a real mistake, as this pillar directly impacts the quality of life and well-being of individuals, as compared to environmental issues. To resolve this issue in a systematic approach, this paper explores the principles of social sustainability from the sustainable development perspective. A total of 81 scholarly literature regarding social sustainability have been reviewed by adapting the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method. Subsequently, ten clusters of social sustainability key principles have been established to cluster 245 social elements identified from the reviewed scholarly literature.