Download Sustainability

Sustainability/Sustainable
Development
John Barry
Professor of Green Political Economy
Queens University Belfast
[email protected]
Definition/s
Sustainability – to endure indefinitely into the future, to keep in
existence; to maintain or prolong; to continue or last; longevity,
robustness of systems, individuals, collectivities, human and socioecological systems/orders ; dynamic harmony/equilibrium between
the human order and the nonhuman world
Sustainable Development - human societal development and
progress that is ecologically possible indefinitely, does not transgress
the regenerative capacities of the ecosystem
Development – maturation, growth, progress, unfolding, evolution;
quality of this state/process
History and Uses (and Abuses)
‘Sustainable yield’ and ‘carrying capacity’ – crops and slavery based plantation
production (19th century – Malthus, Mill), 1972 Stockholm Environment
Conference
Principle 3 - ‘The capacity of the earth to produce vital renewable resources must be
maintained and, wherever practicable, restored or improved’.
1960s/1970s – rise of the environmental movement, ‘limits to growth’, ‘steady
state economy’ (JS Mill to Herman Daly)
Human scale technology; alternative development (Ivan Illich, EF
Schumacher)
1980 ‘This is the kind of development that provides real improvements in the quality of
human life and at the same time conserves the vitality and diversity of the Earth. The
goal is development that will be sustainable. Today it may seem visionary but it is
attainable. To more and more people it also appears our only rational option’. World
Conservation Strategy, IUCN, UNEP and WWF (1980).
History….
1980s – World Commission on Environment and Development
Brundtland report: development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 8)
“A strategy for improving the quality of life while preserving the environmental potential for the future, of
living off interest rather than consuming natural capital” (National Commission on the Environment, 1993)
1992: Principle 4 of the Rio Declaration: ‘In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection
shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it.’
Sustainable Development strategies and plans of states and supra-state bodies such as the EU (Environmental
Action Plans and Sustainable Development Strategies) . UK goals for example:
“social progress which recognises the needs of everyone; effective protection of the environment; prudent use
of natural resources; and maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment”.
EU – similar but also ideas of the ‘circular economy’, ‘well-being’, alternative indicators to GDP, ‘sustainable
consumption’
Brundtland definition (1987)
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within
it two key concepts:
the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding
priority should be given; and
the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on
the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.
Thus the goals of economic and social development must be defined in terms of
sustainability in all countries - developed or developing, market-oriented or centrally
planned. Interpretations will vary, but must share certain general features and must flow
from a consensus on the basic concept of sustainable development and on a broad strategic
framework for achieving it.
Development involves a progressive transformation of economy and society. A development
path that is sustainable in a physical sense could theoretically be pursued even in a rigid
social and political setting. But physical sustainability cannot be secured unless development
policies pay attention to such considerations as changes in access to resources and in the distribution of
costs and benefits. Even the narrow notion of physical sustainability implies a concern for
social equity between generations, a concern that must logically be extended to equity
within each generation.
Sustainable development – dominant tripartite conceptualisation as environmental
sustainability (resource, energy, pollution, ecological services etc.), social development
(solidarity, welfare, living well) and economic development (employment, economic
growth, prosperity)
Sustainability: ‘one planet living’
In 2050, we will need 2.5 planets.
Sustainability as conflict
between supply and demand
Abuses and misuses
Sustainability – often translates and is understood as ‘financial
sustainability’ of a system, service or enterprise
‘Public spending is unsustainable’ – underpinning/buttressing a rationale
and legitimating discourse for austerity
Reformist, technocratic, managerial discourse of ‘sustaining the
unsustainable’
Futurity (justice between generations) often at expense of intergenerational
(global and social) justice - can ‘sustainable development in one country’ be
possible? Issue of ‘exporting’ or ‘outsourcing’ unsustainability to other
countries and peoples within the context of globaisation
Little traction outside academia, policy-world, NGO, business, political
lobbying and debate (not the same as ‘democracy’ and ‘in/justice’)
Mostly focuses on improving ‘ecological efficiency of production’
(sustainable development as ‘ecological modernisation’)– does not
challenge/focus on consumption (wants versus needs issue or issues of
injustice /inequality of distribution of costs and benefits of
economic/productive activity)
Critically assess the concept’s
strengths and weaknesses
Strengths – enables discursive/ideological compatibility of the economic status
quo, reformed capitalist economic growth and environmental considerations –
thus politically and strategically powerful
Recognises the metabolism between human and nonhuman worlds – ‘economy’ as
the flow of energy, materials, pollution as well as products and service
Trojan horse – can ‘smuggle in’ progressive/transformative non-ecological
principles, ideas and policies – around lowering inequality, global and
intergenerational justice, greater state regulation, democratisation and active
citizenship
Its indeterminacy/vagueness can be viewed as placing it on par with democracy,
justice etc. – we can all support it in principle, but may all have different
interpretations of what it means
The idea of ‘development’ opens up possibilities of moving beyond current
conceptions of development such as those associated with economic growth,
accumulation, and towards more qualitative views of the ‘sustainable society’ and
indeed the ‘good life’.
Weaknesses
Vague, abstract and meaningless – ‘what’ is being ‘sustained’? Sustainability per
ecologically sustainable fascism something to be viewed positively
‘Greening capitalism/business as usual’, ecological modernisation and
continuation of the myth of techno-optimism –’biofuel the hummer’, reformist
not transformative; easily cast into a narrow ecological focus (esp. climate change
framing in more recent years) to the neglect of the non-ecological aspects of
sustainable development
Tendency to be presented in an elite/scientific /pseudo-objective language
a) anti-democratic potential (Ophuls’ ‘priesthood of responsible
technologists’); and /or
b) depoliticised and viewed as a ‘managerial’ tool/objective – witness
recent calls within the ‘Anthropocene movement’ for ‘earth systems management’
head on
c) ‘inclusive growth/development’ – does not address inequality/injustice
Anthropocentric - nonhuman world viewed as means for human ends
Alternatives: The Reality of our Situation:
Actually Existing Unsustainability
Just as it is injustice not justice that characterises the modern
world, likewise it is unsustainability not sustainability that we
find
Yet, vast majority of thinking scholarship and sometimes activism
is around ‘sustainability’, ‘sustainable development’
Sustainability beckons to the future, while unsustainability
focuses on the present
Of course the two are or can be related but key issue is that one
does not have to have a fully developed theory of
justice/sustainability to condemn, recognise and struggle to
eradicate injustice and unsustainability
The ‘perfect’ should not become the enemy of the ‘good’
Injustice and Unsustainability
Injustice and unsustainability – go hand in hand
Injustice – most powerful ethical-political language we have
The fight against injustices is not necessarily the same as a
struggle for some positive conception of justice.
‘injustice has a different phenomenology from justice.
Understanding injustice constitutes a separate theoretical
enterprise from constructing a theory of justice... injustice
takes priority over justice’ (Simon, 1995: xvii).
Green political theory/economy and political activism for
sustainability should start from the reality of actually existing
unsustainability.
The analysis of actually existing unsustainability should take
priority over the analysis of sustainability.
The Critique of Unsustainability
The critique of the current unsustainable economic system does not and
should not depend for its validity on the specification of some positive
sustainable alternative.
While from a political/strategic point of view of persuading people of one’s
position, one might wish to develop a worked-out alternative, this should
not be a requirement for the critique to be politically considered and taken
seriously in public policy debate.
‘the negative recommendation stands on its own, without the inclusion of a
positive alternative . . . Requiring that negative recommendations depend
upon positive alternatives has the effect of undermining the negative
recommendations. We need to listen to the negative recommendations,
irrespective of whether the negative criticisms also contain positive
proposals’ (Simon, 1995: 14).
Secondary and Associated Concepts
Resilience – capacity of a system, person, order to withstand shocks and return to previous state or
transform to a different state
Complex adaptive systems, socio-technical systems – importance of ‘slack’, ‘head-room’, ‘in-built
redundancy’ within socio-ecological systems
Sufficiency – ‘enough’ – challenge to the productivity logic of maximisation, efficiency and
productivity
Limits - limits to ‘business as usual’/orthodox undifferentiated GDP measured economic growth,
living well within socio-ecological limits
Ecological overshoot; ‘ecological footprint’; ecosystem services; IPAT formula
Natural capital/ism -, ‘critical natural capital’, ‘substitutability/complementarity between human
and natural capital’; ‘wise use’; industrial symbiosis/ecology; biomimicry;
‘Five capitals model of sustainability’ (natural, human, social, manufactured, financial);
Alternatives to sustainable development: Sustainable livelihoods’; ‘sustainable communities’; ‘buen
vivir’, sumak kawsay, suma qamaña; ubuntu; ‘subsistence economy and livelihoods’; ‘right livelihood’;
‘voluntary simplicity’; ‘post-development’; Human Development Index; sustainable human security;
food security/ la via campasina; agroecology
Social recession; environmental in/justice; orthodox economic growth; well-being and human
flourishing; the commons; the common good; stewardship;
“The most alarming sign of the state
of our society now is that our leaders
have the courage to sacrifice the lives
of young people in war, but have not
the courage to tell us that we must be
less greedy and less wasteful.”
Wendell Berry, 1993