History and Evolution of the Environmental Management System in Brazil

The idea of sustainable development emerges first as a socio-political movement, from a series of questions and concerns that have arisen at the international level, related to the contamination of natural environments and human beings, a result of industrial activities. From these concerns, a series of events and movements caused significant changes in international and national policies, leading to the construction of a significant legal framework and institutional apparatus, never seen in any other theme. The establishment of environmental management systems in most countries was a direct reflection of an international agenda launched during the Stockholm Conference, in 1972, which was continued with several other conferences and protocols, such as Rio-92, Rio+20, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement, among others, that have consolidated an international environmental agenda over the past 50 years. In Brazil, this process generated direct reflexes with the construction of a significant legal framework and institutional apparatus. In this article, we describe this process, an important part of both the world’s and the Brazilian environmental history until 2014.