For decades, development policies in Mexico did not give importance to the economic and social costs of population growth. The unequal territorial distribution of the population, the impact of productive activities and urbanization on the quality of air, water and soil, ignoring the implications of the degradation and destruction of natural resources, caused the emergence of serious environmental crises, especially in metropolitan areas, as well as soil degradation caused by deforestation in rural areas.

Given the growing demand from civil society for the appearance of these crises, in the 1970s the first institutions were created to address the problems derived from pollution: in 1971 the Federal Law to Prevent and Control Environmental Pollution was promulgated; In 1972, the Undersecretariat for Environmental Improvement was created, within the framework of the Secretariat of Health and Public Assistance, and in 1976, the General Directorate of Urban Ecology was established within the Secretariat of Human Settlements and Public Works.

However, the concept of sustainable development as such began to be given importance in Mexico until the end of the eighties, thanks to the work carried out by research groups that promoted it from the academy and the official position of complying with international agreements that proposed its implementation. , thus moving towards a second stage of creating new agencies and laws to carry out this process aimed at sustainability at the national and local level.

Although the first precedent in the country dates back to 1983, when the Undersecretary of Ecology was created within the Secretariat of Urban Development and Ecology (SEDUE), with which new responsibilities were assigned and functions linked to the environment were regrouped that were dispersed in different federal agencies, it was in 1988 when the global process stirred by the “Brundtland Report” opened the way towards sustainability and particularly echoed in Mexico with the promulgation of the General Law of Ecological Balance and Environmental Protection (GLEBEP).