Title: Sustainable Development SOSC 562
1Sustainable DevelopmentSOSC 562
- Instructor Jerry Patchell (sopatch_at_ust.hk)
- TA Kaxton Siu
- (Kaxton_at_ust.hk)
2What is Sustainable Development?
3One Problem Two Vicious Circles
Poverty
Affluence
Environmental degradation
Environmental degradation
Resource imports, pollution exports
4How does poverty cause environmental damage?
- Agriculture need to survive causes overuse of
land (grazing, intensive agriculture, fertilizer,
fuel wood, logging) leading to deforestation,
topsoil erosion, water contamination - Worsened by
- population pressures
- lack of control over local resources and poor
governance - Inability to invest in environment
- Industry inefficient, dirty industry locates
where wages and influence over environment are
low, causing pollution of air, land, and water - Cost-based competition
- Labour intensive
- Low capacity to invest in environment
5How does affluence cause environmental damage?
- High productivity levels cause greater throughput
of materials and energy per person - Higher income levels enable greater consumption
of energy and materials - Greater throughput of energy and materials means
more land used for agriculture (more pesticides,
fertilizers, erosion), more wood and mineral
resources used, more energy extracted and used,
etc. - Urbanization has disconnected producers and
consumers relieving them of the influence of
environmental degradation on their lives.
6How are the two vicious circles connected?
7Connections
- Trade in resources, pollution and waste
- Exploitation of global commons for resources and
waste disposal - Impact of local actions on global health
8Two Paths to Sustainable Development
Livelihood
Lifestyle
Affluence
Poverty
Environmental degradation
Resource imports, pollution exports
Environmental degradation
Cooperation on Global Governance
Welfare Improvement Basic needs (food, shelter,
edu.) Productive employment Control over
resources Population control Energy
Environmental Remediation Production Consumption
Fulfilling employment/leisure Responsibility and
participation Energy
9From Ad Hoc Responses to the Environmental Crisis
- Social Demands
- Catalytic events disasters, Pollution, Habitat
Destruction etc. - Scientists, Environmentalists, Social Movements
raise Awareness demand for action, green
consumption - Political Action
- Government Regulations, Penalties, and
Administration - International Conferences and Agreements
- Business Response
- Evasion
- Compliance with regulations
- Sustainability as strategy
10to an (Ambiguous) Consensus on Sustainable
Development
- "Sustainable development is development that
meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs. (WCED)
11The short definition was qualified by its
originators in the following manner It
(sustainable development) contains within it two
key concepts
- the concepts of needs, in particular the
essential needs off the world's poor, to which
overriding priority should be given and - the idea of limitations imposed by the state of
technology and social organization on the
environment's ability to meet present and future
needs. (WECD, 1987, 43)
12History
- Stockholm 1972 UN Conference on the Human
Environment - Report of the World Commission on the Environment
and Development Our Common Future. - Rio 1992 UN Conference on Environment and
Development Agenda 21 - Johannesburg 2002 2nd World Summit on
Sustainable Development
13Far-Reaching Ethical, Political and Economic
Implications
- Raised the environmental issue to a high level
- Recognizing the issue of intra-generation and
inter-generation equity - While, still allowing for growth and development
- And bound all countries to a global effort.
14Local, National and Global Strategies
- revive growth, but change the quality of growth
- meet essential needs for jobs, food, energy,
water, and sanitation - ensure a sustainable level of population
- conserve and enhance the resource base
- reorient technology and manage risk
- merge environment and economics in decision
making - enhance the flow of capital to developing
countries - link trade, environment, and development by
improving the terms of trade - increase the diffusion of environmentally sound
technologies and their funding to developing
countries.
15Who does sustainable development?
- The UN and its agencies
- Dozens of environmental conventions and
programs(UNDP) - National, state, local governments, communities
- 110 national, over 6000 local Agenda 21s
- Non-governmental organizations
- Thousands involved
- Industry Sectors
- All firms involved in service provision from
cradle to cradle - Companies and other Organizations
- Environmental Management Systems Corporate
social responsibility/sustainability programs
ethical investing - Consumers
- Green consumer movements, fair trade
16(No Transcript)
17How is Sustainable Development Done?
- Integration
- Systems any change in behavior or technology to
reduce environmental impact requires and causes
changes throughout the human-environment system - Principles traditions, ideologies, economic
theories, laws etc. that shape environmental
behaviour have to be changed - Practices the tasks, processes, and technologies
of the way we work and play are changed according
to system needs.
18How can we stop climate change?
- How does the human-environment system work?
- What are the principles governing human inputs?
- What practices need to be changed?
19Sustainable Development as Integration
Science Technology
Environment
Environment
Society
Politics
Economy
20Sustainable Development as Integration
- All activities depend on the environment
- Society is the core of the system because it
shapes relations with the environment and because
of need for equity (resources, health,
responsibility intra inter generational) - Society needs economy for support and to exist
within carrying capacity - Society exists within long-term technological
conditions - Society requires government to set common
standards of behavior.
21Integrating Principles
- inter-generational equity
- intra-generational equity
- precautionary principle
- public trust doctrine
- subsidiarity principle
- polluter pays principle (PPP)
- user pays principle (UPP)
22- The principle of inter-generational equity is at
the heart of the definition of sustainable
development. It requires that the needs of the
present are met without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs.
23- The principle of intra-generational equity
requires that people within the present
generation have the right to benefit equally from
the exploitation of resources and that they have
an equal right to a clean and healthy environment.
24- The precautionary principle holds that where
there are threats of serious or irreversible
damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall
not be used as a reason for postponing
cost-effective measures to prevent environmental
degradation.
25- The public trust doctrine means that governments
must act to prevent environmental damage whenever
a threat exists, whether it is covered by a
specific law or not.
26- The subsidiarity principle requires that
decisions should be made by the communities
affected or on their behalf, by the authorities
closest to them.
27- The polluter pays principle (PPP) suggests that
the polluter should internalize all the
environmental costs of their activities so that
these are fully reflected in the costs of the
goods and services they provide.
28- The user pays principle (UPP) applies the PPP
more broadly so that the cost of a resource to a
user includes all the environmental costs
associated with its extraction, transformation
and use (including the costs of alternative or
future uses foregone).
29Sustainable Sai Kung a practical introduction
to sustainable development
- The core of sustainable development is that
people from diverse backgrounds, often with
conflicting interests need to work together to
produce integrated answers to environmental
pressures.
30Sector/Community Study
- Choose a sector or community
- Baseline conditions and impacts
- Stakeholder awareness and capacities
- Issue analysis
- Alternatives generation
- Indicators and monitoring system
- Stakeholder feedback to your plan
- Community integration
31Sector/Community Study
- Done
- Fisherfolk
- Wind energy
- Hiking
- Water recycling
- Ecotourism
- Seafood restaurants
- Expat community
- Scuba diving
- Recreational fishing
- Transportation
- Composting
- To Be Done
- Awareness
- Houses
- Housing estates
- Education
- Recycling
- Industry
- Old folks, young folks
- Yachting, waterskiing, etc
- Environmental awareness
- Politics
- Various businesses e.g. construction
- And much, much more.
32(No Transcript)
33Sai Kung
- Environment
- Attributes and quality
- Society
- Pop. groups services
- Technology
- Infrastructures and products
- Economy
- Sectors composition values jobs
- Politics
- Representation/Administration participation
34(No Transcript)
35Evaluation System
- Group reports 2 x 15 marks 30
- Participation 20
- Final report 50
36Requirements
- read basic literature on sustainable development
- Field research
- Literature/case study research
- Willingness to talk to people
- Creativity
37The significant problems we face cannot be
solved at the same level of thinking we were at
when we created them.
38Sustainable Development as Integration
Science Technology
Environment
Environment
Society
Politics
Economy
39Defining an oxymoron
- Sustainable?
- Development?
40Other Definitions
- (www. sustainableliving.org)
41- Ecological Definition
- IUCN, WWF and UNEP. 1980.
- Sustainable development - maintenance of
essential ecological processes and life support
systems, the preservation of genetic diversity,
and the sustainable utilization of species and
ecosystems.
42Ecological Definition
- Keiichiro Fuwa. 1995.
- Biophysical sustainability means maintaining or
improving the integrity of the life support
system of Earth. - Mohan Munasinghe and Walter Shearer. 1995.
- Biogeophysical sustainability is the maintenance
and/or improvement of the integrity of the
life-support system on Earth. Sustaining the
biosphere with adequate provisions for maximizing
future options includes providing for human
economic and social improvement for current and
future human generations within a framework of
cultural diversity while (a) making adequate
provisions for the maintenance of biological
diversity and (b) maintaining the biogeochemical
integrity of the biosphere by conservation and
proper use of its air, water and land resources.
Achieving these goals requires planning and
action at local, regional and global scales and
specifying short- and long-term objectives that
allow for the transition to sustainability.
43Economic Definition
- R. Repetto. 1986.
- The core of the idea of sustainability, then, is
the concept that current decisions should not
impair the prospects for maintaining or improving
future living standards... This implies that our
economic systems should be managed so that we can
live off the dividend of our resources,
maintaining and improving the asset base. This
principle also has much in common with the ideal
concept of income that accountants seek to
determine the greatest amount that can be
consumed in the current period without reducing
prospects for consumption in the future. - This does not mean that sustainable development
demands the preservation of the current stock of
natural resources or any particular mix of human,
physical and natural assets. As development
proceeds, the composition of the underlying asset
base changes. - There is broad agreement that pursuing policies
that imperil the welfare of future generations,
who are unrepresented in any political or
economic forum, is unfair.
44Core Economic Definitions
- Robert Haveman. 1989.
- Sustainable development is the maintenance or
growth of the aggregate level of economic
well-being, defined as the level of per capita
economic well-being. - John Pezzey. 1989.
- Our standard definition of sustainable
development will be non-declining per capita
utility - because of its self-evident appeal as a
criterion for inter-generational equity.
45Social Definitions
- David Munro,1995.
- Sustainable development is a complex of
activities that can be expected to improve the
human condition in such a manner that the
improvement can be maintained. - Nazli Choucri, 1997.
- The process of managing social demands without
eroding life support properties or mechanisms of
social cohesion and resilience.
46Self-reliance Definition
- Mustafa Tolba, 1987.
- Sustainable development has become an article of
faith, a shibboleth often used but little
explained. Does it amount to a strategy? Does it
apply only to renewable resources? What does the
term actually mean? In broad terms the concept of
sustainable development encompasses - 1. Help for the very poor because they are left
with no option other than to destroy their
environment - 2. The idea of self-reliant development, within
natural resource constraints - 3. The idea of cost-effective development using
differing economic criteria to the traditional
approach that is to say development should not
degrade environmental quality, nor should it
reduce productivity in the long run - 4. The great issues of health control,
appropriate technologies, food self-reliance,
clean water and shelter for all - 5. The notion that people-centered initiatives
are needed human beings, in other words, are the
resources in the concept.
47Spatial Definition
- R. Norgaard, 1988.
- Thus we need to nail down the concept of
sustainable development. I propose five
increasingly comprehensive definitions. First we
can start at the local level and simply ask
whether a region's agricultural and industrial
practices can continue indefinitely. Will they
destroy the local resource base and environment
or, just as bad, the local people and their
cultural system? Or will the resource base,
environment, technologies and culture evolve over
time in a mutually reinforcing manner? This first
definition ignores whether there might be
subsidies to the region - whether material and
energy inputs or social inputs such as the
provision of new knowledge, technologies and
institutional services are being supplied from
outside the region. Second, we can ask whether
the region is dependent upon non-renewable
inputs, both energy and materials, from beyond
its boundaries. Or is the region dependent on
renewable resources beyond its boundaries which
are not being managed in a sustainable manner?
Third, we can become yet more sophisticated and
ponder whether the region is in some sense
culturally sustainable, whether it is
contributing as much to the knowledge and
institutional bases of other regions as it is
culturally dependent upon others. Fourth, we can
also question the extent to which the region is
contributing to global climate change, forcing
other regions to change their behavior, as well
as whether it has options available to adapt to
the climate change and surprises imposed upon it
by others. From a global perspective, this fourth
definition of sustainable development addresses
the difficulties of going from hydrocarbon energy
stocks to renewable energy sources while adapting
to the complications of global climate change
induced by the transitional net oxidation of
hydrocarbons. Fifth, and last, we can inquire of
the cultural stability of all regions in
combination, are they evolving along mutually
compatible paths, or will they destroy each other
through war. These definitions become
increasingly encompassing. All, however, address
sustainability of changing interactions between
people and their environment over time.
48Overcoming the contradiction?
- R.E. Munn, 1989.
- The phrase sustainable development has been
criticized, for example, by O'Riordan (1985) as a
contradiction in terms. If development is equated
with economic growth, this criticism is indeed
justified Malthusian limits prevent sustained
growth in a finite world... Ultimately, however,
uncontrolled economic growth will cause the
quality of the environment to deteriorate,
economic development to decline and the standard
of living to drop. - Of course, the word development does not
necessarily imply growth. It may convey the idea
that the world, society or the biosphere is
becoming "better" in some sense, perhaps
producing more, or meeting more of the basic
needs of the poor. The word therefore involves a
value judgement. In principle, development could
become sustainable through structural changes
(economic, political, cultural or ecological) or
a succession of technological break-throughs.
49Integrating economic definition with environment
- Johan Holmberg, 1992.
- Sustainable development means either that per
capita utility or well-being is increasing over
time with free exchange or substitution between
natural and man-made capital or that per capita
utility or well-being is increasing over time
subject to non-declining natural wealth. - There are several reasons why the second and more
narrow focus is justified, including - Nonsubstitutability between environmental assets
(the ozone layer cannot be recreated) - Uncertainty (our limited understanding of the
life-supporting functions of many environmental
assets dictates that they be preserved for the
future) - Irreversibility (once lost, no species can be
recreated) - Equity (the poor are usually more affected by bad
environments than the rich).
50Integration and Fundamental Change?
- Maurice Strong, 1992.
- Sustainable development involves a process of
deep and profound change in the political,
social, economic, institutional, and
technological order, including redefinition of
relations between developing and more developed
countries. - World Bank, 1992..
- Sustainable development means basing
developmental and environmental policies on a
comparison of costs and benefits and on careful
economic analysis that will strengthen
environmental protection and lead to rising and
sustainable levels of welfare.
51Alternative/Qualitative Growth Definition
- J. Coomer, 1979.
- The sustainable society is one that lives within
the self-perpetuating limits of its environment.
That society... is not a "no growth" society...
It is rather, a society that recognizes the
limits of growth... and looks for alternative
ways of growing.
52Contrasting Perspectives
- Status Quo Neo-liberal economists World Bank,
OECD, Lomberg, WBCSD, green consumers, ecological
modernizers, green economists - Reformers Environmental NGOs, IUCN, Limits to
Growth, ICLEI, Bruntland, Schumacher,
Environmental Justice - Transformers Anti-Capitalist, Social Ecology,
Ecofeminist, Ecosocialist, Indigenous/South, Deep
Ecology, Eco-facists
53(No Transcript)
54Controversy and Acceptance
- Weak vs. Strong sustainability
- Human-centered (anthropocentric) vs.
Nature-centered (eco-centric) perspective - North vs South
- Laissez-faire vs. Distributive Justice
- Private vs. public vs. common property views
- Social vs. Scientific Definition
55Social versus Scientific definition of
Sustainability
- Societies (nations) define what is sustainable
rather than basing sustainability on
scientifically based theories of ecosystem
carrying capacity
56A Scientific Definition
- "A sustainable society meets three conditions
its rates of use of renewable resources should
not exceed their rates of regeneration its rates
of use of non-renewable resources should not
exceed the rate at which sustainable renewable
substitutes are developed and its rates of
pollution emission should not exceed the
assimilative capacity of the environment (Herman
Daly).
57A Social Definition?
- Sustainable development in Hong Kong balances
social, economic and environmental needs, both
for present and future generations,
simultaneously achieving a vibrant economy,
social progress and better environmental quality,
locally, nationally and internationally, through
the efforts of the community and the Government.
58Sustainable Development as a Balance
Environment
Economy
Society
59Issues, Dependencies, Limitations and Conflicts
60Carrying Capacity
- The maximum number of individuals of a species
that can be sustained by an environment without
decreasing the capacity of the environment to
sustain that same amount in the future.
61The Problem with a Balance
- What happens when the economy grows?
- To the previous balance with the environment?
- To the previous configuration of society and
culture?
62Key Points SusDev Driving Forces
- Problem of poverty and environment
- Problem of affluence and environment
- Connections between the two
- Key SusDev Ideas
- Intra generation Equity
- Inter generation Equity
- Need to develop social institutions to bring
about change
63Key Points Tensions and Integration
- Ambiguity of susdev
- Tensions in different ideological approaches
(e.g. weak vs. strong, anthropocentric vs.
ecocentric) - Tensions between environmental, economic and
social views - Need to integrate and overcome tensions
- Integrating principles