Sustainability-Squaring the circles?

The most serious level of concern about the concept of sustainable development is that it fosters delusions. (promotes unreality)

A whole suite of environmental scientists is on record as suggesting that these limits are real and proximate. If so, then that would seem to make nonsense of the view that global industrial output could expand many-fold. First raised by Hirsch (1976) in the context of the scarcity of what he called ‘‘positional goods’’, the idea that there may be social, political and institutional constraints on traditional forms of economic development also connects to a long history of literature critical of the political, social and distributional impacts of industrialization. It suggests that we may run up against the social consequences of the Western model of development before we reach any ecological limits.

What is common to both the biophysical and social arguments about constraints on economic growth is the view that the continuation of current trends is ultimately unsustainable. This concern is less easy to respond to than the concerns over vagueness and hypocrisy.

Perhaps the only unambiguous conclusion that can be reached about biophysical or social limits to growth is that whether approaches based on Eco-efficiency and corporate social responsibility are sufficient or not, they are necessary steps towards a more sustainable world. From the point of view of biophysical or social limits to growth, the paths to sustainability and sustainable development do not immediately diverge.

While concerns over the viability of continued economic growth cut to the heart of debates over sustainable development, Does the concept of sustainable development distract us from the real problems and potential solutions by focusing our attention on the wrong issues?

From the point of view of biophysical concern, the key problem is that the sustainable development position is ultimately a purely anthropocentric one. As noted earlier, both the more radical and the more reformist formulations of the sustainable development position exist on the pragmatic side of the debates in the environmental literature between those arguing for fundamental value and behavioral change and those who focus on the development of technology and on institutional reform.

On the social side, similar concerns exist. The concern here is that sustainable development is seen as innately reformist, mostly avoiding questions of power, exploitation, even redistribution. The need for more fundamental social and political change is simply ignored.

In this sense, the mantra of sustainable development distracts us from the real social and political changes that are required to improve human well-being, especially for the poor, in any significant way.

Where does this leave us?

1. Sustainability must be an integrative concept, across fields, sectors, and scales. But it is also increasingly obvious that solutions that address only environmental, only social or only economic concerns are radically insufficient. Yet the combination of government and business is insufficient. scales of analysis and action.

Clearly, the very concept of sustainability is predicated on a need to think across temporal scales.

2. Beyond concepts to action: While there will continue to be needed for conceptual, theoretical and methodological development related to sustainability, what is needed are new forms of social learning which allow sustainability approaches to be hammered out in diverse socio-political and environmental circumstances.

3. Technical fixes are necessary but not sufficient: Given the extent of environmental deterioration and human misery around the world, we should actively pursue improvements in the efficiency and social and environmental impacts of delivering goods and services.

In fact, the more serious the problems of unsustainability, the more we need to reduce negative environmental impacts per unit of economic activity.

If sustainability is to contribute to a better life for all, then it will be necessary to go beyond technical fixes and begin to address profound issues of opportunity, distribution, material needs, consumption, and empowerment.

4. The social constructions of sustainability: We have seen that differences in views about the meaning and value of sustainability are rooted partly in different philosophical and moral conceptions of the appropriate way to conceive of the relationship between humanity and nature. This means that what can and should be done to achieve a sustainable society is not fundamentally a scientific or technical issue.

5. Engaging the community: A particular aspect of the human dimensions of sustainability that deserves special mention is the need to develop methods of deliberation and decision making that actively engage the relevant interests and communities in thinking through and deciding upon the kind of future they want to try and create.

The most fundamental political question that is raised by the debates in the sustainability field is –

How serious are the problems?

Are problems of ecological or socio-economic unsustainability minor bumps on the road to a better future for all, or are they evidence of the need for a fundamental transformation in society?

Application

Over the past 25 years, a number of researchers have been working on articulating an approach to sustainability that embodies some of these lessons. This work suggests that sustainability may usefully be thought of in two dimensions. The substantive dimension indicates that sustainability requires the simultaneous reconciliation of three imperatives.

1. The ecological imperative is to stay within the biophysical carrying capacity of the planet,

2. The economic imperative is to provide an adequate material standard of living of all, and

3. The social imperative is to provide systems of governance that propagate the values that people want to live by.

Sustainability – Squaring the Circles?

1. A focus for a series of concerns that go to the heart of the interconnected debates over environmental, social and economic conditions. The debate over the concept and practice of sustainability brings those concerns to the surface in a particularly pointed way.

2. He tried to suggest that it is possible to conceive of sustainability in a way that is sensitive to these concerns and even offers some useful avenues forward in addressing them.

The key to this argument is the view that sustainability should not be conceived of as a single concept, or even as a consistent set of concepts. Rather it is more usefully thought of as approach or process of community-based thinking that indicates we need to integrate environmental, social and economic issues in a long-term perspective.

What is needed, therefore, is a process by which these views can be expressed and evaluated, ultimately as a political act for any given community or jurisdiction. The power of the concept of sustainability, then, lies precisely in the degree to which it brings to the surface these contradictions and provides a kind of discursive playing field in which they can be debated.

Instead, sustainability is itself the emergent property of a conversation about what kind of world we collectively want to live in now and in the future.