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Sustainable Development
SOSC 562
Instructor: Jerry Patchell
([email protected])
TA: Kaxton Siu
([email protected])
What is Sustainable Development?
One Problem: Two Vicious Circles
Poverty
Environmental
degradation
Affluence
Resource imports,
pollution exports
Environmental
degradation
How does poverty cause environmental damage?
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Agriculture: need to survive causes overuse of land (grazing, intensive
agriculture, fertilizer, fuel wood, logging) leading to deforestation,
topsoil erosion, water contamination
Worsened by:
 population pressures;
 lack of control over local resources and poor governance;
 Inability to invest in environment
Industry: inefficient, dirty industry locates where wages and influence
over environment are low, causing pollution of air, land, and water
 Cost-based competition
 Labour intensive
 Low capacity to invest in environment
How does affluence cause environmental damage?
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High productivity levels cause greater throughput of materials and
energy per person
Higher income levels enable greater consumption of energy and
materials
Greater throughput of energy and materials means more land used for
agriculture (more pesticides, fertilizers, erosion), more wood and
mineral resources used, more energy extracted and used, etc.
Urbanization has disconnected producers and consumers relieving
them of the influence of environmental degradation on their lives.
How are the two vicious circles
connected?
Connections
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Trade in resources, pollution and waste
Exploitation of global commons for resources and
waste disposal
Impact of local actions on global health
Two Paths to Sustainable Development
Livelihood
Lifestyle
Affluence
Poverty
Resource imports,
pollution exports
Environmental
degradation
Welfare
Improvement:
Environmental
degradation
Cooperation on Global Environmental
Governance
Remediation:
Basic needs (food,
shelter, edu.)
Productive employment
Control over resources
Population control
Energy
Production
Consumption
Fulfilling employment/leisure
Responsibility and participation
Energy
From Ad Hoc Responses to the
Environmental Crisis…
Social Demands
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Catalytic events: disasters, Pollution, Habitat Destruction etc.
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Scientists, Environmentalists, Social Movements raise
Awareness: demand for action, green consumption
Political Action
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Government Regulations, Penalties, and Administration
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International Conferences and Agreements
Business Response
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Evasion
Compliance with regulations
Sustainability as strategy
…to an (Ambiguous) Consensus on
Sustainable Development
"Sustainable development is development
that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own
needs. ” (WCED)
The short definition was qualified by its
originators in the following manner: “It
(sustainable development) contains within it
two key concepts:
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the concepts of needs, in particular the essential
needs off 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.” (WECD, 1987, 43)
History
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Stockholm 1972: UN Conference on the Human
Environment
Report of the World Commission on the
Environment and Development: “Our Common
Future”.
Rio 1992: UN Conference on Environment and
Development: Agenda 21
Johannesburg 2002: 2nd World Summit on
Sustainable Development
Far-Reaching Ethical, Political and
Economic Implications
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Raised the environmental issue to a high
level;
Recognizing the issue of intra-generation
and inter-generation equity;
While, still allowing for growth and
development;
And bound all countries to a global effort.
Local, National and Global Strategies
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revive growth, but change the quality of growth;
meet essential needs for jobs, food, energy, water, and sanitation;
ensure a sustainable level of population;
conserve and enhance the resource base;
reorient technology and manage risk;
merge environment and economics in decision making;
enhance the flow of capital to developing countries;
link trade, environment, and development by improving the terms of
trade;
increase the diffusion of environmentally sound technologies and
their funding to developing countries.
Who does sustainable development?
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The UN and its agencies
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National, state, local governments, communities
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All firms involved in service provision from cradle to cradle
Companies and other Organizations
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Thousands involved
Industry Sectors
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110 national, over 6000 local Agenda 21s
Non-governmental organizations
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Dozens of environmental conventions and programs(UNDP)
Environmental Management Systems; Corporate social
responsibility/sustainability programs; ethical investing
Consumers
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Green consumer movements, fair trade
How is Sustainable Development Done?
Integration
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Systems: any change in behavior or technology to
reduce environmental impact requires and causes
changes throughout the human-environment
system
Principles: traditions, ideologies, economic
theories, laws etc. that shape environmental
behaviour have to be changed
Practices: the tasks, processes, and technologies of
the way we work and play are changed according
to system needs.
How can we stop climate change?
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How does the human-environment system
work?
What are the principles governing human
inputs?
What practices need to be changed?
Sustainable Development as Integration
Science &
Environment
Technology
Environment
Society
Politics
Economy
Sustainable Development as Integration
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All activities depend on the environment
Society is the core of the system because it shapes
relations with the environment and because of need for
equity (resources, health, responsibility; intra & inter
generational)
Society needs economy for support and to exist within
carrying capacity
Society exists within long-term technological conditions
Society requires government to set common standards of
behavior.
Integrating Principles
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inter-generational equity
intra-generational equity
precautionary principle
public trust doctrine
subsidiarity principle
polluter pays principle (PPP)
user pays principle (UPP)
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The principle of inter-generational
equity is at the heart of the definition of
sustainable development. It requires
that the needs of the present are met
without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own
needs.
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The principle of intra-generational
equity requires that people within the
present generation have the right to
benefit equally from the exploitation of
resources and that they have an equal
right to a clean and healthy
environment.
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The precautionary principle holds that
where there are threats of serious or
irreversible damage, lack of full
scientific certainty shall not be used as
a reason for postponing cost-effective
measures to prevent environmental
degradation.
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The public trust doctrine means that
governments must act to prevent
environmental damage whenever a
threat exists, whether it is covered by a
specific law or not.
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The subsidiarity principle requires
that decisions should be made by the
communities affected or on their behalf,
by the authorities closest to them.
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The polluter pays principle (PPP)
suggests that the polluter should
internalize all the environmental costs of
their activities so that these are fully
reflected in the costs of the goods and
services they provide.
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The user pays principle (UPP) applies
the PPP more broadly so that the cost
of a resource to a user includes all the
environmental costs associated with its
extraction, transformation and use
(including the costs of alternative or
future uses foregone).
Sustainable Sai Kung:
a practical introduction to sustainable
development
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The core of sustainable development is that
people from diverse backgrounds, often
with conflicting interests need to work
together to produce integrated answers to
environmental pressures.
Sector/Community Study
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Choose a sector or community
Baseline conditions and impacts
Stakeholder awareness and capacities
Issue analysis
Alternatives generation
Indicators and monitoring system
Stakeholder feedback to your plan
Community integration
Sector/Community Study
Done
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Fisherfolk
Wind energy
Hiking
Water recycling
Ecotourism
Seafood restaurants
Expat community
Scuba diving
Recreational fishing
Transportation
Composting
To Be Done
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Awareness
Houses
Housing estates
Education
Recycling
Industry
Old folks, young folks
Yachting, waterskiing, etc
Environmental awareness
Politics
Various businesses e.g.
construction
And much, much more.
Sai Kung
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Environment
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Society
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Infrastructures and products
Economy
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Pop.; groups; services
Technology
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Attributes and quality
Sectors; composition; values; jobs
Politics
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Representation/Administration; participation
Evaluation System
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Group reports:
Participation:
Final report:
2 x 15 marks 30%
20%
50%
Requirements
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read basic literature on sustainable development;
Field research;
Literature/case study research;
Willingness to talk to people;
Creativity
The significant problems we face
cannot be solved at the same level of
thinking we were at when we created
them.
Albert Einstein
Sustainable Development as Integration
Science &
Environment
Technology
Environment
Society
Politics
Economy
Defining an oxymoron
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Sustainable?
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Development?
Other Definitions
(www. sustainableliving.org)
Ecological Definition
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IUCN, WWF and UNEP. 1980.
 Sustainable development - maintenance of essential ecological
processes and life support systems, the preservation of genetic
diversity, and the sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems.
Ecological Definition
Keiichiro Fuwa. 1995.
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Biophysical sustainability means maintaining or improving the integrity of the life
support system of Earth.
Mohan Munasinghe and Walter Shearer. 1995.
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Biogeophysical sustainability is the maintenance and/or improvement of the
integrity of the life-support system on Earth. Sustaining the biosphere with adequate
provisions for maximizing future options includes providing for human economic
and social improvement for current and future human generations within a
framework of cultural diversity while: (a) making adequate provisions for the
maintenance of biological diversity and (b) maintaining the biogeochemical integrity
of the biosphere by conservation and proper use of its air, water and land resources.
Achieving these goals requires planning and action at local, regional and global
scales and specifying short- and long-term objectives that allow for the transition to
sustainability.
Economic Definition
R. Repetto. 1986.
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The core of the idea of sustainability, then, is the concept that current decisions
should not impair the prospects for maintaining or improving future living
standards... This implies that our economic systems should be managed so that
we can live off the dividend of our resources, maintaining and improving the
asset base. This principle also has much in common with the ideal concept of
income that accountants seek to determine: the greatest amount that can be
consumed in the current period without reducing prospects for consumption in
the future.
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This does not mean that sustainable development demands the preservation of
the current stock of natural resources or any particular mix of human, physical
and natural assets. As development proceeds, the composition of the underlying
asset base changes.
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There is broad agreement that pursuing policies that imperil the welfare of future
generations, who are unrepresented in any political or economic forum, is unfair.
Core Economic Definitions
Robert Haveman. 1989.
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Sustainable development is the maintenance or growth of the
aggregate level of economic well-being, defined as the level of per
capita economic well-being.
John Pezzey. 1989.
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Our standard definition of sustainable development will be nondeclining per capita utility - because of its self-evident appeal as a
criterion for inter-generational equity.
Social Definitions
David Munro,1995.
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Sustainable development is a complex of activities that can be
expected to improve the human condition in such a manner that the
improvement can be maintained.
Nazli Choucri, 1997.
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The process of managing social demands without eroding life
support properties or mechanisms of social cohesion and resilience.
Self-reliance Definition
Mustafa Tolba, 1987.
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Sustainable development has become an article of faith, a shibboleth: often used but
little explained. Does it amount to a strategy? Does it apply only to renewable
resources? What does the term actually mean? In broad terms the concept of
sustainable development encompasses:
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1. Help for the very poor because they are left with no option other than to destroy
their environment;
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2. The idea of self-reliant development, within natural resource constraints;
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3. The idea of cost-effective development using differing economic criteria to the
traditional approach; that is to say development should not degrade environmental
quality, nor should it reduce productivity in the long run;
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4. The great issues of health control, appropriate technologies, food self-reliance,
clean water and shelter for all;
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5. The notion that people-centered initiatives are needed; human beings, in other
words, are the resources in the concept.
Spatial Definition
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R. Norgaard, 1988.
Thus we need to nail down the concept of sustainable development. I propose five increasingly
comprehensive definitions. First we can start at the local level and simply ask whether a region's
agricultural and industrial practices can continue indefinitely. Will they destroy the local resource base
and environment or, just as bad, the local people and their cultural system? Or will the resource base,
environment, technologies and culture evolve over time in a mutually reinforcing manner? This first
definition ignores whether there might be subsidies to the region - whether material and energy inputs or
social inputs such as the provision of new knowledge, technologies and institutional services are being
supplied from outside the region. Second, we can ask whether the region is dependent upon nonrenewable inputs, both energy and materials, from beyond its boundaries. Or is the region dependent on
renewable resources beyond its boundaries which are not being managed in a sustainable manner? Third,
we can become yet more sophisticated and ponder whether the region is in some sense culturally
sustainable, whether it is contributing as much to the knowledge and institutional bases of other regions
as it is culturally dependent upon others. Fourth, we can also question the extent to which the region is
contributing to global climate change, forcing other regions to change their behavior, as well as whether
it has options available to adapt to the climate change and surprises imposed upon it by others. From a
global perspective, this fourth definition of sustainable development addresses the difficulties of going
from hydrocarbon energy stocks to renewable energy sources while adapting to the complications of
global climate change induced by the transitional net oxidation of hydrocarbons. Fifth, and last, we can
inquire of the cultural stability of all regions in combination, are they evolving along mutually
compatible paths, or will they destroy each other through war. These definitions become increasingly
encompassing. All, however, address sustainability of changing interactions between people and their
environment over time.
Overcoming the contradiction?
R.E. Munn, 1989.
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The phrase sustainable development has been criticized, for example, by O'Riordan
(1985) as a contradiction in terms. If development is equated with economic growth,
this criticism is indeed justified: Malthusian limits prevent sustained growth in a
finite world... Ultimately, however, uncontrolled economic growth will cause the
quality of the environment to deteriorate, economic development to decline and the
standard of living to drop.
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Of course, the word development does not necessarily imply growth. It may convey
the idea that the world, society or the biosphere is becoming "better" in some sense,
perhaps producing more, or meeting more of the basic needs of the poor. The word
therefore involves a value judgement. In principle, development could become
sustainable through structural changes (economic, political, cultural or ecological) or
a succession of technological break-throughs.
Integrating economic definition with environment
Johan Holmberg, 1992.
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Sustainable development means either that per capita utility or well-being is
increasing over time with free exchange or substitution between natural and manmade capital; or that per capita utility or well-being is increasing over time subject
to non-declining natural wealth.
There are several reasons why the second and more narrow focus is justified, including:
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Nonsubstitutability between environmental assets (the ozone layer cannot be
recreated);
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Uncertainty (our limited understanding of the life-supporting functions of many
environmental assets dictates that they be preserved for the future);
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Irreversibility (once lost, no species can be recreated);
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Equity (the poor are usually more affected by bad environments than the rich).
Integration and Fundamental Change?
Maurice Strong, 1992.
 Sustainable development involves a process of deep and
profound change in the political, social, economic,
institutional, and technological order, including redefinition
of relations between developing and more developed
countries.
World Bank, 1992..
 Sustainable development means basing developmental and
environmental policies on a comparison of costs and
benefits and on careful economic analysis that will
strengthen environmental protection and lead to rising and
sustainable levels of welfare.
Alternative/Qualitative Growth Definition
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J. Coomer, 1979.
 The sustainable society is one that lives within the selfperpetuating limits of its environment. That society... is
not a "no growth" society... It is rather, a society that
recognizes the limits of growth... [and] looks for
alternative ways of growing.
Contrasting Perspectives
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Status Quo: Neo-liberal economists; World Bank,
OECD, Lomberg, WBCSD, green consumers,
ecological modernizers, green economists
Reformers: Environmental NGOs, IUCN, Limits to
Growth, ICLEI, Bruntland, Schumacher,
Environmental Justice
Transformers: Anti-Capitalist, Social Ecology,
Ecofeminist, Ecosocialist, Indigenous/South, Deep
Ecology, Eco-facists
Controversy and Acceptance
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Weak vs. Strong sustainability
Human-centered (anthropocentric) vs. Naturecentered (eco-centric) perspective
North vs South
Laissez-faire vs. Distributive Justice
Private vs. public vs. common property views
Social vs. Scientific Definition
Social versus Scientific definition of
Sustainability:
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Societies (nations) define what is sustainable
rather than basing sustainability on
scientifically based theories of ecosystem
carrying capacity
A Scientific Definition
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"A sustainable society meets three conditions: its
rates of use of renewable resources should not
exceed their rates of regeneration; its rates of use
of non-renewable resources should not exceed the
rate at which sustainable renewable substitutes are
developed; and its rates of pollution emission
should not exceed the assimilative capacity of the
environment” (Herman Daly).
A Social Definition?
Sustainable development in Hong Kong balances
social, economic and environmental needs, both for
present and future generations, simultaneously
achieving a vibrant economy, social progress and
better environmental quality, locally, nationally and
internationally, through the efforts of the
community and the Government.
Sustainable Development as a Balance
Environment
Society
Economy
Issues, Dependencies, Limitations and Conflicts
Environment
Society
Economy
Main Issue
Integrity of
biogeochemical
systems
Equity of services
Poverty reduction
Quality of life
Consistent increase
in aggregate
human welfare
Dependencies
(Ec) Extraction,
assimilation
(S) Life-giving,
appreciation
(En) Awareness,
responsibility
(Ec) Human,
social, financial
capital
(En) Recognition,
mitigation
(S) Monetary
support
Limitations and
Conflicts
Carrying capacity,
ecosystem
resilience
Capacities, control, Need for growth
creativity
and incentives
conflict with
carrying capacity
and equity
Carrying Capacity
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The maximum number of individuals of a
species that can be sustained by an
environment without decreasing the capacity
of the environment to sustain that same
amount in the future.
The Problem with a Balance
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What happens when the economy grows?
To the previous balance with the
environment?
To the previous configuration of society and
culture?
Key Points: SusDev Driving Forces
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Problem of poverty and environment
Problem of affluence and environment
Connections between the two
Key SusDev Ideas
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Intra generation Equity
Inter generation Equity
Need to develop social institutions to bring about
change
Key Points: Tensions and Integration
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Ambiguity of susdev
Tensions in different ideological approaches
(e.g. weak vs. strong, anthropocentric vs.
ecocentric)
Tensions between environmental, economic
and social views
Need to integrate and overcome tensions
Integrating principles