For many, âsustainable development â is seen as something of a dirty phrase. It can be obfuscatory and vague, often used by those interested in âsustainingâ ecological modernisation and propping up a status quo which, through ecological devastation and social polarisation, is radically undermining its own existence. Such critics do not mince their words. For example, the author and ârecovering environmentalistâ, Paul Kingsnorth , has noted that the term âsustainability â âdoes not mean defending the non-human world from the ever-expanding empire of Homo sapiens, though some of its adherents like to pretend it does, even to themselves. It means sustaining human civilization at the comfort level that the worldâs rich peopleâusâfeel is their right, without destroying the ânatural capital â or the âresource baseâ that is needed to do soâ. 1 While largely agreeing with the sentiment behind this statementâafter all, the empire of Homo sapiens has indeed been propped up for too long by apologists, while long since crossing the Rubicon of vast environmental changeâI think that turning our backs on such terms is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is, perhaps, to avoid the nuanced analysis and parsing which we will need to navigate the uncertain times to come. After all, sustainable development (SD) is a diverse concept with diverse interpretations, with Seyfang and Smith (2007, p. 584) noting that âEverybody, it appears, is committed to sustainable development . But not everybody is seeking sustainable development in the same wayâ.
The title of this book deals with these broad topics because, at this critical time, it is necessary to interrogate wide-ranging and inter-connected concepts which are foundational to theories and practices of âdevelopmentâ, theories and practices which reach right across disciplines in the social sciences, particularly human geography, development studies and sociology. It is important, from time to time, to step back from the canvas, to trace important historical trajectories and to see what is really emerging from the currently prevailing tendencies and assumptions in human thought and action. As Neil Evernden (1993, p. xii) so aptly noted, amidst the consistent failure of the environmental movement to achieve its goals, âthe source of the environmental crisis lies not without but within, not in industrial effluent but in assumptions so casually held as to be virtually invisibleâ.
As such, I will here, and elsewhere in the book, trace the practical applications of certain intellectual foundations of contemporary thought on sustainability and development, as it is my view that theory and practice in these realms cannot be meaningfully divorced. While the book contains four chapters, each looking at how the way we conceive of, or measure, the environment changes the way we interact with it, I will largely steer clear of parading statistics to prove the case that the environment is in trouble. Both academic and lay discourse are drowning in such work, and to do so would be contrary to the aim of this book, which is to step back and question the very effect of simply and overwhelmingly parading statistics in order to prove that the ecological web which maintains our world is being dismantled, strand by strand.
Recent decades have witnessed unprecedented calls for alternative visions of social development, sustainable development , a vision which would place less emphasis on pure expansion of consumption and the human empire (usually visible through economic growth as measured by gross domestic product [GDP] ) and more on the dual attainment of well-being and sustainability . This provocation or aim, of building a society which cultivates human well-being within ecological constraints, has been termed the âdouble dividend â in SD (Jackson 2011) and forms a key underpinning of the analysis to come. Indeed, the bookâs overarching question has been framed well elsewhere, namely âhow are we supposed to move from the neo-environmentalist world where we just get more efficient at maintaining our current standard of living and destroy the planet a little less rapidly to a world where weâre not only consuming fewer natural resources but are actually happy doing so?â 2
The interrogation of some of the key intellectual infrastructures of development, which I undertake in this book, is particularly timely given the renewed prominence bestowed on the phrase âsustainable development â internationally, amidst the rolling out of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as central to the UNâs 2030 development agenda. Furthermore, the rise of debates surrounding the Anthropocene and various recent initiatives to enshrine well-being in national policy around the world, as a means of shifting away from the destructive emphasis on economic growth , have also led to the need to reflect on humanâenvironmental interactions and how they are conceived and reworked. These are the issues which will be explored over the next four chapters.
Current conceptualisations of SD appear neutral and are often taken as such (see Chapter 2 for more extended discussions of this âpost-political â terrain), but in fact betray very particular assumptions about the world and the place of this human species in that world. Certain approaches to thinking through core issues in sustainability are changing, however, and less human-centred approaches emerging. I will examine, both here and in future chapters, how a certain calculative and managerial rationality is displacing other ways of knowing and interacting with nature and sustainability . A âsignificant conceptual narrowing of the sustainability agenda to politically palatable and quantifiable goalsâ has occurred, as Rau (2018) has noted, âmost of them in the area of climate change adaptation and mitigation, and related sustainability assessment (SA) toolsâ. While I hope to make clear that there is more at stake in our approaches of assessing sustainability than purely neutral knowledge, I should say at the outset that the argument put forward will not be that measurement and metrics are in some sense morally wrong. Rather, I hope to emphasise that we should seriously consider, and question, the consequences of living in a society dominated by numbers. This is a subtle, but important, difference.
I am hesitant, however, to pour more words into the universe on these topics. As it stands, academic output is growing exponentially, doubling every nine years, 3 almost in lockstep with every accelerationist trend leading to the destruction of the environment. An industry of researchers is writing about SD , flying from conference to conference to talk to each other on the topic for fifteen minutes, all while things appear to become immeasurably worse. What is really needed, then, is action, or, at least, praxisâthe unity of theory and practice. Without such an emergence, we may not be able to change course in time. Yet, for this praxis to emerge, a taking of stock must occur, if we are not to go too far down the laneway of abstraction, quantification and neoliberalisation, for want of better words. Perhaps the most unique feature of humans is their diversity, and thus, when one way of viewing something becomes overwhelmingly dominant, or there is an incipient âmonoculture of the mindâ (Shiva 1993)âas I would argue that there currently isâit is appropriate that we pause to reflect.
I will not argue here that we need a âconsciousness shiftâ, however, as is often broadly called for (see, e.g., Asokaâs [2013, p. 73] statement that âSustainability and well-being are fundamentally ethical issues calling for a transformation of consciousness and a stronger moral and ethical foundationâ or elsewhere that âA universal ethical code of conduct and a nonviolent methodology as practiced by individuals like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are neededâ [p. 78]). That is too dualistic and universalist a formulation of the changes which are needed, seemingly positing that tangible change comes about so...