History of Sustainability

Historical References to Sustainability

• French, German, and Dutch languages have had terms related to "durability" and "lastingness" for centuries, indicating an early conception of sustainability.

• French term: "durabilité" meaning durable

• German term: "Nachhaltigkeit" meaning 'lastingness'

• Dutch term: "duurzaamheid" meaning durable

• Hans Carl von Carlowitz used the term "nachhaltende Nutzung" (sustainable use) in 1713, marking one of the initial documented references to sustainability.

• George Perkins Marsh in 1864 noted humanity was forgetting Earth was given for responsible use, not exploitation.

• He warned about the consequences of overconsumption and waste.

• John Stuart Mill in 1883 advocated for alternatives to the economic overuse of natural resources.

• Mill hoped future generations would be content with a "stationary" state, rather than degrading the Earth for wealth and population growth.

• W. Stanley Jevons cautioned in 1866 that exhausting resources like Britain's coal would weaken civilization.

• Jevons questioned prioritizing material wealth over maintaining cultural and societal values.

Sustainability – Emergence and Timeline

• Thomas Malthus in 1798 warned of future food shortages due to population outpacing agricultural production.

• 1950: World population reached 2.5 billion

• 1960: World population reached 3 billion

• 1960s: Publication of Small is Beautiful

• 1960s: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published

• 1970: The first Earth Day took place

• 1970's: Professors at MIT created the Club of Rome which simulated trends and resulted in the book, Limits to Growth.

• The book predicted environmental limitations would lead to population and industrial decline within a century if growth trends continued.

• 1972: The UNEP Stockholm Conference recognized the global conflicts between environment and development.

• Human's responsibility to preserve the environment was emphasized

• 1973: The Chipko Movement in India focused on deforestation, impacting forestry practices and women's participation.

• 1974: World population reached 4 billion

• 1980: The term "sustainable development" was introduced into international policy by the World Conservation Strategy.

• 1985: Discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole.

• 1986: The Chernobyl nuclear accident.

• 1987: World population reached 5 billion.

• WCED's Brundtland Commission in 1987 defined sustainable development as meeting present needs without compromising future generations.

• This includes addressing the needs of the world's poor as an overriding priority.

• Emphasizes recognizing limits to the environment's capacity to meet present and future needs.

• 1990: The UN linked environmental issues to impacts on future generations during the World Summit for children.

• 1992: The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held

• Agreements reached included Agenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

• The Business Council for Sustainable Development Published Changing Course, establishing business interest in promoting sustainable developement

• 1997: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change established the Kyoto Protocol.

• The Kyoto Protocol committed developed nations to emissions reduction and encouraged cooperation,

• 1998: China experienced major floods, Bangladesh underwater, Hurricane Mitch destroyed parts of Central America...

• 54 countries experienced floods and 45 experienced drought; earth experienced the highest global temperature

• 1999: World population reached 6 billion.

• 2002: The World Summit on Sustainable Development promoted partnerships as a sustainability approach. The Global Reporting Initiative formulated guidelines for organizations to report on economic, environmental, and social impacts.

• 2004: Wangari Muta Maathai was the first environmentalist to receive a Nobel Prize.

• 2005: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported on the consequences of ecosystem change and human well-being.

• 2007: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its fourth assessment.

• Posits policies addressing climate change is best addressed by integrating them within sustainable development.

• 2009: Multiyear sea ice nearly disappeared from the Arctic Ocean.

• The concept of "planetary boundaries" was introduced in Nature.

• China became the world's largest emitter of GHGs.

• 2011: World population reached 7 billion

• 2012: The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development marked anniversaries of the 1992 and 2002 summits.

• Key themes were green economy, poverty eradication, and sustainable development framework.

• 2014: IPCC published the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) on Climate Change.

• 2015: UN General Assembly adopted SDG Goals (2030), including 17 goals and 169 targets

What is Sustainability?

• Sustainability is the ability to sustain and encompasses sustaining life.

• IUCN in 2008 described sustainability as a transition to a world that sustains a diverse and worthwhile human life.

• The core questions relate to what to sustain and for how long.

• The U.S. National Academy of Sciences highlights time scale, major categories, and worldviews associated with sustainability.

• Sustainable development is about reconciling societal developmental goals with the planets environmental limits.

• Trends in population, wealth, consumption, technology, and environmental change could undermine sustainability if trends persist.

• The Davos Dilemma highlights the combined impact of population.

• Natural resources and economic crises can lead to a sustainability crisis

Sustainability Definitions & Approaches

• There are multiple definitions of sustainability of defined sustainability approaches.
• These definitions illustrate thinking on sustainability

The Concept of Intergenerational Equity

• The Brundtland Commisin highlighted the need for resource limitations be considered for extraction and use.

• Future generations should live at approximately the current levels of comfort, convenience, and satisfaction as the present.

• There needs to be equitable environmental and developmental needs met for the present and the future generation.

• Resources should not be exploited but thoughtfully provisioned and cared for.

• Short-term strategies need immediate reflection and alteration

Definitions highlighting Resource Utilization

• Sustainability means living within the biosphere.

• Maintaining natural capital.

• The basic idea of sustainable development is that the use of natural resources should be sustainable through time.

• Resources should not decline.

• Improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems.

• A fair distribution of resources for current and future generations.

• Allocation of resources with regards to natural capital.

• Resource utilization (exhaustible, stock of resources, natural capital, efficiency of allocation) are key areas

• Carrying capacity of the ecosystem (regenerative capacity, sustainable scale, finite limits).

• Rostow's model based on economic development has 5 stages: traditional society, preconditions for takeoff, takeoff, drive to maturity and the age of high mass consumption

Strong & Weak Sustainability

• There has been debate whether natural resources can be completely substituted for technical or man made resources in sustainability.

• Proponents agree there is weak sustainability if it is possible to substitute natural resources.

• Proponents state the importance to maintain access to natural resources in natural capital for future generations,

• "if natural and other capital are substitutable then the weak sustainability criterion of preserving aggregate capital can be applied, but if there are limits on substitution then the strong sustainability criterion of preserving natural capital may be relevant."

• Strong sustainability is a paradigm that views economic activities as part of the social domain constrained by the environment.

• Economic approaches state refuting resource scarcity for current and future generations.

• Major arguments of economists involve dealing with scarcity of natural resources to explore possibilities through tech.

• Strong sustainability proponents state a resource used up can't be put back, needing a stock of natural resources always accessible for future use.

• It is necessary to preserve resources.

• Consume at a pace suitable for ecosystem maintainability without using up all resources.

• Weak sustainability proponents claim natural capital can be substituted with other alternatives (social, environmental, economic capital).

• Even with decreased stocks of natural capital, the difference can still be made up.

• As long as total or aggregate capital is maintained, then maintainability of the overall system is not an issue.

• Substitution is a strategy that can overcome all the underlying problems linked to sustainability development.

• Social and economic capital derives from environmental capital. ‘- Without a functioning life-support system, societies cannot thrive; without functioning social structures and institutions, economies cannot flourish.

• Resource substitution may not be possible for everything like clean air or water, and ecosystems may not survive the loss of keystone species.

Growth, Steady State, and Degrowth

• New ideologies have the dominant growth paradigm seen in Rostow's model.

• Includes a steady state concept, and degrowth.

• Daly discusses growth giving way to a steady state with resource quota usages, population growth, and income distribution strategies.

• Schneider (2010) defines sustainable degrowth as downsizing production and enhancing ecological conditions at the local and global level.

• Sustainable degrowth is characterized by elements of choice, democratic principles and political ideologies.

• Proponents claim that before industrial revolution, decentralized village economy systems show smaller states balanced in balanced economies.

Biocentric vs. Anthropocentric viewpoints

• The anthropocentric position puts human needs central in the value of nature.

• The biocentric position talks of the inherent value of nature, environment, and species as a tenet of environmentalism.

• The earth is priceless suggests that each species and nature in itself is priceless that don't need to be valued again. Two perspectives have been considered within the overall ecological economic viewpoint depending on species and role.

Gaia Hypothesis

• James Lovelock gave the Gaia hypothesis in 1972, where collaborative interaction takes place. Organisms are not passive participants but active in maintaining life support.

• Gaia viewed as a total self-organizing, organic, and teleological system with maintenance of itself. Earth is a planet which thus functions more like a living organism. Edward Goldsmith founded the Ecologist magazine who was a proponent of the earth operating as a living organism.

Capability approach

• Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen gave the Capability approach in the 1990s.

• Capabilities describe being able to do valuable acts or reach valuable states of being.

• States a good life develops individuals capabilities with freedoms to fulfilling them. The approach formed indicators with human development index, premise lying in not having lives with not being able to actualize a good life. Uses human dignity to searching for decent life.

Triple Bottom Line Approach

• 1997, John Elkington introduced Triple Bottom Line.

• Sustainable development involves economic prosperity, environmental quality and social equality.

• Companies must perform against the triple bottom line.

• According to the approach, businesses pay equal attention to financial profits, as well as environmental and social concerns and their role in building a positive society.

The Three Pillar/ Three Circle Approach to Sustainability

"maximize simultaneously the biological system goals (genetic diversity, resistance, biological productivity), economic system goals (satisfaction of basic needs, enhancement of equity, increasing useful goods and services) and social system goals (cultural diversity, institutional sustainability, social justice, participation)"

• It's humans, economies and societies connecting with ecosystems that supports sustainable development.

• Fraser Basin Council's Charter defines sustainability as Living and managing activities to meet needs of future generations.

• Social-economic-environment model has emerged and uses 3 intersecting circles of interlinked Venn diagram.

• Each sphere has role needing reflection, each looking after specific right, respect and responsibility. The interactions build harmonious relationships.

Systems Approach

• Systems thinking suggests higher interactions in system parts compared to on their own. Stakeholders need to take systems aspects, cross science boundaries to create new conceptual frames. Offers a platform for integration, and to handle problems in everyday life and work.

Developed North & Developing South: Differing sustainability orientations

• Broad terms the concept of sustainable development include help for poor, self-reliant development, and effective development.

• Issues include health control, people-centered issues, and food self-reliance.

• Sustainable economic development concerns quantitatively increase material standard of living. The primary objective aims to reduce absolute poverty in lasting, secure livelihoods.

Indicators of Sustainability and Sustainable Development

• The concept difficulties are also seen in assessing or progress.

• Indicators measure only one or 2D, data is not replicable on a larger scale.

• "there are no indicator sets that are universally accepted, backed by compelling theory, rigorous data collection and analysis, and influential in policy". Researchers have worked to identify assessments for basis of sustainability assessment including Bellagio/DPSIR

Bellagio Principles (Hardi and Zdan, 1997)

GUIDING VISION AND GOALS

• Assessment of progress should be guided by a clear, sustainable vision with defined goals

HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE

• Assessments should include the whole system and its parts.
• Must well-being of sub systems state, direction, rate of change, and the interaction between parts.
• Consider both positive and negative consequences, reflecting the costs and benefits of the monetary and and non monetary systems.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS

• Assessments consider equity and concern current populations as well as dealing with resource use. Consider ecological conditions on which life depends.

ADEQUATE SCOPE

• Assessments should adopt a capable time horizon to capture human/ecosystem time scales. Define spaces large enough for large impacts on people and ecosystems.

PRACTICAL FOCUS

• Assessments based on frameworks linking visions and goals to indicators.
• Limited number of key issues, limited indicators for clearest progress.

OPENESS

• Assessments must use the data and provide for assessment to be accessible to all.
• Make all judgments accessible and uncertainties to others with data and interpretation.

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

• Assessments need address users and set a standard.
• Indicators should draw from stimulants for decision makers and maintain structure.

BROAD PARTICIPATION

• Assessments should get broad groups of grass-roots, women, youth to recognize diverse and changing values.

ONGOING ASSESSMENT

• Develop a capacity for measurement to see the trends.

INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY

Continuity of assessments is assured by assigning responsibility and providing support.

• provide institution capacity.

• Seen from above, the principles show the many indices and sustainability with integration. Development attempts to measure sustainability. It uses the framework and influence bringing together the 3 pillars like society or envinroment.

UN Indicators of Sustainable Development

• Rio 1992 agenda 21 mandated countries in national and government positions to identify indicators. Thus In 1995, Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) approved the Programme of Work on Indicators of Sustainable Development There were 3 of these sets published by the UN in 1996, 2001 and 2007 3rd set was was published in 2007 and includes a core set of 50 indicators a larger set of 96 indicators of sustainable development.

CSD indicators:

• poverty, government, health, education, demographics, natural hazards, atmosphere, land...

Expansion and consolidation of Sustainability Indicators and Indices

• Overtime, numbers of researchers came to come up with assessment, such as 2009's List of research.

• The ecological footprint (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996) measures food, water, energy, waste, the ratio being interpreted to see sustainabilty.

• Human Development Index (HDI) contains three basic dimensions of life, knowledge and GDP for capita.

HDI components:

• live expectancy birth, aliteracy rate, and GDP per capita.

• Index creates view on the the indicator if it extends welfare to people. Aimed to replace GDP as differentiate factors. Contains over 20 sub indicators.

Further Indices

• Sustainability Performance index shows explanation in operation and principal. Core calcs area needed to embed into energy process.

• Genuine Savings (GSs): Pearce and Atkinson (1993) puts index based on Hicks concept.

• Living Planet Index measures species and vertebrates trends.

• LPI measures three spheres, every soecies as with population in 2 consecutive .years

• Dow Jones sustainability group in 1999 measures of performance in sustainable companies.

• Benchmarking 10% of leading sustainability companies. Includes five things

• Environment Sustainability Index in 2002 measures progress with ES. Made up by 68 indicators, makes core indicators.

• Simply average value for variables rated 0-100 from sustainability high too low

• Environment Quality Inex main theories theory and numeric evaluation by carrying Hierachy analysis.

• Environment indicators focus current on policy environment.

• Environment vulnerability Index uses measurements to reduce damage and indicates scales between 1 and 7 on resiliance etc.

• Gender means opportunities to measures how women get jobs, shares or political means.

• Physical mean measures components scales of arithmetic and means.

• Well measures enviroments necessary to helathy and well beings assessment.

• Indexes show new society and sustainability and is in framework and category to building indicator.

• National income.

Frameworks for sustainability

• Valuation costing factor, production levels,

Categorization of Sustainability Assesment

• A catagorizing framework indicates indices on continuum scale. Includes 1) clustering, product clusters 2) assessment tools which using the life cycle and 3) integrated system. Further there are time retrospect and methodologies applied. Easier to implement using assess products process based in retrospective and others. Also there are the impact to the relevant stakeholders.

Development of aggregated and non – aggregated indices

• Indicators must be measurable for eco levels. When aggregated, resulting measurmes are in index.
• Tools in category do not integrate nature and integrated dimensions This process of mixing to composite is detailed with scales weighting and methodologies to the elusive purpsoe. Weighting classifie3d in equal analysis ,ublic expert.

Key Steps of Sustainability Evaluation

• Defining purposes
• Indicators.
• Date.
• Determine the scale.
• Weighting.

Criteria for assessing the capability of sustainability methods

• Value choices.

• Geographical and temporal.

• Transparency.

• Due to the life cycle its formulation to assess for comprehensive assmessment. Sala suggested methods context of assessment sustainability.