Understanding the Concept of Sustainability

 

Understanding the Concept of Sustainability

 Nowadays the term sustainability is very popular in various disciplines and it has been used in various contexts with different connotations. Due to overuse of the term  it has become a cliché.  It leads to confusion about what sustainability is? Or what it stands for? Michael D. Lemonick,  a former chief opinion editor at  Scientific American and a former senior science writer at Time in a write-up  published in Scientific American talks about  top 10 myths about sustainability.  According to him the following are myths about sustainability 1: Nobody knows what sustainability really means. 2: Sustainability is all about the environment. 3: “Sustainable” is a synonym for “green.”4: It’s all about recycling. 5: Sustainability is too expensive. 6: Sustainability means lowering our standard of living. 7: Consumer choices and grassroots activism, not government intervention, offer the fastest, most efficient routes to sustainability. 8: New technology is always the answer. 9: Sustainability is ultimately a population problem.10.Once you understand the concept, living sustainably is a breeze to figure out. He concludes his article by stating that “You cannot really declare any practice “sustainable” until you have done a complete life-cycle analysis of its environmental costs. Even then, technology and public policy keep evolving, and that evolution can lead to unforeseen and unintended consequences. The admirable goal of living sustainably requires plenty of thought on an ongoing basis.” Even though he calls all these are myths they highlight some of the key concerns relating to sustainability.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary sustainability means ‘the quality of being able to continue over a period of time’. In relation to the environment it says, ‘the quality of causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time.’ Linking further with natural resources it says ‘the idea that goods and services should be produced in ways that do not use resources that cannot be replaced and that do not damage the environment: the ability to continue at a particular level for a period of time’ Thus in short it talks about the quality of being able to continue over longer period of time and not a quality which can be continued for ever. Here one should understand the difference between Gandhi or Kumarappa’s vision of sustainability and present one. J. C. Kumarappa was talking about an ‘Economy of Permanence’.  It is altogether a different discourse.

 In the modern development discourses, you cannot come across any article or material without reference to the term sustainability. The term development is closely linked to the question of sustainability. The interrelation between the two terms development and sustainability became more and more evident in the context of global challenges we have been facing in the environmental front. Following  the General Assembly resolution in  December 1983, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, the  then Secretary-General of the United Nations, asked the former Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, to create an organization independent of the UN to focus on environmental and developmental problems and solutions. The 1983  General Assembly of the United Nations established the Commission with Resolution 38/161, "Process of preparation of the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond". In A/RES/38/161, the General Assembly: Suggests that the Special Commission, when established, should focus mainly on the following terms of reference for its work:

(a) To propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development to the year 2000 and beyond;

(b) To recommend ways in which concern for the environment may be translated into greater co-operation among developing countries and between countries at different stages of economic and social development and lead to the achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives which take account of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment, and development;

(c) To consider ways and means by which the international community can deal more effectively with environmental concerns, in the light of the other recommendations in its report;

(d) To help to define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and of the appropriate efforts needed to deal successfully with the problems of protecting and enhancing the environment, a long-term agenda for action during the coming decades, and aspirational goals for the world community, taking into account the relevant resolutions of the session of a special character of the Governing Council in 1982.

 As per the UN resolution of 1983 the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) was established and it published a report entitled  United Nations Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future in  1987.The document also came to be known as the Brundtland Report after the Commission's chairwoman, Gro Harlem Brundtland. This report provided the guiding principles for sustainability and sustainable development as we generally understand the term or the concept in modern parlance. The Report pinpointed   that global environmental challenges were primarily the result of the enormous poverty of the South and the non-sustainable patterns of consumption and production in the North. It called for a policy prescription that clubbed development and the environment and coined a new term  called sustainable development. The term Sustainability and Sustainable development became popular in the discourses of development with the publication of this report. It underlined the need for sustainable and enduring development. The Report inter alia said:

 “No single blueprint of sustainability will be found, as economic and social systems and

ecological conditions differ widely among countries. Each nation will have to work out its own concrete policy implications. Yet irrespective of these differences, sustainable development should be seen as a global objective.”

 The report defined the concept of Sustainable development in the following words:

“Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept of sustainable development does imply limits — not absolute limits but limitations imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities. But technology and social organization can be both managed and improved to make way for a new era of economic growth. ..., but sustainable development requires meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the opportunity to fulfil their aspirations for a better life ... Sustainable global development requires that those who are more affluent adopt lifestyles within the planet’s ecological means - in their use of energy, for example. Further, rapidly growing populations can increase the pressure on resources and slow any rise in living standards; thus sustainable development can only be pursued if population size and growth are in harmony with the changing productive potential of the ecosystem. .. sustainable development is not a fixed state of harmony, but rather a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are made consistent with future as well as present needs.”

 The Report widened the very notion of sustainability: ^“Sustainability requires views of human needs and well-being that incorporate such non-economic variables as education and health enjoyed for their own sake, clean air and water, and the protection of natural beauty. It must also work to remove disabilities from disadvantaged groups, many of whom live in ecologically vulnerable areas, such as many tribal groups in forests, desert nomads, groups in remote hill areas, and indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australasia.”

These ideas were adequately represented in defining what is sustainability .In the  Charter  for the UCLA Sustainability Committee, sustainability is defined as: “the integration of environmental health, social equity and economic vitality in order to create thriving, healthy, diverse and resilient communities for this generation and generations to come. The practice of sustainability recognizes how these issues are interconnected and requires a systems approach and an acknowledgement of complexity.”

Though the report seeks to reform the pattern of development, the changes it suggests were not fundamental or drastic in its very nature.  That is why Amartya Sen wrote “ I argue that this way of understanding sustainability, while a great improvement, is still incomplete. There are important grounds for favouring a freedom-oriented view, focusing on crucial freedoms that people have reason to value. Human freedoms include the fulfilment of needs, but also the liberty to define and pursue our own goals, objectives and commitments, no matter how they link with our own particular needs. Human beings are reflective creatures and are able to reason about and decide what they would like to happen, rather than being compellingly led by their own needs—biological or social. A fuller concept of sustainability has to aim at sustaining human freedoms, rather than only at our ability to fulfil our felt needs.” Ben Purvis ,Yong Mao , Darren Robinson while  analysing three pillars of sustainability raises a pertinent question “‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’, … are often so intertwined in the literature that they remain difficult to tease apart. It is through this conflation though that economic growth-centred ‘development’ becomes an implicit part of ‘sustainability’, skipping over the questions: Development of what? Development for whom? Such strategic ambiguity allows this fuzzy concept to be utilised by any actor for their own means.” That is why the whole discourse on sustainable development  is  looked upon as an ingenious attempt to control the damages created by unbridled economic growth and to justify the continuance of the existing pattern of development with cosmetic changes. However, this report was a milestone in the development discourse because it raised doubts about the continuance of the existing pattern of development and the need for economic and environmental reforms.

 

In 1989, the report was debated in the UN General Assembly, which decided to organize a UN Conference on Environment and Development. The United Nations followed up its concern for sustainable development with a number of conferences and summits which laid a solid foundation for it. Thus, it became the new agenda of the organization.  These included the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the World Summit for Social Development, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, the Beijing Platform for Action and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. 

 

To chalk out Sustainable Development Goals, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, a summit of world leaders was held at New York in September 2015. It adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) endorsed by 193 Member States of the UN. The UN Secretary General’s remarks at the Summit for the adoption of the development agenda clearly indicated the new global goals of the UN and the paradigm shift in the approach to peace and development. Ban Ki- moon said: “We have reached a defining moment in human history. The people of the world have asked us to shine a light on a future of promise and opportunity. Member States have responded with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. ... It is a universal, integrated and transformative vision for a better world. It is an agenda for people, to end poverty in all its forms. An agenda for the planet, our common home. An agenda for shared prosperity, peace and partnership. It conveys the urgency of climate action. It is rooted in gender equality and respect for the rights of all. Above all, it pledges to leave no one behind.”⁷ The resolution named “Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda” adopted on September 25, 2015 placed before all countries of the world to achieve these goals over a period of 15 years. It aims to end poverty and hunger, protect the ecosystem and peace and prosperity for the future generations. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations were the following:

1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere
2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation
10. Reduce inequality within and among countries
11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development

The basic flow in the perspective of sustainable development goals of the United Nations is that it fails to sketch out a real road map for achieving such laudable goals.  It is true that some progress has been made on many fronts in all these years.  But the overall comprehensive action to meet the 2030 agenda is not yet advancing at the speed or scale required.  That means all these goals will remain only in policy documents and far away from reality.  The fact is that these goals are not   going beyond tinkering with the existing economic system. It believes that the existing system is quite amenable to be reoriented towards its desired ends. It seeks to reduce the existing inequalities within and among the countries and not to eliminate it totally or create a system in which chances of future inequality could be ruled out. That means the gross inequality   between the North and South also within the countries would remain .The moot question is how sustainability and inequality go hand in hand. Here comes the relevance of Gandhi’s idea of revolutionary trusteeship for bridging the gap between rich and poor and the socio-political and economic order he visualized or what he called as real swaraj .

It is based on the presentation made by Dr. Siby K. Joseph, Director , IFPNP, Sevagram Ashram Pratishthan, Wardha, MS, India.