Sustainability Principles and Development 21

The origin of the idea of sustainability stems back to the 1970s and the emergence of an ecological movement in the United States. Publications such as Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson, Limits of Growth (1974) produced by The Club of Rome helped awaken people’s consciousness about the degradation of the biosphere and limited planetary resources. Meetings such as the Arlie House Conference, the

Biosphere Conference and the General Assembly Resolution to Convene a United Nations Environment Conference, emphasised a need to foster global understanding of the environment and to explore ways to ameliorate environmental degradation (Burgman et al., 2003). The term “sustainability” firstly converged around a concern for environmental problems, as well as a concern for economic growth and the development of the world’s poor (WCED, 1987). In 1987, the Brundtland Report, Our Common Future, was released and became well known for its statement that sustainable development is development which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Seven strategies for sustainable development in that report were proposed: (1) reviving growth; (2) changing the quality of growth; (3) meeting the essential need for job, food, energy, water and sanitation; (4) ensuring a sustainable level of population; (5) conserving and enhancing the resource base; (6) re-orientating technology and managing risks; and (7) merging the environment and economy in the decision-making process (Langston, 1997).

Subsequently, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development was announced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, which reaffirmed the Brundtland Report and extended it to proclaim 27 principles encompassing the definition of sustainability. Among the principles, principle 10 encourages public awareness of and participation in environmental issues through appropriate access to information. This was the spark for the call for education which is able to raise awareness and provide environmental literacy. As for the Brundtland Report, critics have focused on the vagueness of the sustainability parameters. Accordingly, Agenda 21 was adopted as a comprehensive action plan to guide sustainability implementation. The 40 chapters of the Agenda 21 document provide a wide range of objectives and activities for the purpose of achieving environmentally sound and social responsible development.

As such, the idea of sustainability is gradually developing into a concept based on the three pillars of “people, planet, prosperity” (White & Lee, 2009). This general definition for sustainability has also been translated into the triple bottom line of economic, environmental and social performance (Robins, 2006). Some of the definitions of economic, environmental and social sustainability include the following (Robins, 2006):

 Economic Sustainability: Occurs when development, which moves toward social and environmental sustainability, is financially feasible;

 Environmental Sustainability: Practices to ensure that the natural resources capital remains intact; i.e., that the source and sink functions of the environment should not be degraded. Therefore, the extraction of renewable resources should not exceed the rate at which they are renewed, and the absorptive capacity of the environment to assimilate wastes should not be exceeded. Furthermore, the extraction of non-renewable resources should be minimised and should not exceed agreed minimum strategic levels;

 Social Sustainability: Practices to ensure that the cohesion of society and its ability to work towards common goals are maintained. Individual needs such as those for health and well-being, nutrition, shelter, education and cultural expression should be met.

Sustainability provides an opportunity for linkage between social activities and environmental issues which indicates the potential to cross disciplinary boundaries. Various definitions for sustainability have been proposed through decades of research. As Kidd (1992) explains, “in a remarkably short time it has evolved from a concept put forward by a few scholars to a widely accepted and influential idea in the continuing debate over the future of the world”. The criticisms of sustainability mainly point to the broadness, vagueness and lack of guidance for implementation. For example, Esty (2001) argues that “many flocked to the banner of sustainable development, but it led them nowhere…For all its laudable goals and initial fanfare, sustainable development has become a buzzword largely devoid of content”. Another critic, Lele (1991), states that sustainable development “is in real danger of becoming a cliché like appropriate technology-a fashionable phrase that everyone pays homage to but nobody cares to define”.

Sustainability is described as a dynamic process that enables all people to realise their potential and to improve their quality of life in ways which simultaneously protect and enhance the earth’s life support systems (Forum for the Future, 1996). Although the topic of sustainability has been controversial for some years, the essential concept of sustainability emphasises that it is a process (Parker, 2002).

Sustainability can be summarised as a process of achieving human development (widening or enlarging the range of human choice) in an inclusive, connected, equitable, prudent and secure manner (Gladwin, 1998). The notion of sustainability has evolved significantly from the conventional view of being “green” to the linking of social and economic dimensions with ecological protection goals (Kohler, 2002). The need for the interweaved dimensions of political, economic, legal, social and environment has been agreed upon for achieving sustainability (Bentivegna et al., 2002). In order to achieve sustainability, a critical understanding of its complementary parts is needed, such as how environmental, socio-political and economic factors influence our lives, the impact our choices and actions have on sustainable development and a commitment to make a positive difference in our world (Copernicus Secretariat, 2000). One of the main values of sustainability relies on the generation of an operational consensus between different groups (with different opinions) (Lele, 1991) so that there is a potential for shaping the overall organisational behaviours to make sustainability a desirable orientation.

The conventional approaches to sustainability, which mainly focused on environmental problem solving, are thought to be too exclusive and fragmented along disciplinary lines to deal effectively with the complexities of environmental issues (Dobson, 2000; Dovers, 2001; Paehlke & Torgerson, 2005). Sustainability is not an end-point but an approach to decision-making which recognises that social, economic and environmental issues are interconnected and the decisions must incorporate each of these aspects if they are to be good decisions in the longer term (Canadian international development agency, 2004). Therefore, another significant advantage of sustainability is the potential to catalyse individuals and groups to implement needed social and environmental change through promoting integrated, long-term, tarns-disciplinary, systemic thinking in people and organisations (Shriberg, 2002a). Sustainability requires a holistic, systems-based perspective that engages stakeholders and allows for feedback and adjustment (Keysar, 2005). For example, if we analyse the internal or external environment in which the unsustainable behaviours are rooted, then we can implement strategic and systemic plans to change patterns, and further facilitate better decision-making.

Based on the discussions above, in order to make sustainability “mean something” more than a term or concept, it requires deep penetration through an interdisciplinary

analysis of interconnected and interdependent social-ecological systems, instead of scratching the surface of the sustainability concept. To pursue the goal of sustainability, there is a call for more substantive recognition that the exchange of feedbacks between social-ecological systems in environmental problem solving must be encouraged within and between the social and natural sciences (Bradshaw & Bekoff, 2000; Lawton, 2007; Macleod et al., 2008; van Kerkhoff, 2005). As a result, part of the theoretical foundation of this research relies on the interaction of different disciplines and solving environmental problems through examining and understanding organisational behaviours.