Historically,
sustainable development has arisen from a series of conferences and summits
which looking for the global solutions of 21st Century problem such as extreme
poverty, inequality, and the environmental degradation. The term of sustainable
development began to gain its popularity in the late 80’s after the Brundtland
Report (1987). The ideas expressed from Brundtland Report recognize the
dependency of humans on the environment and against human domination over
nature lives (Castro, 2004. Hopwood et al., 2005). This report defined
sustainable development as simply development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the
future generations to meet theirs.” These “inter-generational equity
principles” provide a useful basis for the future trends of Sustainable
development (Hopwood et al., 2005).
Sustainable
development was going beyond borders, particularly in the Earth Summit in Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil (1992). This summit, also known as UN Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED), has declared the Rio Declaration and
Agenda 21. The Rio Declaration states that long-term economic development is
only ensured if it is counted with the environmental protection and must
establish a new global partnership involving governments, civil society, and
other sectors. Agenda 21 is the action plan and program that adopted by the UN,
multilateral organization, and governments around the world to support
sustainable development agenda. Since the Earth Summit, the UN has created a series
of agreement and conventions on the UN Sustainable Development Knowledge
Platform, such as the creation of the Commission for Sustainable Development
(1993), UN Millennium Declaration/Millennium Development Goals (2000), The
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), and Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) in 2012.
In
the context of policy debate, sustainable development tends to be framed by
some general conceptual framework. For instance, the weak-strong sustainability
model from Pearce (1989), a matrix of sustainability from McManus (1996), Deep
Sustainability from Rikoon (2012), and a political economy typology of
sustainability from Davidson (2011) (Rikoon, 2012, Davidson, 2011). Each of
these frameworks has strength and weaknesses. However, each of this framework
can illustrate how debates over solutions to environmental and socioeconomic
crisis pursued by different actors, institutions, organization, and even
ideological alignment. For instance, actors or institutions that categorized as
neoliberal may claim that natural environment and social justice are secure
within the control of business activities, but then the radical actors may
argue that they need a mandatory regulation and report from the impact of
corporate actions toward environmental sustainability.
Most
of Sustainable Development framework is trying to shift our focus from pursuit
of material economic growth (techno-centered) to pursuit of sustainable
prosperity (eco-centered). Given that
economic growth is the top priority for all nations, how we can pursue
prosperity without growth? What happens when people won’t relinquish
materialism and economies can only survive if they grow? These questions are
always confronting sustainable development idea at every turn. Tim Jackson (2009)
may give us some answer and explanation about how we can gather and share
prosperity without growth. In his book, “Prosperity Without Growth: Economics
for A Finite Planet,” he argues that there is some strategy to transform our
traditional economic model to adapt to sustainable development framework.
First,
establishing the limits.
Establishing environmental limits or clear resources and integrating these
limits into both economic, social, and political functioning is essential. For
instance, taxing carbon sends a clear signal to people about the value of the
climate and encourages them to shift to less carbon-intensive processes,
technologies, and activities. The argument and principle of ecological tax
reform is a shift in the burden of taxation from economic goods (incomes) to
environmental bads (pollution). A similar approach should be established for
the extraction of scarce non-renewable resources, for the emission of wastes
(particularly toxic and hazardous wastes), for the drawing down of ‘fossil’
groundwater supplied, and for the rate of harvesting of renewable resources as
well.
Second,
fixing the economic model. The
question of productivity is always crucial, both in developing or in developed
countries. Ecological investments will have different rates and periods of
return. In conventional terms, they are likely to be ‘less productive’ than
economic investment as usual. Developing technical capacity for what we might
call ecological macroeconomics is a critical step. This ability would mean being
able to understand the behavior of economies when they are subject to strict
emission and resource use limits. Exploring how economies might work under
different configurations of consumption, investment, labor employment, and
productivity growth is also necessary for a new economic model.
Ecological
investment has some clear targets, such as carbon-saving measures, renewable
energy technologies, redesigning utility networks (the electricity grid),
public transport infrastructures, open spaces, and ecosystem maintenance and
protection. We also need to revise the GDP as national accounts. The GDP is
really nothing more and nothing less than a measure of ‘busy-ness’ in the
economy. It measures the amount of spending and saving by consumers, or
equivalently the value added from economic activities. The case against the GDP
has attracted a lot of attention over the years.
Third,
changing the social logic that locks
people into materialistic consumerism as the basis for participating in the
society. Working time policy (reduce working hours) will support a sustainable
economy in the future. Tackling inequality would minimize social costs, improve
quality of life and change the dynamic of status consumption. These include
revised income tax structures, minimum and maximum income levels, improved
access to good quality education, anti-discrimination legislation, anti-crime
measures and improving the local environment in deprived areas. A whole raft of
policies is also needed to build social capital and strengthen communities.
Systematic attention to all these plans is vital for now and for the future.
Jackson stated that for the advanced economies of the western world, prosperity
without growth is no longer a utopian dream. It is a financial and ecological
necessity.
References
Castro,
Carlos J. 2004. Sustainable Development: Mainstream and Critical Perspectives.
Organization and Environment, Vol 17 No 2, 195-225
Davidson,
Kathryn. 2014. A Typology to Categorize the Ideologies of Actors in the Sustainable
Development Debate. Sustainable Development, 22, 1-14
Hopwood,
Bill, Mary Mellor, and Geoff O’Brien. 2005. Sustainable Development: Mapping
Different Approaches. Sustainable Development, 13, 38-52
Jackson,
Tim. 2009. Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for A Finite Planet. London:
Earth Scan
Rikoon,
Sandy. 2012. One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: On the Politics of
Sustainability in the U.S. Journal of Landscape Ecology, Vol 5, No 2.
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