Transcript What is Sustainability?

Definitions of Sustainability and
Sustainable Development
Let’s zero in on sustainability.
 What does it mean? Where does it come
from? How is it applied?
 What makes it a contestable concept?
 What’s the difference between sustainability
and sustainable development?
 How are conflicts over sustainability proposals
driven by ideological differences?
Definitions of Sustainability and
Sustainable Development
What is your working definition of sustainability?
 Write it down
Definitions of Sustainability and
Sustainable Development
On your own:
1. Review the various definitions of
sustainability and sustainable
development
2. Circle the definitions that you favor
most
3. Consider what they have in common…
4. Take 10 minutes
Definitions of Sustainability and
Sustainable Development
Working as a group:
Discuss your favorites definitions
Identify the elements of the definitions that
you collectively support the most
6. Try to come to consensus on a favored
definition, either one on the handout or one of
your own making
7. Take note of your disagreements, particularly
if you are having difficulty in coming to
consensus
8. Be prepared to share your group definition
and what you like about it, as well as why you
think you have disagreements
4.
5.
Definitions of Sustainability and
Sustainable Development

Have a representative of your group write
your definition on the whiteboard
How did your group come to your
definition?
 What are the important shared elements
among the various definitions?
 Where and why did you have any difficulty
or disagreements?

Definitions of Sustainability and
Sustainable Development

Shared elements among the various
definitions:
Definitions of Sustainability and
Sustainable Development
Most definitions of sustainability and
sustainable development tend to…
1) Be anthropocentric
2) Assume limitations on environmental
resource availability and the ability of the
biosphere to absorb the effects of
human activities
3) Speak of an ideal process or state.
What do we mean by ideal?
The Most Common Definition…
Brundtland Commission definition of
Sustainable Development:
Development that
meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of
future generations
to meet their own needs
Brundtland Commission definition of
Sustainable Development:
Development that
meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of
future generations
to meet their own needs
What are the uncertainties associated with this definition?
Why might it be difficult or problematic to fulfill?
Brundtland Commission definition
of Sustainable Development
Some issues with their definition:
 How determine needs?
 How far into the future are we talking
about?
 How encompassing is the word
“generations?”
What is Sustainability?
What is it that we are ultimately wanting to
sustain?
 What are the big objectives of sustainability?

What is Sustainability Anyway?
Prough and Assadourian, 2003. World Watch Magazine, 16(5).
Four Dimensions
of Sustainability
Human Survival
Human Survival
Is human survival threatened?
 Is human survival the peak of our
ambitions?

What is Sustainability Anyway?
Prough and Assadourian
Four Dimensions
of Sustainability
Biodiversity
Human Survival
Biodiversity
What is it? Why does it matter?
 Is the loss of biodiversity threatening the
carrying capacity of the planet for people?

Biodiversity
“Our policy toward natural resources in
relation to future generations must seek to
minimize regrets.”
Economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
Does that sound reasonable?
 Expresses the Precautionary Principle
 What are the challenges and costs of
following that principle?

What is Sustainability Anyway?
Prough and Assadourian
Four Dimensions
of Sustainability
Equity
Biodiversity
Human Survival
Equity
What is equity?
 Can you relate some examples of
inequities? How about environmental
inequities or injustice?
 How important is equity in the pursuit of
sustainability?
 What kind of equity are we talking about?

Equity
“Even the narrow notion of physical
sustainability implies a concern for social
equity between generations, a concern that
must logically be extended to equity within
each generation.”1
 Do you agree with this? What are the
ramifications?
 Does sustainability require an elimination of
poverty? Just how much social equity is
needed?

1. Dresner, S (2002). Introduction, in Principles of Sustainability.
What is Sustainability Anyway?
Prough and Assadourian
Four Dimensions
of Sustainability
Life
Quality
Equity
Biodiversity
Human Survival
Life Quality
What constitutes high life quality?
 What promotes it?

Life Quality
Do you think we are experiencing an increase
or decline in societal well-being in the USA?
 What about globally? What are the prospects?

Life Quality

Are human well-being, connection and
contentment “achievable without
consumerism, mass advertising, planned
obsolescence, heedless and destructive waste,
or the endless pursuit of profits”?

Prough and Assadourian, 2003. World Watch Magazine,
16(5).

How dependent is Life Quality on wealth?
How well correlated is GDP per capita
(a measure of wealth per person)
to subjective reports of happiness?
Leiserowitz, A, Kates, R, and Parris, T (2005). Do Global Attitudes and
Behaviors Support Sustainable Development? Environment, 47(9): 22-38.
How well correlated is GDP per capita
(a measure of wealth per person)
to subjective reports of happiness?
Leiserowitz, A, Kates, R, and Parris, T (2005). Do Global Attitudes and
Behaviors Support Sustainable Development? Environment, 47(9): 22-38.
How well correlated is GDP per capita
(a measure of wealth per person)
to subjective reports of happiness?
What impact does GDP have over $30,000 per capita?
Compare United States to Costa Rica
Leiserowitz, A, Kates, R, and Parris, T (2005). Do Global Attitudes and
Behaviors Support Sustainable Development? Environment, 47(9): 22-38.
What is the
Genuine Progress Indicator?
Genuine Progress Indicator
Individual components, that increase (+) and decrease (–) the value of GPI:
+ Personal consumption weighted
by income distribution index
+ Value of household work and
parenting
+ Value of higher education
+ Value of volunteer work
+ Services of consumer durables
+ Services of highways and streets
- Cost of crime
- Loss of leisure time
- Cost of unemployment
- Cost of consumer durables
- Cost of commuting
- Cost of household pollution
abatement
- Cost of automobile accidents
- Cost of water pollution
- Cost of air pollution
- Cost of noise pollution
- Loss of wetlands
- Loss of farmland
-/+ Loss of forest area and damage
from logging roads
- Depletion of nonrenewable
energy resources
- Carbon dioxide emissions
damage
- Cost of ozone depletion
+/- Net capital investment
+/- Net foreign borrowing
What Makes Sustainability
Contestable?

There are many different groups pursuing
different goals animated by different
ideologies
Sustainability as a Controversial
Movement
How Dresner frames the apparent sustainability
“debate”
 Economic growth vs. environmental protection
 Debate between whom?
 Environmentalists vs. Economists
 Where are the disagreements?
Sustainability as a Controversial
Movement
Where are the disagreements?
 Faith in mastery over nature. Dominion vs.
ambivalence over modernity.
 Precautionary principle vs. invisible hand of the
market
 How do we deal with indeterminate risks?
Sustainability as a Controversial
Movement
Environmentalists vs. Economists
 What is missing in this categorization?
 Are they by necessity at odds? Is there a
middle ground?
 What underlies this tension?
 Differences in values or ethical priorities,
which in turn lead to different political
ideologies.
What Do We Mean by Political Ideology?
A set of beliefs about the proper order of
society and how it can be achieved.
 Ideologies are the shared framework of mental
models that groups of individuals possess that
provide both an interpretation of the
environment and a prescription as to how that
environment should be structured.

From Jost, J, Federico, C and Napier, J (2009). Political Ideology: Its Structure,
Functions and Elective Affinities. Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 60: 307-337.
http://www.psych.nyu.edu/jost/Political%20Ideology__Its%20structure,%20functio
ns,%20and%20elective%20a.pdf
Sustainability as a Movement
“Sustainability is an idea with a certain
amount in common with socialism.”1 Ack!!
 How so and why the “Ack!!” response?
 What ideology embraces the principles and
objectives of sustainability?
 Not all ideologies do.

1. Dresner, S (2002). Introduction, in Principles of Sustainability.
Critiquing Models of Sustainability
and Sustainable Development
Class discussion…
 What do you think are the big differences
between sustainability and sustainable
development?
 Why do many people consider “sustainable
development” to be an oxymoron? Who would
those people be?
Reflect
How has this activity expanded your
understanding of sustainability?
 What is still murky to you?

Applying Sustainability to Water
Resource Management
Peter Gleick
Peter Gleick’s Take on Water
Sustainability
Peter Gleick’s Take on Water
Sustainability
 Do you agree with
all of these criteria?
 How do they reflect
your understanding
of sustainability?
 Anything missing?