What Is Sustainable Development?

Jeffrey Brown
Executive Director
Global Learning, Inc.

 

This paper appeared as the lead article in "Global Vistas" the newsletter of the International Studies Education Project of San Diego (ISTEP),
Center for Latin American Studies, San Diego State University, for their fall '96 issue.

We were camping that summer, 30+ years ago, when we crossed into Mexico and headed for the open air markets. The three legged stools with their hand tooled leather seats were a great buy. The sturdy walnut stained legs were cleverly joined in the middle by three interlocked eyes about the size of your index finger looped to the base of your thumb. And they folded up compactly for the ride home in the back of a VW Bug. The only problem was, when we got back to the campground, those legs didn't seem to want to stand for me anymore. I twisted them this way, then that and only occasionally did I accidentally discover the mysterious interconnections among them that would re-create the functional seat.

These three-legged Mexican stools came to mind after I heard someone describe the concept of sustainable development as a three-legged stool. At first I pictured a wooden stool with "sustainable development" neatly lettered in a big circle around the seat. In my mind, each wooden leg was fixed in place with dowel braces between them, and each leg was labeled with the three essential elements of sustainability -- the environment, economic development, and social equity. But as I considered the tensions among these three elements, I realized this picture was too neat and static. My somewhat inept struggle to get the Mexican three-legged stools to interlock in a supportive fashion seemed a more accurate description of the interactions among the environment, development and equity within the context of sustainability.

The generally accepted definition of sustainable development has survived a decade since the UN's Commission on Environment and Development first promulgated it -- "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs." The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 was a five year temperature check on the UN's and member states' progress toward that goal. And each of the other five major global conferences since then has referenced sustainable development in one shape or form.

Most of the debate about sustainable development seems to revolve around whether or not the three legs of the stool indeed can be put together, or whether one or another of the legs is receiving adequate attention. Some people, often those described as environmentalists, claim that sustainable development is an oxymoron. They critique the North's industrial economies and highly consumptive life styles as incorrigible assaults on the integrity of Mother Earth. They feel that people who talk about sustainable development are kidding themselves. Industrialized society is such an evil and is having such a negative impact on the ecosystem and on a majority of human beings within it that industrialized development cannot be salvaged. It must be scrapped, and we should start over with something smaller scale and more "appropriate."

A second critique holds that sustainable development is either too environmentally or too business oriented; not enough attention is paid to the needs of poor people and those most adversely affected by environmental impacts, who, in this society, usually are ethnic/racial minorities. These critics usually propose "people-centered" development as an alternative to large infrastructure projects like huge dams or highways.

So-called "Third World" countries from the global South have reacted negatively to the issue of conditionality. They claim that sustainable development is a dangerous imposition of more conditions to be placed on aid and investments from industrialized countries. Even though official development aid is at its lowest point since 1970 as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product) among the G7 countries, private investment is transforming parts of the South. It has nearly quadrupled since 1990, reaching approximately $170 billion this year. And recipient countries do not want the industrialized North to attach more restricting strings on either aid or investment in the guise of environmental protection.

The term "development" itself is a problem. To many it suggests a western, ethnocentric view of a belief in ongoing progress; this linear view of history clashes with other cultural views of history, e.g., circular or spiraling worldviews. Thus these critics propose alternative language, such as sustainable communities, because community is a central building block of societies in all their diversity.

Despite these critiques, we at Global Learning have decided to continue to use the term sustainable development in our curriculum development and teacher education work with schools. It is a concept accepted by a majority of nations in the world & the UN system. Primary source materials are available in abundance, and the fact that Brazil or Ecuador is wrestling with sustainability just as the U.S. is helps establish local-global connections for students. For example, as a follow-up to the Earth Summit in Rio, the Clinton administration appointed a President's Council on Sustainable Development with broad-based representation from businesses, environmental organizations, and governmental agencies. Their recently released report, Sustainable America: A New Consensus, affirms, among other things:

Economic growth, environmental protection, and social equity are linked. We need to develop integrated policies to achieve these national goals....A growing economy and healthy environment are essential to national and global security....

Finding common values and shared goals is a better way to shape the future than endless reruns of the stale drama of confrontation....We believe that consensus will move America forward both faster and farther than confrontation. Moreover, we believe that consensus is the public's job, not the government's. Government is important in implementing what people agree on, but we all need to do the hard work of listening, learning, and finding common ground.

Both NGOs and government officials here in the State of New Jersey have visited the Netherlands and studied their national "Green Plan" -- another national response to the call for sustainable development -- to learn how we might shift from a command and control approach to environmental protection to more of a consensus and mutual goal-setting process. Global education has moved out of the classroom and into the realm of politics and community problem solving.

Agenda 21 is the global plan of action that was hammered out at the Earth Summit in Rio. Its table of contents can form the basis of a comprehensive global studies course of study (with the significant omission of war and conflict) -- the quality of life on earth, efficient use of the earth's natural resources, the protection of our global commons, the management of human settlements, chemicals and the management of waste, sustainable economic growth, and implementing Agenda 21: the role of women, youth, indigenous people...

We at Global Learning have also seen impressive responses to sustainable development when posed as a challenge. For example, responsible corporations are moving into product life cycle design and redesign, eliminating hazardous solvents, reducing toxic emissions, and saving millions of dollars in the process. They are also switching to full cost accounting systems to incorporate what had been hidden and less tangible environmental health and safety costs into the economic evaluation of projects and programs. They are evaluating the environmental practices of their suppliers as well. And when businesses have polluted their surroundings, community groups have raised the equity issues of fairness, expeditious remedies and disproportionate impacts on people of color.

The elements of sustainable development have challenged and stretched our thinking as we've worked with it the past eight years in pre-collegiate school setting. It's relatively simple to develop environmental education materials or lessons to teach economics. It's not even that difficult to put them together. But to add the equity leg of the stool, which is rarely addressed in school settings, and to ask what fairness issues also need to be addressed not only makes the curriculum developer stop and think, it excites students who have a natural passion for fairness. It moves the lesson from simpler to more complex thinking. It calls for creative solutions to some of our species' recalcitrant problems. The increased difficulty for the lesson writer is paid back manifold in the engagement of students in real issues and growth in the treatment of open-ended controversy. Students join the global community of international bureaucrats, governmental representatives, business executives and union members, environmental professionals and local citizens in a stimulating, sometimes frustrating, but always energizing ride on an accelerating learning curve.

What is sustainable development? The full answer's not in yet, and probably never will be. But the direction toward the answer is getting clearer all the time.

 

Sources

The Earth Times, Box 3363 Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163.

Inter-American Development Bank. 1995 Annual Report on the Environment and Natural Resources. Washington, DC, 1996.

President's Council on Sustainable Development. Sustainable America: A New Consensus. US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1996.

Sitarz, Daniel. Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save Our Planet. Boulder, CO: Earthpress, 1993.

World Commission on Environment and Development. Our Common Future. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

 

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