Contents: Why sustainability and equity: Are there limits to human development -- Sustainability, equity and human development -- Our focus of inquiry -- Patterns and trends in human development, equity and environmental indicators: Progress and prospects -- Threats to sustaining progress -- Success in promoting sustainable and equitable human development -- Tracing the effects-understanding the relations: A poverty lens -- Environmental threats to people's well-being -- Disequalizing effects of extreme events -- Disempowerment and environmental degradation -- Positive synergies-winning strategies for the environment, equity and human development: Scaling up to address environmental deprivations and build resilence -- Averting degradation -- Addressing climate change-risks and realities -- Rising to the policy challenges: Business-as-usual is neither equitable nor sustainable -- Rethinking our development model-levers for change -- Financing investment and the reform agenda -- Innovations at the global level.