Sustainable development is at a critical turning point, excessively mediatised as an ideology that can correct every socio-economic dysfunction. Situated at this crossroads, with its multifaceted sciences, cultures and lifestyles, its overall view is clouded by each of the major players (governments, companies, NGOs) acting in their own interests. Such pessimism is not unrelated to the rise in influence of a globalisation that is struggling to combine necessary growth with a profit-related financial cosmopolitanism itself no longer hindered by territorial, cultural or ethical boundaries. Sustainable development calls for resistance to generalised polymorphic globalisation, while not limiting economic development in unstable and impoverished societies.