The Imperatives of Sustainable Development

Needs, Justice, Limits

Erling Holden, Kristin Linnerud, David Banister, Valeria Schwanitz, August Wierling

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781134338481
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

Thirty years ago, the UN report Our Common Future placed sustainable development firmly on the international agenda. The Imperatives of Sustainable Development takes the ethical foundations of Our Common Future and builds a model that emphasizes three equally important moral imperatives – satisfying human needs, ensuring social justice, and respecting environmental limits. This model suggests sustainability themes and assigns thresholds to them, thereby defining the space within which sustainable development can be achieved.

The authors accept that there is no single pathway to the sustainable development space. Different countries face different challenges and must follow different pathways. This perspective is applied to all countries to determine whether the thresholds of the sustainability themes selected have been met, now and in the past. The authors build on the extensive literature on needs, equity, justice, environmental science, ecology, and economics, and show how the three moral imperatives can guide policymaking. The Imperatives of Sustainable Development synthesizes past reasoning, summarizes the present debate, and provides a clear direction for future thinking.

This book will be essential reading for everyone interested in the future of sustainable development and in the complex environmental and social issues involved.

1
THE MORAL IMPERATIVES OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more frequently and persistently one’s meditation deals with them: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (1788)¹

In 1981, then president of the World Bank, Alden Winship Clausen, delivered the Fairfield Osborn Memorial Lecture in Environmental Science in Washington, DC. The lecture, later published in The Environmentalist (Clausen, 1982), was called ‘Sustainable Development: The Global Imperative’. The lecture tells us three things. First, it tells us that if our goal is sustainable development, our perspective must be global. Second, it tells us that sustainable development is an ‘imperative’, something that is, according to Oxford Dictionary, essential or urgent. Third, it tells us that the concept ‘sustainable development’ had been used, admittedly not widely, years before being ‘officially’ launched by Our Common Future (WCED, 1987).²

Clausen was not even the first to give lectures about the concept’s basic ideas. The concept was probably first coined by the economist Barbara Ward in the 1970s (Borowy, 2014), and sources of ‘sustainable thinking’ can be traced to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Dresner, 2002; Caradonna, 2014). Thus, although Our Common Future did not invent either the concept or the ideas, it nevertheless, according to Jim MacNeill, is primarily responsible for sustainable development now being ‘a part of the common everyday lexicon of humankind’.³

Pity the politician, the party programme, the long-term plan or the international agreement which does not pay respect to the idea. The prospect of a ‘nonsustainable society’ is on a par with that of a nondemocratic society. It’s simply not on.

(Lafferty & Langhelle, 1999, p. 1)

And as the ultimate sign of having established a place in modern society, sustainable development is now on Facebook and Twitter.⁴

This chapter presents a normative definition of sustainable development (which we call the sustainable development space). One may argue that it is better to focus on how to achieve sustainable development than to define sustainable development. In fact, the World Commission on Environment and Development has not been created ‘as an academic entity designed to enrich intellectual discourse but as an agent of tangible policy’ (Borowy, 2014, p. 4). This is a fair point. Still, that does not make conceptualization (that is, defining sustainable development) unimportant. Indeed, we must know where we are going before we design policies to go there. For a concept to be of tangible use, decision-makers in all sectors and on all levels need ‘a normative definition which delineates the direction and range of acceptable policies, laws, investment and private behaviour’ (ibid., p. 3). Thus, sustainable development has now also become an academic entity designed to enrich intellectual discourse, and rightfully so.

What is sustainable development?

A conceptual clarification seems necessary. Some scholars argue that there is a difference between the concepts sustainable development and sustainability, for example, that sustainable development ultimately gives priority to development and that sustainability primarily is about the environment (e.g., O’Riordan, 1988), or that sustainability refers to a goal whereas sustainable development refers to the process that leads us to sustainability (e.g., Shaker, 2015). To us the two concepts entail the same ideas and the same policy implications. Thus, we use them interchangeably.

Sustainable development is a normative value system, on a par with human rights, democracy, and freedom (and it is closely interlinked with all those other normative systems) (Lafferty & Langhelle, 1999). Thus, sustainable development is essentially a strong ethical statement that tells us what we should do (Sen, 2009). Our Common Future left no doubt about that: ‘We have tried to show how human survival and well-being could depend on success in elevating sustainable development to a global ethic’ (WCED, 1987, p. 308). Transforming Our World pledges to foster ‘an ethic of global citizenship’ (UN, 2015, p. 10). Thus, any attempt to conceptualize or operationalize sustainable development must seriously consider these messages. The importance of putting ethical considerations at the heart of sustainable development was almost lost during the 1990s, however. This is now turning. In a lecture hosted by University of Oxford about how to tackle climate change, former Chief Economist at the World Bank, Nicholas Stern referred to ‘an ethical turn’ as to why we ought to act (Stern, 2015a). This is true for tackling climate change, and it is equally true for achieving sustainable development.

What happens when sustainable development clashes with other interlinked value systems? We have mentioned human rights, democracy, and freedom. One could easily add human security, peace, and happiness to that list. These are all concepts that relate to sustainable development, yet are partially distinct from it. To some extent, there are tension and potential conflicts between these concepts and the concept of sustainable development (Meadowcroft et al., 2012). At some level, however, ‘they share a similar agenda which can be framed as focusing the objective of professional efforts on improving people’s lives’ (Alkire, 2010, p. 28). It is beyond the scope of this book to examine the similarities and differences between sustainable development and related concepts. However, we stress that our approach is one that tries to identify the most important features of sustainable development, or as we have called them, the imperatives and key themes. Thus, some important features of the related concepts are part of our approach, but some fall outside it. This does not mean, however, that important features of related concepts that fall outside our approach to sustainable development are unimportant. Take for example peace. We regard peace as a prerequisite for sustainable development (or indeed any development). We agree that ‘there can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development’ (UN, 2015, p. 3).

Argument #1: The point of departure for any definition of sustainable development must be an ethical statement.

The economist, philosopher, and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen (2009) argues that if we understand ethical statements not exclusively as claims enshrined through legislation or common law, two questions immediately arise: first, ‘what is its content?’ and second, ‘what is its viability?’ Sen does not pay much attention to sustainable development. Rather, he focuses on another ethical statement: human rights. Regarding the content of human rights, Sen refers to a declaration of human rights, and to what is theorized and practically invoked by those rights. But, Sen asks, where does such a declaration come from? Sen claims that a declaration of an ethical statement may come from persons, from institutions, or from particular groups of people charged to examine these issues (for example the United Nations committee that authored the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948). In any case, Sen maintains that the content of human rights, articulated or ratified, is an ethical statement.

What is the declaration of sustainable development? Earlier contributions aside, we believe that it is Our Common Future. The report has ‘declared’ the concept and provided global society with the authoritative definition of sustainable development. Thus, the content of sustainable development derives from what is theorized and practically invoked from that declaration. Nothing, in our opinion, has changed the status of Our Common Future as the declaration of the ethical statement of sustainable development.

We are not suggesting that Our Common Future’s definition (and content) of sustainable development is immune to change though. This brings us to the question of the viability of ethical statements, which, according to Sen, is about how we can judge the acceptability of them and, moreover, how we assess the challenges they may face. We take the stance that any society must reflect on its normative foundation, be it human rights or sustainable development. Those who want to defend human rights or sustainable development must be prepared to defend those ethical statements. So how do we do that? Sen’s answer is that all ethical propositions must survive open and informed public scrutiny. This means that we must engage in ongoing debate, which allows disputing views of the content. We must be open to information coming from other societies and to arguments coming from afar, too. Thus, a claim that a certain aspect (for example freedom) is important enough to be part of an ethical statement (for example human rights) is also a claim that reasoned scrutiny would sustain that claim.

We believe that Our Common Future made very distinct claims, which we will refer to as moral imperatives. We will return to those imperatives shortly, but will first make an important point. Our Common Future was very clear about the challenge of achieving sustainable development: ‘We do not pretend that the process [of achieving sustainable development] is easy or straightforward. Painful choices have to be made’ (WCED, 1987, p. 9). Three decades later, the UN’s Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was much more optimistic: ‘It is an Agenda of the people, by the people and for the people – and this, we believe, will ensure its success’ (UN, 2015, p. 12). Sustainable development is enthusiastically presented as a ‘win–win–win approach’ (that is, simultaneously better economic, social, and environmental performance), an approach hardly acknowledged by Our Common Future. Thus, one of the central messages of Our Common Future – the need to make inconvenient, sometimes conflicting choices a part of global politics as much as of everyday life – has been sidelined (Borowy, 2014). We believe, as the authors of Our Common Future did three decades ago, that sustainable development requires those who are affluent to adopt lifestyles within the planet’s ecological means. Indeed, that is an inconvenient choice.

Argument #2: The central message of Our Common Future – the need to make inconvenient choices – has been sidelined; sidelining it reduces the chances of achieving sustainable development.

We have far to go, though, from an ethical statement to our normative model. The first step is to define the moral imperatives derived from the ethical statement of sustainable development.

The moral imperatives of sustainable development

Ethical statements, according to Sen (2009), demand acknowledgement of imperatives that tell us something must be done. Stern (2015b) too, acknowledges that an examination of the ethics (of tackling climate change) strongly points to a moral imperative for action.⁵ Why would we call them moral imperatives and not, say, strategic imperatives? First, because ethical statements obviously require moral imperatives. Second, because achieving sustainable development, according to its declaration, ‘is part of our moral obligation to other living beings and future generations’ (WCED, 1987, p. 57).

Central to the understanding of moral imperatives is what the American philosopher John Rawls (1999) calls moral powers, of which he presents two: people’s capacity for a sense of justice and their capacity for a conception of the good. Thus, we all have some sort of feeling for what is just and unjust. We also have a feeling for the kinds of goods we need. Justice and needs are indeed at the core of sustainable development. Thus, we argue that people have a moral power, which we will call a capacity for a sense of sustainability. Or perhaps we should call it a sense of unsustainability: we sense that poverty is wrong, we sense that it is wrong when injustice is being done, and we sense that destroying the natural environment is wrong. Maybe that is precisely what has made the concept of sustainable development part of the ‘everyday lexicon of humankind’: we intuitively recognize it!

This might seem a bold suggestion, though, in a world described by many as already being in an unsustainable state, and to make it even worse, continuing on an unsustainable trajectory. Remember, though, that even if there is injustice in the world, we still have a sense of justice. When we see something that is unjust we tend to try to rectify it. Just recall the abolition of slavery in the United States, the elimination of overt apartheid in South Africa, and the emergence of women’s liberation. Thus, even if we experience unsustainability in the world, we still have a sense of sustainability. We might have different conceptions of sustainability though, just as we have different conceptions of justice. Nevertheless, to activate and develop that sense of sustainability are prerequisites for achieving sustainable development.

Argument #3: People have a sense of sustainability, the activation and development of which are prerequisites for achieving sustainable development.

A sense of sustainability perhaps does not sound like a very powerful tool. One could argue that instead of waiting for people to come to their senses, we need some sort of Leviathan to steer us. Thomas Hobbes argued that a powerful Leviathan is necessary to overcome a war of all against all (Hobbes, 1998 [1651]). Likewise, one could argue that a ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The moral imperatives of sustainable development
• 2 Satisfying human needs
• 3 Ensuring social justice
• 4 Respecting environmental limits
• 5 A normative model of sustainable development
• 6 Facts and figures
• 7 An analytic narrative for sustainable development
• 8 Lost in translation?
• 9 The next steps
• Appendix
• Index