Download On the Use and Misuse of the Concept of Sustainability

1 On the Use and Misuse of the Concept of Sustainability: Including Population and
Resource Macro-Balancing in the Sustainability Dialog.
A paper for the 8th International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic, and Social Sustainability
Mr. Ed Barry – The Population Institute, Washington D.C., USA
Dr. William Rees – University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
I. Resource overshoot - today’s global reality:
A. The current scale of human economic activity on Earth is already excessive; the human
enterprise is in a state of unsustainable ‘overshoot.’ By this we mean that the consumption and
dissipation of energy and material resources exceed the regenerative and assimilative capacity of
supportive ecosystems. Many critical stocks of ‘natural capital’ are in decline and global waste
sinks are filled to overflowing. Business as usual for today’s global human enterprise is clearly
unsustainable. Any society that is living by depleting its capital assets is unsustainable by
definition.
Resource overshoot can be demonstrated empirically in at least four ways:
1. Direct observation of the degradation of resource ecosystems (e.g., marine fisheries and
tropical rain forests) and the depletion of non-renewable resources (e.g., conventional petroleum
and various industrial minerals and metals);
2. Direct observation of the gross pollution of major ecosystems and the global commons (e.g.,
expanding ocean anoxic zones and the accumulation of atmospheric green-house gases [carbon
dioxide is the largest waste product of industrial economies]);
3. Macro-economic analysis that compares traditional GDP with indicators that incorporate
physical assessments and appropriate valuation of natural capital stocks and pollution damage
costs (e.g., the ‘Genuine Progress Indicator’ or the ‘Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare’);
4. Ecological footprint analysis, a quantitative method that compares human demand for biocapacity (ecosystem services) with sustainably available supply. The aggregate human ecofootprint is already approximately 50% larger than the available bio-capacity. Moreover,
demand is increasing and supply is in decline. How is this possible? Remember, at present, the
growth of the human enterprise is being unsustainably funded by permanently depleting critical
natural capital stocks.
B. Climate change, fresh water shortfalls, biodiversity loss, food shortages (and price increases),
and global oil supply ‘peaking’ along with increasing energy costs are all additional symptoms of
ecological overshoot.
C. Achieving a positive balance between production in nature and consumption by humans is not
merely one of many ‘options,’ it is an obligatory requirement for sustainability. We must
eliminate overshoot as a prerequisite to preserving social justice, creating intergenerational
equity and securing a future for global civilization. Otherwise we will continue to undermine the
Earth’s natural resource assets, which will cause hardships and suffering for future generations of
life on the planet.
2 D. All nations are responsible for integrating physical assessments of their natural capital assets
(renewable, replenishable and non-renewable ‘resources’) into their systems of national accounts
for policy and management purposes. Overcoming overshoot and adherence to the strong
sustainability criterion requires that we maintain sufficient supplies of natural capital per capita
to ensure an adequate flow of ‘natural income’ (consumption) and life-support services
indefinitely into the future. Note that if populations are increasing, either natural capital stocks
must also increase or average quality of life will decline.
Bio-physical resource sustainability must be evaluated in an integrated manner, and periodic
national resource ‘balance sheet’ evaluations should be used to inform policy decision making.
Resource Sustainability Evaluation and Reporting (SER) must be adopted by national
governments and supported by international institutions, as an appropriate response to today’s
fundamental reality of global resource overshoot.
E. Technological optimism and techno-fixes do not provide viable solutions to the challenge of
global resource overshoot. On the contrary, historical data show that technological gains
stimulate economic growth and enable further exploitation of resources rather than induce
conservation.
F. Any sustainability assessment and corrective policies must include consideration of all factors
contributing to overshoot, including population numbers and growth, our socially-constructed
consumer life-styles, and gross social inequity. For example, empowering women and expanding
access to family planning services, being essential to preventing unwanted pregnancies and
achieving sustainability, must be part of the global sustainable development dialogs and solution.
II. SUSTAINABILITY - Conceptual ambiguities:
“Sustainable economic growth” is an oxymoron. Historically, rising incomes have invariably
been accompanied by rising material consumption despite (or because of) technological
advances. Clearly, since the world is already in ‘overshoot’ further increases in energy and
material throughput will only exacerbate the situation. Can we realistically expect to continue
growing the material economy without compromising both our own future prospects and those of
future generations?
“Sustainable development” is not necessarily an oxymoron as long as development is not
equated with growth. ‘Development’ means qualitative improvement or ‘getting better’ whereas
growth means quantitative accretion or ‘getting bigger’. Development can obviously proceed
without growth but it is possible to have growth without development. Indicators of development
include improving opportunities for personal development, falling unemployment rates,
decreasing poverty, greater income security, a narrowing income gap (greater social equity),
falling rates of alcohol and drug addiction, improving mental health indicators, etc. By such
measures as these, the considerable GDP growth of the past few decades in the US, Canada and
other rich countries has been accompanied by regressive de-development.
“Sustainable city;” what does this wide-spread phrase mean? We assert that it is, in fact,
meaningless as currently employed. In an integrated globalizing world, no sub-system—no
3 individual, no city no country—can achieve sustainability on its own. Even a city with minimal
auto use, exemplary public transit, renewable energy supplies and life-styles that require only an
equitable share of global bio-capacity will not be unscathed if the rest of the world maintains its
unsustainable tack. Despite its best efforts, this exemplary city will eventually succumb to
climate change, rising prices, resource scarcity, civil unrest and geopolitical instability. This
reality underscores that (un)sustainability is a collective problem demanding collective solutions
and therefore an unprecedented level of international cooperation in the implementation of
difficult policy choices for sustainability. In short, we have entered an era in which the future of
global civilization can be assured only through “mutual coercion mutually agreed upon” (to use
Garrett Hardin’s classic phrasing).
“Sustainable growth in businesses, jobs, and the economy;” this politically correct mantra
continues to ignore the reality that resource goods and services are required for all human
societal and economic activity, and that the Earth’s capacity to supply these resources is finite.
The political response to this criticism is technology advancement and the “decoupling” of our
economic activity from resource demands. But technology optimism is, in itself, a conceptual
ambiguity.
“Technology advancement” is the means that humanity can deploy to continue economic
growth, and thus improve overall global prosperity. Yet the historical record does not bear
this out (see above).
“There is no conflict between economic growth and environmental quality” or “there is no
conflict between a growing economy and nature.” This is an obligatory mantra uttered by
almost all politicians in their efforts to reconcile the irreconcilable; it is patently untrue. As
previously noted, economic growth (rising disposable income) has historically stimulated
increased personal consumption. This results in increased energy and material throughput and
consequent ecological damage. The reason is simple: the human enterprise is a growing subsystem of a non-growing finite ecosphere. Any diversion of energy and material resources to
maintain and grow more humans and their ‘furniture’ is irreversibly unavailable to non-human
species (what we get, they don’t). Biodiversity declines as humans displace other species from
their habitats and appropriate ‘primary production’ (nature’s goods and services) that would
otherwise support other species. Meanwhile, the increased production/consumption for humans
adds to the pollution load on natural ecosystems. As noted, these trends can actually be
accelerated by technological improvements that increase access to resources or improve
efficiency (both of which tend to lower costs and prices).
“Shifting to a knowledge-based or service-based economy will reduce environmental
impacts.” This is a common illusion voiced to support structural economic change and
continued economic growth; it is patently untrue. The reasons are simple. By ‘knowledge-based
economy’ people generally mean an economy driven by high-end services such as engineering,
information technology, financial services, etc. These activities are often seen as having less
direct ecological impact than primary and secondary sector activities such as logging, mining and
manufacturing. Herein lies the illusion. High-end service jobs pay much higher incomes than
employment in the low-end material economy. Participants in the knowledge-based economy
therefore have bigger houses, cars, flat-screen TVs and generally consume more than primary
4 and secondary sector employees (see previous point). They therefore have much larger per
capita ecological footprints than workers in the basic economy; those countries with the largest
high-end service sectors have the largest national eco-footprints.
There is another dimension to the illusion. The structural shift to a knowledge/service-based
economy is invariably accompanied by the migration of manufacturing to low-wage developing
countries that generally have lower environmental standards (or good standards that are not
enforced). These countries (e.g., China) then sell much of their manufacturing output to
wealthier consumer societies. Hence, the ecological impact per unit consumption in knowledgebased economies may increase with the total volume of consumption.
III. SUSTAINABILITY - A more complete definition:
Background:
The underlying construct that differentiates sustainability from sustainable development is
appropriate scale. If the total resource demands created by the scale of human economies and societies
become greater than the finite capacity of one planet, we draw down planetary resources and destroy
opportunities for future planetary life. Under this scenario, development is never sustainable.
The scale of human activity, and global resource overshoot that currently results from this activity,
is something that the world must address. Although global warming, climate change, fishery decline, or
some other environmental problem may appear to be the world’s most critical issue to deal with, the
reality is that all of these problems are caused by the more fundamental problem of resource overshoot.
The human enterprise, as it is currently operated, is simply out of balance with what the Earth’s finite
resource systems can sustain.
The UN World Commission on Environment and Development, otherwise known as the
Brundtland Commission, launched in late 1984, conducted hearings during the years 1985-86, and at the
conclusion of its work in 1987 issued a report on the subject of global sustainability. The final report
entitled; “Our Common Future” highlighted many important issues and offered the world valuable
insights including, but not limited to, the following:
1. The scale of human interventions in nature is (at that time in the late 80s) increasing and
approaching many of the natural resource limits of our finite planet. “The scale and complexity of
our requirements for natural resources have increased greatly with the rising levels of population and production.
Nature is bountiful but also fragile and finely balanced. There are thresholds that cannot be crossed without
endangering the basic integrity of the system. Today we are close to many of these thresholds; we must be ever
mindful of the risk of endangering the survival of life on Earth.”
2. Development and environmental preservation are inexorably linked. “….economics and ecology
must be completely integrated in decision making and lawmaking processes not just to protect the environment,
but also to protect and promote development.”
3. The world must pursue human development in a manner that fully considers and protects the
needs of future generations of planetary life. “Sustainable development is [a progressive
transformation of economy and society] that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.”
5 4. Development activities, while meeting human needs, must also address the human resource
footprint by doing such things as improving energy use efficiency, preserving and renewing
damaged ecosystems, and protecting biodiversity.
The Brundtland Commission report was far-reaching, insightful, and in many respects a seminal work in
the field of sustainability. Its contribution to the global sustainability dialogue cannot be understated.
Yet the recommendations of the report fell short, especially in terms of needed policy measures for
ensuring bio-physical ecosystem preservation and intergenerational equity of opportunity. The report
addressed individual resources, resource systems, and human demands on resources, in a series of single
topical expositions (e.g. population, food security, energy, the international economy). Although there
were many qualitative references to the interrelationships between these single issue ‘silos’, the
Commission apparently did not address these important interactions with any kind of an integrated
systems analysis.
All living resource systems operate in an integrated symbiotic fashion. With respect to human activity,
many resource demands constitute mutually exclusive appropriations of the Earth’s productive capacity.
The individual resource or ‘silo’ approach, therefore, does not give a comprehensive view of total global
sustainability. This general structural flaw is embodied in the entire following list of more specific
shortcomings:
A. The report did not adequately consider the total demands that human activities place on planetary
resources. Although references were made to the necessary balance between population sizes and
available resources, no attempt was made to quantify this balance between total human demands
and the capacity of the planet to meet those demands.
B. While the report contained many references to anthropogenic over-conscription of terrestrial and
marine resources, and recognized that human ‘business as usual’ was causing degradation of
planetary ecosystems, it failed to undertake an integrated resource demand/supply analysis. As a
result, the gravity and urgency of global resource overshoot was understated.
C. The report failed to offer a concrete operating methodology by which the world could determine
whether it was compromising the needs of future generations (i.e. ensuring global resource
sustainability). While it suggested that a ‘voice’ should be present to speak on behalf of future
generations, it failed to articulate how that voice would be heard.
What is needed in national and international environmental governance (IEG) is an evaluation
and scenario planning process that assesses total human resource demands and compares these demands
with the capacity of natural systems to supply resource goods and services. This comparative process is
called resource macro-balancing. Scientifically based accounting methodologies are available to
evaluate resource macro-balances in biological and geophysical terms. These evaluations can be used to
demonstrate unsustainable behavior before such behavior causes severe and potentially irreparable
damage to planetary resources. It is the ultimate early warning system.
6 The first, and most critical, step to reducing global resource overshoot is to incorporate resource
macro-balancing into governance. Each nation must individually embrace the broad concept of
sustainability (living within our means) and commit to a program of action that results in continuous
macro-balance improvement. These programs will require the implementation of evaluation processes,
periodic reporting, and a commitment to adopting national policies that promote self-sufficiency within
the natural resource limits of each respective sovereign territory 1 .
International environmental governance should be designed to encourage and support national
sustainability commitments. The design of IEG must include technical evaluation support and global
standardization of evaluation methodologies. IEG must also perform other needed functions such as
international resource allocations, monitoring, planning, and global resource goal setting 2 .
With the above background in mind we propose the following operational definitions of
sustainable development and sustainability:
Sustainable development (SD) is positive socio-economic change that enhances the sociopolitical institutions necessary for continued good governance and effective participatory
citizenship; grows its essential natural capital assets; maintains the integrity of supportive
ecosystems and ensures the flow of essential life-support services.
Sustainability conceptually describes an economy and full set of societal human endeavors, the
demands of which are in equilibrium with basic ecological and resource support systems. Proper
resource demand vs. supply (capacity) macro-balances must be evaluated and maintained to
ensure environmental preservation and inter-generational equity.
1
This statement does not suggest that we should curtail international commerce. For more information please refer to the policy white paper; “Designing Environmental Governance to Achieve
True Sustainability and Long Term Global Prosperity,” or its executive summary, which can be found
at www.globalsustainabilitynow.com or contact [email protected]. 2