issues Outputs and materials
Sustainable Development: a clear direction?
What do we mean by ¡®sustainable development¡¯ and what can be done to help Local Authorities make sense of it? asks Di Hinds, ISSUES, Cambridge University
Numerous authors have offered differing definitions of both ¡°sustainability¡± and ¡°sustainable development¡±. Could it be like Humpty Dumpty in ¡°Alice in Wonderland¡±, as the author Simon Dresner humorously suggests?
¡°When I use a word¡±, said Humpty Dumpty in a scornful tone, ¡°it means exactly what I want it to mean, neither more nor less.¡± 4 & 6
Having gained increasing currency as a term since the latter decades of the twentieth century, there is now a broad consensus that the expression remains a ¡®contestable concept¡¯ 6, a political objective such as social justice or democracy, with general agreement and widespread support about the basic meaning but where deep conflicts remain about more precise understanding and policy implications.
The story of the term¡¯s emergence illuminates underlying tensions, with key underpinning concepts in the 1960¡¯s and 1970¡¯s. Publication of the book ¡°Silent Spring¡± by scientist Rachel Carson in 1962 saw an important foundation to environmental concerns. This work drew attention to the widespread use of the pesticide DDT and the attendant destruction of wildlife. For the first time serious criticism of a technology designed to improve the situation of the human race outlined unanticipated and unpredicted consequences of the apparent technological advance.
The seeds to the influential World Commission on Environment and Development Report ¡°Our Common Future¡± in 1987 (often referred to as the Brundtland Commission, after its chairperson) were sown at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden in 1972.
A ¡°sustainable society¡± was grounded in a concern for social conditions for sustainability, principally in recognition of the need for equity and democracy. By the mid 1970¡¯s the term sustainable development accrued credibility whilst gaining currency within the policy-making arena and beyond. The expression implicitly embraced both philosophical and practical concerns associated with limits to growth, environmental protection, and principles of equity between and within generations; powerful notions connecting a nexus of ideas stemming from concern for the environment and global social justice.
For the Brundtland Commission, making a substantial contribution to the prevailing interpretations of sustainability, advocating a novel strategy of sustainable development was addressing:
¡°development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.¡±
(WCED 1987:p43)
Brundtland significantly made an important attempt to square potentially conflicting demands for environmental protection and economic development. Human action now should not destroy the earth¡¯s capacity to sustain future generations has become the mantra. However, some environmentalists argued that the ¡®sustainable development¡¯ slogan was an oxymoron, whilst some economists maintained that the idiom offered an excessively cautious view of the future.
However, it is in practice, that such potentially contradictory notions may prove more difficult to reconcile, and it is bodies such as Local Authorities that are tasked with addressing the associated challenges. Despite the rhetoric, and even with agreement on the underlying philosophy, the production of policies and practices consistent with the concept is likely to be problematic.
Twenty-first century drivers towards sustainability have changed, as the combination of previously single issues such as climate change, global warming, and emissions reduction create an urgent need for understanding and practical action. For democratically elected LAs solutions are increasingly recognised to be collaborative, working together with the local community (or communities) and the third sector, as well as sometimes creating alliances with other LAs. ¡®Think globally, act locally¡¯ has been a rallying call.
The impetus to local action and strongly participatory approach stemmed from Local Agenda 21, an important outcome from the ¡®bottom up¡¯ approach of the 1992 UN Summit on Environment and Development, when the United Nations agreed the local level to be the best starting point for the achievement of sustainable development, recognising that many of the problems and solutions being addressed by Agenda 21 were rooted in local activities and highlighting the critical role of LAs in determining whether or not objectives were met. Two thirds of the 2,500 action items of Agenda 21 relate to local councils, governing Local Agenda 21 (LA21) activities and intended to translate sustainable development principles and objectives into practical action at the local level.
Each LA has had to draw up its own LA21 strategy following consultation and discussion with local citizens. In keeping with the Rio Earth Summit, sustainable development is regarded as a community issue. Local government then, has a major role in promoting and working to achieve aims consistent with the underlying philosophy of sustainable development.
LA21 follows the principles of sustainable development and the goal of ensuring a better quality of life for everyone, both now and in the future. Like Agenda 21, LA21 focuses on an economic, social, and environmental agenda, and aspires to develop solutions to problems through encouraging better, more efficient practices. It suggests that sustainable development is achievable. However, the caveat is that sustainable development can only be achieved if we, as citizens, learn to think more sustainably and adopt more sustainable behaviour. Yet, this facilitating role is in itself something of a paradox, since arguably the capacity of LAs to act has been reduced by increasing central government intervention.
How realistic is this vision, given the constraints increasingly demanded of local authorities with current working practices shaped by the demands of indicators, LA agreements, and targets to meet? Anticipated cuts in public spending signal more difficulty in realising such achievements.
Carbon emissions provide a case in point. The advent of the local government white paper ¡°Strong and Prosperous Communities¡± laid out the local government performance framework, including indicators relating directly to climate change.
The rhetoric justifiably asserts that the public sector is in a leading position to demonstrate CO2 reductions through their activities and behaviour, thereby providing an example of best practice to local residents and businesses. By making in-house reductions, it is suggested that carbon emissions can be reduced across each LA area and therefore across the country as a whole, helping to meet the government's climate change targets.
Meeting this challenge requires innovation, imagination and support for those in practice. Different styles of ¡®leadership¡¯ and ¡®management¡¯ emerge as important dimensions to working in this new environment.
David Arkell, a senior manager in a public sector organisation within the sustainability sector, writes of his experience of reconciling the tensions of performance management ¡®excellence¡¯ systems with emotional intelligence, to develop a radical leadership approach, which he names ¡°Reflective Emotive Practitioning¡±. He argues that:
¡°Our sense of ourselves as emotional beings still seems to be shut down by powerful systemic structures such as performance management which inhibit change in research or practice.¡± 1
Arkell writes of his team enabled to communicate and work together in ways that would not have been possible within a traditional organisational culture. He explains that the process was not the traditional ¡®change management¡¯ process, but ¡°an exhilarating connection with our collective vision leading ultimately to prosperous survival.¡±
He praises the enabling leadership vision that provided sufficient freedom and encouragement for the team to define themselves and their goals through self and collective reflection. As a consequence, ultimately they were able to produce ¡°resounding results¡± and a growing REP culture that has allowed the team to explore and create an emotional connection to their outputs, and this is achieved through dialogue.
Arkell also speaks of financial constraints ¡°reining in creativity and new approaches¡±. It is in dialogue, in conversation, that shared meanings and understandings are produced, and somehow space for this seems to be sacrificed in LAs besieged with targets and procedures that appear to stifle creativity.
LAs can be in a prime position to lead imaginatively. In Austria, the town of G¨¹ssing has become an exemplar for sustainable development, an ¡®eco-environment¡¯ attracting international attention with radical actions taken to reduce carbon emissions.
G¨¹ssing's transformation started in 1992 when, confronted with a massive €6 million electricity bill, the town¡¯s officials ordered that all public buildings would stop using fossil fuels. Since then, G¨¹ssing has generated a whole renewable energy industry, with 50 companies creating more than 1,000 jobs and producing heat, power and fuels from the sun, sawdust, corn, and cooking oil.
Today, G¨¹ssing generates sufficient power to sell a healthy surplus to the national grid. Sales of excess power generate about €4.7 million in annual revenue and a €500,000 profit that is ploughed back into alternative energy projects.
The transition to sustainability, and the production of a more sustainable environment is a challenging journey. It requires radical thinking, and imaginative and pioneering leadership such as that undertaken in G¨¹ssing. The UK, too, has its pioneers, as the Transition Town network illustrates, with grass roots action in local communities demonstrating vision, coordination and imagination.
The transition to a post peak oil scenario and a commitment to collectively address the need for urgent and immediate action has caught the attention of a range of organisations also addressing the need for social innovation. Such visionary responses are also evident within the public sector.
The ISSUES (Implementation Strategies for Sustainable Urban Environment Systems) project, funded by the EPSRC within their Sustainable Urban Environment programme, includes a number of partnerships between universities and LAs. At their best, such partnerships will also create and facilitate opportunities for ¡®creative dialogue¡¯ and conversations that may genuinely help to create opportunities and space in which to develop truly sustainable approaches.
The route towards ¡®sustainable development¡¯ may not be clear or direct, and the destination may not immediately be apparent, but it is a journey where urgent action is needed.
Di Hinds is a researcher for the ISSUES project, based at Cambridge University.
For more information contact: dh282@cam.ac.uk.
References:
1. Arkell, D. (2008) The emotions of finding out: reconnecting people and work. In Interconnections: Connecting Theory and Practice 1:42-47
2. Brundtland, Gro Harlem (1994) ¡®The Challenge of sustainable development and consumption patterns¡¯ in Symposium Report ; Sustainable Consumption. Edited by Sylvi Ofstad, Liv Westby and Tone Bratelli , Oslo: Ministry of Environment
3. Carson, R. (1965) Silent Spring. Harmondsworth: Penguin
4. Carroll, Lewis (1872) ¡®Alice Through the Looking Glass¡¯ in The Penguin Complete Lewis Carroll, . Harmondsworth: Penguin
5. Department for Communities and Local Government. (2006) Strong and Prosperous Communities ¨C The local government white paper. Cm6939-1. London: Stationary Office
6. Dresner, S. (2002) The Principles of Sustainability. London: Earthscan
7. Holmberg, J. and Sandbrook, R. (1992) Sustainable development: What is to be done? In J. Holmberg (ed) Policies for a Small Planet. London: IIED/Earthscan
8. World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press
