Theories of Sustainable Development

Judith Enders, Moritz Remig, Judith C. Enders, Moritz Remig

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317634621
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Sustainable Development
• Index: Economics

While sustainability has become a buzzword in discussions about the environment and development, work on theories of sustainable development has received much less attention. However, theory is vital as understanding the origins and development of the concept is the key to achieving successful implementation of sustainability.

This book offers an interdisciplinary collection of research articles on the theories of sustainable development, drawing on a wide range of subjects including history, politics, governance, complex systems, economics and philosophy. It advocates viewing sustainable development not only as the establishment of a permanent, globally practicable and future-capable mode of life and economics, but as a complex array of problems involving a wide range of social-scientific and humanistic disciplines. This innovative approach means that the book is oriented toward current problems, not toward the established academic boundaries, and it draws out lessons that are relevant for those studying and working in sustainability across the world.

This book will be of great interest to researchers and students of sustainable development and environmental politics, as well as practitioners working with sustainable development in politics, business, administration, and civil society organizations.

Theories of sustainable development

Judith C. Enders and Moritz Remig

An introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9781315757926-1

The term sustainable development has received much attention in many spheres: in scientific discourses, in daily life practices, in international negotiations, in local policy measures, in marketing, in business. While the use of the term “sustainability” has become almost inflationary in both science and society, the work on theories of sustainable development has received much less attention. The aim of this interdisciplinary book is to fill this gap and resume the debate on theories of sustainability. It provides a collection of interdisciplinary research articles: history, politics, governance, complex systems, economics, philosophy and cultural studies are only but some approaches this book builds upon.

Many current trends around the globe are unsustainable. We are losing biodiversity and fertile soils; we are contributing to climate change on larger and larger scales; inequalities within and among generations are rising; poverty remains yet to be overcome. These challenges are interconnected and require a joint effort to give rise to sustainable lifestyle and durable development patterns. Prosperity for all within the limits of the carrying capacity of our planet is what sustainable development aims to achieve.

Sustainable development is also a topic to which scientists contribute. To solve problems of unsustainability, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research cooperation is necessary because monodisciplinary approaches often fail to capture the interconnected nature of sustainability and global environmental change. Solutions to the problems of the interconnected environmental, economic, and social spheres cannot be reduced to mere technical engineering, but must include social innovations, institutions, innovative governance mechanisms, and politics.

These interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches necessitate simultaneous bridges between different scientific disciplines, which deal with sustainability as a research topic. Yet, it also requires cooperation between scientist and other societal actors. Since the nature of the problems above is also due to a lack of governance and collective action, a bridge between natural sciences and social sciences is required. Many of these bridges have already been constructed; in this book we contribute to strengthen their pillars.

This movement within the scientific community has contributed to the establishment of sustainability sciences to which we are contributing a social sciences perspective. Some universities have founded faculties of sustainability studies, specific scientific societies with their own journals on sustainable development exist, and courses on sustainability are offered at many universities. Sustainable development as a cross-cutting topic is becoming more and more established.

The book is an academic book. Its scope, however, is not restricted to the scientific community alone. The research book can serve as a textbook for courses on sustainable development and environmental politics. Theorizing sustainable development also has implications for the implementation of sustainability. It is necessary to know the development – both in theory and practice – of a concept like sustainability in order to achieve a successful implementation. Therefore, the book is also of interest to all those engaged with sustainable development in politics, business, administration, and civil society organizations. For all those working on sustainable development, this book underpins the practical work by contributing to theory development.

Overview of the book

Ulrich Grober provides a genealogy of the term “sustainable development,” which he traces back to Carl von Carlowitz some 300 years ago. While the idea of sustainable development has emerged in many cultures of the world, the conceptualization of sustainable development as such began with Carlowitz in seventeenth-century Europe. Sustainable development can be understood in its complexity only by ensuring that its history embedded in thought traditions be recalled to consciousness once again. Following the evolution of the concept of “sustainable development” from Carlowitz to the Brundtland Commission, Grober’s journey through the concept’s history has implications for how to implement sustainability today.

Armin Grunwald treats sustainable development conceptually from a different yet complementary perspective. He proposes strategies to overcome several difficulties on the way to a theory of sustainable development. Due to the specific structure of the term “sustainability,” particularly the fact that it is not a genuinely scientific term, but rather ultimately a societal and thus political program, it becomes apparent that what is at issue is not the development of a theory of sustainability analogous to a theory of physics. Of highest importance is the constellation that the relation of theory and practice is, on the one hand, inherent in the very notion of sustainability, and on the other, must itself be elucidated theoretically.

Transdisciplinarity is at the heart of the chapter by Thomas Jahn. He shows that the “disciplining” of sustainability knowledge, which is increasingly being demanded, misses the point. On the contrary, it opens the door to counterproductive misunderstandings. Alternatively he argues, thus, for transdisciplinary research for sustainable development that includes a broader stock of knowledge than disciplinary science. He interprets sustainability as a relational concept that should ensure resilient societies. The transformations towards sustainability must overcome some “wicked” problems, which according to Jahn require the inclusion of nonscientific knowledge: orientation knowledge on the normative level, transformation knowledge on the operative level, and system knowledge on the descriptive level.

The article by Rafael Ziegler and Konrad Ott is a revised and updated version of their article “The quality of sustainability science: A philosophical perspective.” In this paper they elaborate on the reasons why sustainable development cannot be treated as a monodisciplinary topic. They argue that sustainability science does not fit standard criteria of the quality of sciences. Normativity, inclusion of nonscientists, urgency, and cooperation of natural and social scientists are four particular features of sustainability science. In transdisciplinary research processes, nonscientists must be understood within this demanding context, instead of including them for the sake of inclusion. The discussion in this article also refers to the foundational controversy of sustainability science: the weak versus strong sustainability debate. Normativity, inclusion of nonscientists, urgency, and cooperation of natural and social scientists suggest a convincing case for strong sustainability.

Felix Ekardt presents a social sciences’ perspective on sustainable development including societal change, justice, and governance. The key aspect here is not the natural-scientific, but rather the humanistic aspect. Ekardt views sustainable development, not only as the establishment of a permanent, globally practicable and future-capable mode of life and economics, but rather as a complex array of problems, involving a wide range of social-scientific and humanistic disciplines – law, political science, sociology, economics, theology, psychology, philosophy. The article lays out some of the barriers that make societal transformations towards sustainability difficult. It gives a perspective from ethics inspired by a (re-)interpretation of national constitutions, the EU Charter of fundamental rights, and the European convention on human rights in the light of sustainability. Ekardt also argues for a governance architecture that includes multiple instruments on different scales.

Fred Luks’s chapter deals on the one hand with the drivers and pressures of our growth-oriented society opposing efficiency and generosity. On the other hand, he argues against simple and mainstream solutions. This essay is about the questions which, in Luks’s view, are central to this effort, or should be: What could an attractive alternative construct to the dominant growth-and-efficiency paradigm look like? What will the future role of resiliency be – that quality which currently seems to be the hottest candidate for sharpening and vitalizing the discourse on “sustainability?” And, last but not least: What is to be done in light of the danger of a certain kind of “populism of simple solutions,” which seems to be increasingly in evidence in the sustainability discourse? Generosity and resilience are key concept in this contribution.

Joachim H. Spangenberg picks up the issue of complexity. His paper analyzes complexity gradients of natural and social systems which permit an evaluation of the suitability of various models that represent specific system dynamics. As for systems as complex like nature, society, or the economy, the available models have proven, almost without exception, to be insufficiently complex. An alternative is introduced. For economics in particular, the analysis shows that the complexity of real economies by far exceeds that of neoclassical mental and econometric models. Consequently, the latter are suitable as instruments of analysis only in special cases.

Jürgen Kopfmüller elucidates the tension between a universal model of sustainable development and its contextual applications: The concept of sustainable development has been discussed for more than twenty years as a comprehensive and global approach to development, and attempts have been made to implement it through concrete action. Kopfmüller argues that it emerged as a political reaction to the increasing environmental and development issues during the second half of the twentieth century. Today, there are few who question its position as a development model for science, government, business, and civil society. Nevertheless, there are still significant controversies regarding the concrete definition of its goal orientation, and the implementation of its goals. Based on reflections of human rights and international climate policy, the article shows how sustainability might be operationalized through an appropriate linkage between universal and specific, context-referenced elements.

Sustainability is about the long term and thus involves both intergenerational and intragenerational justice considerations. Jörg Tremmel focuses on a particular challenge concerning the relationship with future generations. During the past decades, generational ethics has become firmly established as a branch of ethics, and there is now extensive literature on such theories. Arguments directed against them are thus in effect aimed at sustainability theory in general, so that theoreticians of sustainability are well advised to address them. Of particular interest are arguments which generally deny any obligation toward the generations to come. Tremmel focuses on the non-identity problem, which has often been viewed as a serious challenge to theories of sustainability and intergenerational justice. He concludes that any government policy only accounts for a miniscule causal factor in a network of billions of other miniscule factors in the determination of who will exist in the future. This effectively refutes the non-identity problem as a theoretical stumbling block for theories of sustainability and intergenerational justice, according to Tremmel.

Michael Weingarten’s chapter seeks to formulate the basic conditions under which the issue of sustainability might be transformed from his historic model into a program of development theory. Development can be defined as non-identical reproduction. The implementation of this initially very formal definition can be oriented toward research programs initiated primarily by social geography, as a reconstruction of spatial structuring. The main topic of this paper is to show that ecology as a biological discipline and sustainability science as a science dealing with the relations between nature and culture are based on different kinds of items. These items are not natural kinds existing independent of human purposes and actions, but are cultural kinds constituted by us reflecting the purposes of our actions. His notion of environmental sciences encompasses the society-nature relationships. To constitute the item of sustainability science, it is thus necessary to complement the theory of structuration with a concept of reproduction.

Oliver Parodi argues that (non-)sustainability, the debates and efforts for sustainable development, as well as barriers to their implementation, are highly cultural phenomena. However, this fact has received too little elucidation and reflection in the academic discourse. An increased incorporation of cultural-scientific and cultural-theoretical considerations into the theories and concepts of sustainable development provides a more comprehensive view including issues which have hitherto been too little examined. Hence, cultural perspectives contribute to the societal transformations towards sustainable development.

Hans Diefenbacher concludes the book with ten theses on a research agenda for sustainable development. Among others, Diefenbacher argues for a broader inclusion of courses on sustainable development in education. The issue of sustainability in an interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary perspective has yet to be adopted into the established curricula.

This call for a broader integration of sustainable development in education curricula is consistent with the aims of this book on Theorizing Sustainable Development. Addressing scholars, teachers, politicians, civil society representatives, and all practitioners of sustainable development, this book contributes to a deepening of our thinking and practice of sustainable development. Other theses concentrate on the research agenda between sufficiency and efficiency issues, on the fatal consequences of the dominance of GDP as a political orientation, and on alternative monitoring and measurement concepts of wealth and well-being.

Outlook

The insights, controversies, and inquiries into theories of sustainable development as portrayed in this book give rise to a series of further questions for a research agenda on sustainable development. The discussion of theories of sustainable development is a first step towards sustainability transitions. How such societal transformations – towards more sustainable lifestyles, more sustainable consumption and production patterns, and towards more social justice – can be implemented is yet worth further research.

The quest for sustainability and for human development within the limits of our planet is a global effort. As this book shows, sustainability rather than a uniform concept is a guiding idea that can be implemented differently depending on the cultural and societal context in different regions of the world. The development of such sustainable development pathways for countries, for regions, and on the global level is a joint effort that must include many stakeholders. For sustainability sciences, this can be achieved, for example, by including non-scientific actors in the research process as some articles here argue.

A major task ahead of us is the transformation towards sustainable development pathways and lifestyles. Both theory and practice of sustainability have to be in accordance with each other. Sustainability sciences can provide us some of the necessary tools, concepts, ideas, and methods to achieve these transformations. Such a societal project cannot be solely a scientific one; it requires the participation and inclusion of citizens. For scientists, this task of transdisciplinary sustainability studies is but one contribution to the public good of living in harmony with nature.

The discovery of sustainability

The genealogy of a term

Ulrich Grober

DOI: 10.4324/9781315757926-2

Why concern oneself with the genealogy of a term? Does that amount to more than just a “glass bead game”? Is it not more important to “disassemble” and simplify general concepts, operationalize them, and implement them in practice?

In this case, however, various approaches seem to be necessary. Our word, “sustainability” – in German, “Nachhaltigkeit” – has become a key term, a guiding concept in the global vocabulary of the twenty-first century. Since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, it has established itself as the center of a whole field of concepts. Around it orbit an array of other terms, which develop, take root, come and go. The status of the key term was once more reaffirmed by the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in June 2012 – the “Rio+20” conference.

Given its meteoric ascent to fame, it would at first glance appear surprising that there is no binding definition for this term, and hardly any awareness of its history. The growing worldwide movement which has adopted this term has rather been operating with a flexible inventory of stipulations which a sustainability strategy should fulfill. The term thus serves as a compass which provides orientation for a journey towards a more sustainable future. This openness is necessary; indeed, it is a strength of the concept. However, it also makes it vulnerable to manipulative misuse. Complaints regarding the “inflationary use,” “arbitrariness,” or “hollowing out” of the concept have in fact become commonplace.

What is to be done? My proposed path in order to clarify and sharpen the term would proceed by way of its conceptual history, that is the way it has been charged with meaning over a long time. The concept of sustainability is not an invention of our time. It can be understood in its complexity only by recalling its history, and its embedding in long thought traditions. From the many aspects which have already been ascertained and considered in the course of its history, a feeling for how to approach its current and future tasks emerges. A look into the mirror of its historical sources can open up a view upon the term’s vital essence.

First reflection

In March 1972, the famous future scenario of the Club of Rome was published under the title The Limits of Growth. The passage reads:

We are searching for a model output that represents a world system that is 1. sustainable without sudden and uncontrollable collapse; and 2. capable of satisfying the basic material requirements of all of its people.

(Meadows 1972, p. 158)

As far as I know, the English word “sustainable” appears here for the first time in the modern sense. It refers to a model of the future which is “sustainable,” or resilient to “sudden and uncontrollable collapse.” At the same time, this model is to ensur...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• 1 Theories of sustainable development: an introduction
• 2 The discovery of sustainability: the genealogy of a term
• 3 What kind of theory do we need for sustainable development – and how much of it? Some thoughts
• 4 Theory of sustainability? Considerations on a basic understanding of “sustainability science”
• 5 The quality of sustainability science: a philosophical perspective
• 6 Transdisciplinary humanistic sustainability theory: justice, governance, blocks
• 7 Theories of “sustainability” and the sustainability of theories: for alternatives to the mainstream, and against simple solutions
• 8 Sustainability and the challenge of complex systems
• 9 Sustainable development: a global model – universal and contextual
• 10 The non-identity problem: an irrefutable argument against representation of future generations?
• 11 The definition of society’s relationship with nature on the basis of reproduction theory: a historical-systematic problem sketch
• 12 The missing aspect of culture in sustainability concepts
• 13 Ten theses on a research agenda for sustainable development
• Contributor biographies
• Index