Sustainable development

Sustainable development is the management of renewable resources for the good of the entire human and natural community. Built into this concept is an awareness of the animal and plant life of the surrounding environment, as well as inorganic components such as water and the atmosphere. The goal of sustainable development is to provide resources for the use of present populations without compromising the availability of those resources for future generations, and without causing environmental damage that challenges the survival of other species and natural ecosystems.

The notion of sustainable development recognizes that individual humans and their larger economic systems can only be sustained through the exploitation of natural resources. By definition, the stocks of non-renewable resources, such as metals, coal , and petroleum , can only be diminished by use. Consequently, sustainable economies cannot be based on the use of non-renewable resources. Ultimately, sustainable economies must be supported by the use of renewable resources such as biological productivity, and solar, wind , geothermal, and biomass energy sources.

However, even renewable resources may be subjected to overexploitation and other types of environmental degradation. Central to the notion of sustainable development is the requirement that renewable resources are utilized in ways that do not diminish their capacity for renewal, so that they will always be present to sustain future generations of humans.

To be truly sustainable, systems of resource use must not significantly degrade any aspects of environmental quality, including those not assigned value in the marketplace. Biodiversity is one example of a so-called non-valuated resource, as are many ecological services such as the cleansing of air, water, and land of pollutants by ecosystems, the provision of oxygen by vegetation, and the maintenance of agricultural soil capability. These are all important values, but their importance is rarely measured in terms of dollars.

A system of sustainable development must be capable of yielding a flow of resources for use by humans, but that flow must be maintainable over the long term. In addition, an ecologically sustainable economy must be capable of supporting viable populations of native species, viable areas of natural ecosystems, and acceptable levels of other environmental qualities that are not conventionally valued as resources for direct use by humans.

Natural resources

In economic terms, resources (or capital) are regarded as actual or potential wealth that can be applied toward the creation of additional wealth. There are three broad types of capital. First, manufactured capital is industrial infrastructure that can be applied to the production of goods and services. Examples include factories, mines, harvesting equipment, buildings, tools and machinery, computers, and information networks. Second is human capital, or the cultural means of production, encompassing a workforce with particular types of knowledge and skills. And third, natural capital refers to quantities of raw, natural resources that can be harvested, processed, used in manufacturing, and otherwise utilized to produce goods and services for an economy.

There are two types of natural resources: non-renewable and renewable. Non-renewable resources are present in a finite quantity on Earth . Therefore, their stock diminishes as they are mined from the environment. Nonrenewable resources can only be used in an non-sustainable manner. The lifetime of a non-renewable resource is determined by the size of its recoverable stocks in the environment, and the rate of mining . However, some nonrenewable resources can be reused and recycled to some degree, which extends the effective lifetime of the resource. Common examples of non-renewable resources include metal ores, coal, and petroleum.

Potentially, renewable resources can be sustained and harvested indefinitely. However, sustainable use requires that the rate of harvesting does not exceed the rate of renewal of the resource. Most renewable resources are biological and include trees, hunted animals such as fish , waterfowl, and deer , and the products of agriculture. Flowing surface water is an example of a non-biological resource that can potentially be sustainably used for irrigation , to generate hydroelectricity, and as a means of transportation.

It is important to recognize that potentially renewable resources can easily be "over-harvested," or exploited at a rate exceeding that of renewal, resulting in degradation of the resource. During over-harvesting, the resource is essentially being "mined"—that is, it is managed in the same way as a non-renewable resource. Regrettably, this is all too often the case, resulting in collapses of stocks of hunted fish, mammals , and birds ; deforestation ; declines of agricultural soil capability; and diminished river flows due to excessive withdrawals for use by humans.

Another important characteristic of renewable resources is that they can provide meaningful ecological services even when they are in their natural, unharvested state. For example, intact, natural forests provide biological productivity; cycling of nutrients and water; a sink for atmospheric carbon ; control of erosion ; cleansing of pollutants emitted into the environment by humans; habitat for diverse elements of biodiversity; aesthetics; and other important ecological services. Some of these services are of potential value in providing resources that humans require, an example being the biomass and productivity of trees and hunted animals. However, most of these are not recognized by the conventional marketplace, although they are certainly important to ecological integrity and environmental health.

The undeniable ecological reality is that humans have an absolute dependence on a continuous flow of natural resources to sustain their societies and economies. Over the longer term, this is particularly true of renewable resources because sustainable economies cannot be supported only by non-renewable resources. Therefore, the only way to achieve a condition of sustainable development is to build an economy that is supported by the wise harvesting and management of renewable resources.

Economics

A goal of economic systems is to maximize the utility of goods and services to society. Usually, these products are assigned value in units of currency. Some examples of valuated goods and services include the following: manufactured products, such as automobiles, computers, highways, and buildings; harvested natural resources, such as wood , hunted animals, and the products of agriculture; and the services provided by farmers, industrial workers, and others.

Conventional economics does not seriously consider non-valuated resources, or goods and services that are not assigned value in the marketplace. Examples of nonvaluated ecological resources include the aesthetics of natural landscapes, services such as nutrient and water cycling, and rare species and natural ecosystems. Consequently, the merits of non-valuated ecological resources cannot be easily compared with those of valuated goods and services. This in turn means that degradations of non-valuated resources are not usually considered to be true "costs" by conventional economists, and they do not have a strong influence in cost-benefit calculations.

In conventional accounting, large profits can often be made by undertaking activities that cause substantial environmental damage, including the exhaustion of potentially renewable resources. Clearly, this is an ecologically false accounting, but it has been rationalized by considering degradations of environmental quality to be externalities, or costs that are not directly paid by the individuals or companies that are causing the damage. However, the costs of resource and environmental degradation are very real, and they are borne by society at large—which of course includes the individuals or institutions responsible for the degradation.

Ecological economics is a new, actively developing sub-discipline within economics. The principal distinction of ecological economics is that it attempts to find a nonanthropocentric system of valuation. This is different from conventional economics, in which valuations are based almost entirely in terms of the importance of good and services to humans, as determined in the marketplace.

Accountings in ecological economics include the important social and environmental costs that may be associated with the depletion of resources and the degradation of environmental quality. These costs are critical to achieving and measuring sustainable development, but they are not seriously considered during accountings in conventional economics.

Sustainable development and sustained growth

The notion of sustainable development refers to an economic system that is ultimately based on the wise utilization of renewable natural resources in a manner that does not threaten the availability of the resources for use by future generations of people. It is also important that damages to non-valuated resources be kept within acceptable limits.

Clearly, the existing human economy is grossly unsustainable in these respects. Modern economies are characterized by resolute economic growth, which is achieved by the vigorous mining of non-renewable resources, potentially renewable resources, and environmental quality in general.

Since the mid-1980s, when the notion was first introduced, "sustainable development" has been enthusiastically advocated by many politicians, economists, businesspeople, and resource managers. However, many of these have confused sustainable development with "sustained economic growth," which by definition is impossible because resources eventually become limiting. The first popularization of the phrase "sustainable development" was in the widely applauded report of the World Commission of Environment and Development, also known as the "Brundtland Report" after the chairperson of the commission, Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway. However, this report appears to confuse some of the fundamental differences between economic growth and sustainable development.

Although the Brundtland Report supports the need for sustainable development, it also calls for a large increase in the size of the global economy. The Brundtland Report suggests that a period of strong economic growth is needed, in concert with a redistribution of some of the existing wealth, if the living standards of people in poorer countries are to be improved. It is believed that once this has been accomplished, social and economic conditions will favor an end to population growth and the over-exploitation of natural resources, so an equilibrium condition of a non-growing economy can be achieved.

However, the sorts of economic growth rates recommended in the Brundtland Report are equivalent to an increase of per-capita, global income of 3% per year, sufficient to double per-capita income every 23 years. The economic growth must also compensate for growth of the human population, which amounts to about 2% per year. Therefore, the adjusted rate of economic growth would have to be about 5% per year (that is, 3% + 2%), which would result in a doubling of the global economy every 14 years. Of course, in poorer countries with even higher rates of population growth, including most of Africa , Asia , and Latin America, the rate of economic growth would have to compensate and be correspondingly larger. In total, the Brundtland Report suggested that an expansion of the global economy by a factor of five to 10 was needed to create conditions appropriate to achieve a condition of sustainable development.

The Brundtland Report not only recommends a great deal of economic growth; it also recommends the development of technologies that would allow a more efficient economic growth, which would consume fewer resources of material and energy per unit of growth achieved. Additionally, the report advocates a redistribution of wealth from richer to poorer people and countries, as well as greater efforts towards the elimination of population growth.

The Brundtland Report, like other champions of "sustainable development," actually promotes economic growth as a cure for the present ills of human economies. However, there are profound doubts that a five-to-10-times increase in the size of the human economy could be sustained by the environment and its ecosystems. Economic growth may, in fact, be more of a cause of the environmental crisis than a cure.

Resolution of the environmental crisis and achievement of sustainable economies may require the immediate, aggressive pursuit of more difficult and unpopular solutions than those recommended by the Brundtland Report. These would include much less use of resources by richer peoples of the world, immediate redistribution of some of the existing wealth to poorer peoples, vigorous population control, and an overall focus on preventing further deterioration of ecological integrity and environmental quality more generally.

Sustainable development

A truly sustainable economic system recognizes that the human economy must be limited within the carrying capacity of Earth's remaining natural resources. In fact, many resource economists, environmental scientists, and ecologists believe that the human economy is already too large to be sustained by Earth's resources and ecosystems. If these specialists are correct, then not only is further economic growth undesirable, it may have to be reversed.

Non-sustainable economic growth occurs through a crude maximization of the flow of resources through an economy. In large part, economic growth is achieved by mining resources and environmental quality.

In contrast, sustainable development is ultimately based on the efficient use of renewable resources, which are not degraded over time. Moreover, this use occurs under conditions in which environmental quality is also protected. A sustainable economic system would have the following characteristics:

First, renewable resources must be exploited at or below their capability for renewal. Present economies are greatly dependent on the use of non-renewable resources, but these are being rapidly diminished by use. As non-renewable resources become exhausted, renewable resources will become increasingly more important in the economic system. Ultimately, sustainable economic systems must be based on the wise use of renewable resources.

Second, non-renewable resources can also be utilized in a sustainable economy. However, the rates at which non-renewable resources are utilized must be balanced by the rate at which renewable substitutes are created, that is, by growth of a renewable resource. For example, fossil fuels can only be used in a truly sustainable economy if their utilization is compensated by net growth of a renewable energy substitute—for example, by an increase in forest biomass. To discourage the use of non-renewable resources and the unsustainable mining of potentially renewable resources, it might be possible to implement a system of natural-resource depletion taxes.

Third, there must be a markedly increased efficiency of the use and recycling of non-renewable resources, aimed at extending their useful lifetime in the economic system. Information systems and new technologies will be important in achieving this increased efficiency. There must also be well-designed systems of use and management of renewable resources to ensure that these are sustainably utilized over the longer term.

Fourth, it is critical that ecological resources that are not conventionally valuated also be sustained. The use and management of natural resources for human benefits will inevitably cause declines of some species and natural ecosystems, as well as other environmental damage. However, viable populations of native species, viable areas of natural ecosystems, and other aspects of environmental quality must be preserved in an ecologically sustainable economic system. Some of these ecological values cannot be accommodated on landscapes that are primarily managed for thee harvesting and management of economic resources, and they will therefore have to be preserved in ecological reserves. These ecological values must be accommodated if an economic system is to be considered truly sustainable.

Sustainable economic systems represent a very different way of doing business, in comparison with the manner in which economies are now conducted. Sustainable development requires the implementation of a sustainable economy. To achieve this would be difficult on the short term, although the longer-term benefits to society and ecosystems would be enormous. The longer-term benefit would be achievement of an economic system that could sustain humans, other species, and natural ecosystems for a long time. However, there would be short-term pain in implementing such a system, largely associated with substantially less use of natural resources, abandonment of the ambition of economic growth, and rapid stabilization of the human population.

As a result of these short-term inconveniences, truly sustainable development would not be initially popular among much of the public, politicians, government bureaucrats, and industry. This is because individual humans and their societies are self-interested, and they think on the shorter-term. However, for the sake of future generations of humans, and for that of other species and natural ecosystems, it remains absolutely necessary that sustainable economic systems be designed and implemented.

See also Population, human.

Resources

books

Bueler, W.M. An Agenda for Sustainability: Fairness in aWorld of Limits. Cross Cultural Publications, 1998.

Daly, H.E. Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. Beacon Press, 1997

Dudley, William. Biodiversity. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002.

Dunn, Seth. Hydrogen Futures: Toward a Sustainable Energy System. Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institute, 2001.

French, Hilary F. Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.

Rao, P.K. Sustainable Development: Economics and Policy. Blackwell Publishers, 1999.

Sheehan, Molly O'Meara, and Jane A. Peterson. City Limits:Putting the Brakes on Sprawl. Washington, DC: World-watch Institute, 2001.

Weinberg, Adam S., David N. Pellow, and Allan Schnaiberg. Urban Recycling and the Search for Sustainable Community Development. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Bill Freedman
Judson Knight

KEY TERMS

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Anthropocentric

—Considering the implications of everything from the perspective of utility to humans, and to human welfare.

Natural resource

—Any naturally occurring commodity that can be used by people. Non-renewable resources are of a finite quantity, and they can only be mined. Renewable resources can potentially by exploited indefinitely, but only if they are not degraded by overexploitation, i.e., used at a rate that exceeds renewal.

Valuation

—The assignment of economic worth, for example, in dollars.