"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The Report of the U.N. Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, 1987 The 8th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems – SDEWES Conference, to be held in Dubrovnik in 2013, is dedicated to the improvement and dissemination of knowledge on methods, policies and technologies for increasing the sustainability of development by de-coupling growth from natural resources and replacing them with knowledge based economy, taking into account its economic, environmental and social pillars, as well as methods for assessing and measuring sustainability of development, regarding energy, transport, water, environment and food production systems and their many combinations. Sustainability being also a perfect field for interdisciplinary and multi-cultural evaluation of complex system, the SDEWES Conference has at the beginning of the 21st century become a significant venue for researchers in those areas to meet, and originate, discuss, share, and disseminate new ideas. "Then I say the Earth belongs to each generation during its course, fully and in its right no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its existence" Thomas Jefferson, September 6, 1789