The concept of sustainable development has become a basis of a scholarly discourse on the future of mankind and a major policy goal for nation-states and the international community as a whole. Regardless of its popularity and practical implementation, this concept is still regarded as ambivalent by academics and politicians alike (especially, in Russia). This paper characterizes a broad spectrum of methodological approaches to studying sustainable development (present in Russian and international literature) from the interpretations reminiscent of conspiracy theories to mainstream contemporary discourse on the security-development nexus. The author traces the origins and the main stages in the formation of theory and practice of sustainable development. The analysis is focused primarily on the role of ‘security’ concept in the genesis and evolution of the idea of sustainable development – from Vladimir Vernadsky’s ‘noosphere’ to the contemporary ‘water, food, energy and climate security nexus’. The author argues that sustainable development as the pivotal contemporary development paradigm has evolved mainly from the ‘security–development nexus’, and, therefore, any attempts to conceptualize it without making references to the nexus will not be fruitful.