Environment and Sustainability
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Abstract
Sustainability is the buzzword of our time. Everyone from policymakers, to urban planners and retail executives seem to have adopted the term. It is the in-vogue prefix for anything from corporate environmental reports to travel agents’ package-tour promotions. To paraphrase economist Milton Friedman, we are all committed to sustainable development now. But what may be an advertiser’s dream can be a local authority’s nightmare. Is the concern with sustainability just a passing fad? Or does it signify an emergent cultural revolution? Do we all mean the same thing by sustainability or sustainable development? Do we all share the same premises and have the same goals? Or will different interpretations and different agendas result in conflicting policy interpretations, priorities and practices? Given the welter of confusion surrounding the concept, many local authorities might be forgiven for dismissing the validity or utility of the concept as an unnecessary complication for their work. This chapter unpacks the concept of sustainability. Writ large, the concept alludes not only to the ecological crises at hand but to wider social, political, and cultural challenges which will require the development of new methods, skills, and attitudes. Clarity on the subject, and the values, premises and agendas that lie tucked behind it, is essential to the accomplishment of sustainability goals. To a large degree this area of critical analysis has been left neglected in the stampede to jump aboard the sustainable development bandwagon. Critics argue that for sustainable development to be regarded merely as the summum bonum of human existence is to render it meaningless. The trade-offs and choices implicit in the ‘search for sustainability’ must be made transparent to generate widespread popular support for the need for transformation. There will no doubt be winners and losers in the process and this must be communicated honestly to prevent future conflicts. These and other themes are touched on in this chapter and recur in the rest of the text. This chapter concerns itself with the questions: What are the issues driving the sustainability movement? What are the controversies? And what do they mean?