Sustainable Development

Definition of Sustainable Development

The commonly used definition of sustainable development was put forward by the Brundland Commission (World commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, 1987):

"To meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

This is a very far-reaching principle that admits a wide range of activities to allow residents of the planet - present and future - to live fulfilling lives. Basic to the definition is the concept that needs are met. So present realities of malnutrition, lack of suitable housing, and lack of safe drinking water suggest that significant development is needed for the present generation. The issue of intergenerational responsibility also is raised.

Note that this definition does not denounce the depletion of non-renewable resources. Under this definition it is permissible for the current generation to use up all fossil fuels (a practical impossibility), but, in the process, the current generation would be obligated to find alternate supplies of materials for future generations to meet needs now met by use of fossil fuels.

During the early 1990s the concept of sustainable development was widened to include a social dimension by including preservation or enhancement of opportunities of future generations rather than simply preserving a historically given state of environmental quality or abundance of natural resources. Serageldin suggested that

"sustainability is to leave future generations as many opportunities as, if not more than, we have had ourselves."

Progress in the 20^th Century

The Social Dimension:

Average life expectancy (at birth) world wide increased by more than a third. The global average is 66 years compared with only 48 years in 1955. It is projected to reach 73 years in 2025.

Infant mortality rate fell in developing countries by more than half

The proportion of the population in developing countries suffering from chronic undernutrition dropped from about 40% to about 20%.

The proportion of the population with access to safe water almost doubled, to nearly 70%

Significant progress has been made in control of major infectious diseases, such as poliomyelitis, leprosy, guinea worm, Chagas disease and river blindness.

Net enrollment at the primary school level increased by nearly two-third, and adult illiteracy has been reduced by nearly half.

The Economic Dimension

In the past 50 years, poverty has fallen more than the previous 500 years.

Since 1980, there has been a dramatic surge in economic growth in some 15 countries, with rapidly rising incomes to many of their 1.5 billion people,

Economic policy reforms have led to substantial improvements in economic performance of many of the least developed nations.

The Environmental Dimension

The greatest environmental progress has been made in the realm of institutional developments, international cooperation, public participation, and emergence of private-sector action

Over the last 25 years, eco-consciousness has been rising in all industrial countries and it has proved to be powerful politics.

Legal frameworks, economic instruments, environmentally sound technologies, and cleaner production processes have been developed and applied, particularly in industrial countries.

The levels of water and air pollution in most industrial countries have declined over the past two decades, and a number of other local environmental indicators improved as well

Owing to the availability of new and better technologies, the rate of environmental degradation in developing countries (atmospheric sulfur dioxide, for example, and soot and smoke) has been slower than that experienced by industrial countries when they were at the similar stage of economic development. The Political Dimension

Perhaps the most significant and remarkable changes over the past 30 years have occurred in the political arena:

The number of relatively pluralistic and democratic regimes increased impressively, particularly since 1989

Good governance became a major issue to be discussed frankly on the international development agenda

The role of the state has been redefined from a dominating (would be) engine of development and creator of wealth to a catalytic, enabling facilitator, encouraging and complementing the activities of private business and individuals.

Institutional development is no longer conceived as a process of strengthening only public institutions (which reinforce the dominance of the state and weakened public accountability) but also the role of the private sector and non-governmental organizations.

Demilitarization continues: after peaking in 1984 at US$1140 billion global military expenditure dropped to 39% to US$701 billion in 1996; the number of armed conflicts came down from 50 (1992) to 24 (1997)

Strengthening the role of women in sustainable development efforts is much more widely accepted and more systematically considered in practical situations.

The developing world achieved gains in the past 30 years that took the industrial world a century.

An example of a private company seeking to address sustainability through the social dimension as well as the economic and environmental dimensions is the program of Weyerhaeuser (see particularly the Weyerhaeuser Roadmap for Sustainability on p.3).

Remaining Deficits

The Social Dimension:

The difference in years of life expectancy (at birth) between the richest nations and the poorest is still more than 45 years (79.8 years in Japan to 33.6 in Sierra Leone). Three out of 4 people in the least developed countries today are dying before the age of 50 — the global life expectancy figure of half a century ago.

Infant mortality in the poorest nations is still more than 50 times higher than in the richest (Finland has 3.9 deaths per thousand live births, compared to Sierra Leone’s 200 deaths per thousand).

Nearly 800 million people do not get enough food, and about 500 million people are chronically malnourished.

More than 840 million adults are still illiterate, nearly 2/3 of them are women

The gender differences in quality of life are still significant; deviations from the natural sex ratio in a number of countries indicate that nearly 100 million women are "missing".

The Economic Dimension:

The world has become more economically polarized both between and within counties. The richest 20% of the world saw its share of global income rise from 70% to 85% while the share belonging to the poorest 20% dropped from 2.3% to a mere 1.4%. Assets of the world’s billionaires exceed the combined annual incomes of countries with 45% of the world’s people.

The gap in per capita income between industrial and developing countries more than tripled between 1960 and 1995, from $5700 to 16,168. Since the beginning of the 1990s, average incomes fell by a fifth or more in 21 countries, mostly in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

About 1.3 billion people (nearly a third of the population of developing countries) are living on less than $1 a day (in 1985 purchasing power parity dollars). About 3 billion live on less than $2 a day.

The Environmental Dimension:

Use of renewable resources (land, forest, fresh water, coastal area, fisheries, air in cities) is in many regions beyond the natural regeneration capacity

Global developments in the energy sector are unsustainable. Global energy use, which has increased by nearly 70% since 1971, is projected to increase at more than 2% annually for the next 15 years. Less than one-quarter of the world’s population consumes three-quarters of its raw materials and products 70% of all solid waste.

Greenhouse gases are still being emitted at levels higher than the stabilization target internationally agreed upon.

In 1997, the Earth’s average temperature was the highest since record keeping began in 1866.

Natural areas and the biodiversity they contain are diminishing due to the expansion of agricultural land and human settlements. Deforestation continues to shrink world forests with deforestation rates in many countries increasing.

Global water consumption is rising quickly, and water availability is likely to become one of the most pressing resource issues of the 21^st century. More than 1.2 billion people lack access to safe water, more than 1.5 billion people still live with dangerous air pollution, and more than 500 million poor people live in ecologically fragile regions.

Acid rain is a growing problem in Asia, with sulfur dioxide emissions expected to triple there by 2010 if current trends continue.

The complex and often little understood interactions among global bio-geochemical cycles are leading to widespread acidification, climate variability, changes in the hydrological cycle and the loss of biodiversity, biomass, and bioproductivity.

The Political Dimension:

Despite overall improvements in the global political culture, tens of millions of human beings still suffer from oppression and violence due to ethnic, religious or political pretexts.

Deficits in "good governance" remain the most significant obstacle to sustainable development in large parts of the developing world.

Global governance structures, and global solidarity on social as well as environmental problems, remain too weak to make progress a world-wide reality.

The most important task for governments to as partners , catalysts, and facilitators for sustainable development. They must:

establish a foundation of law

maintain a non-distorting policy environments, including macro-economic stability

invest in basic social services and infrastructure

protect the vulnerable

protect the environment

The best of present thinking indicates that a human centered, market-friendly approach is the most effective approach to promoting development in a particular country. We have more and better information than any past generation. Further progress on the road to sustainable development is today predominantly a question of the political and individual will to "walk as one talks".

Issues of Particular Importance

promotion and facilitation of good governance

acceleration and facilitation of technological progress

voluntary simplicity and sophisticated modesty on the individual level.

Governance

A comparison of countries that have developed rapidly with countries having comparable resources that have not developed as rapidly reveals that the difference is mainly attributable to the level of good governance. Governments that are effective have adopted many characteristics of the private sector:

ability to make hard choices

having clear priorities

having a high sense of duty in search of excellence

having disciplined leadership with zero tolerance for corruption

reduced bureaucracy

Countries where sustainable development has not been achieved are characterized by:

a tendency to divert public resources for private gain

failure to establish predictable framework of law and governance behavior conducive to development, or arbitrariness in application of rules and laws

excessive rules, regulations and, licensing requirements that impede the functioning of markets

priorities inconsistent with development, resulting in misallocation of resources.

narrowly based or non-transparent decision-making.

Technological Progress

Tremendous progress has been made as a result of research and technological achievements of the past 200 years. And this should give encouragement for the future. Ninety percent of all scientists and technologists who have ever lived are working today. The persistently low price of oil does not allow the market to encourage energy efficiency. However, most ecologists see technological progress and associated breakthroughs in efficiency as a necessary but not sufficient condition for global sustainable development. They argue that these technological advances need to be accompanied by a change of consciousness and attitudes on the individual level.

Voluntary Simplicity and Sophisticated Modesty

The quote attributed to Mahatma Gandhi is still appropriate. Twenty percent of humanity lives 10-15 times more destructively than the 3-3.5 billion low-income people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Under today’s technological conditions, the global environments cannot tolerate all 5.9 billion people living the American Dream because consumption of non-renewable resources as well as the emission of waste products would overtax the carrying capacity of the planet.

Alternatives to the current wasteful lifestyles are characterized by some as "the elegance of simplicity", or "affluence lite", to bring awareness to the fact that high quality of lifestyle need not depend on superfluous or conspicuous consumption.

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3-11: Sustainable Development