Sustainable economic development - Essay Example

Sustainable development Name Course Institution Date Sustainable development Introduction The field of economic development can be viewed in four dimensions: economic, social, institutional and environmental. From my area of specialization-environmental issues, I will look at it from environmental and economic points of view. From this perspective it can be referred to as the balancing of the fulfillment of the needs with the protection of the natural environment so as to ensure that these needs are not only met in the present but will remain a continuous process. There are two concepts of sustainable development : the concept of needs, these are the world’s important needs which should be granted the first priority and the concept of limitations facilitated by the nature of technology and the social organization on the ability of the environment trio meet present and indefinite future needs1. Other than the four dimensions there are other approaches or ladder of sustainable development: treadmill approach, strong approach, weak approach and ideal model approach. In this case we shall look at the two most necessary ladders. Strong sustainable development. The philosophers of this development argue that economic development is a requirement of environmental protection and the advocates of it assert that environment is the precondition of economic development. As the man responsible for this study-Brundtland argues that it involve a special kind of economic development that focuses more on the environmental dimensions than in the past. This position of development requires that the economic and political policies be geared towards maintaining productive capacity of environmental assets not minding whether they are deplorable or renewable. They should also create, keep, and protect the environmental resources which can either worthy improvement or can be preserved the way they are, for example, the tropical forests2. This will greatly call for the government to intervene or the market to be regulated using a wide variety of tools and mechanisms. However, in particular, it calls for the involvement of the local communities when analyzing changes in the local economy and the sustainable utilization of the local environment. This is because the development in an area can be facilitated by the resources available in that specific area and the lifespan of the development can be determined by the availability of these resources. This approach has less stress on the quantitative growth (measured in terms of materials), but, although the concentration is on the qualitative growth where quality of life is considered first, it still considers the general objective of the economic growth. Still in this type of development there is the propensity to hold that having the restricted understanding of the intricacy of the natural environment, the precautionary principle should be considered, especially concerning the management of risks. This principle states that, in the face of the risks and that of the doubtful scientific knowledge, policy makers should blunder on the side of the caution. For instance, while there may be some doubts in the science, the government should always take action to prevent any danger as change in climate brings high economic, ecological and social risks, for example, droughts may cause economic decline hence the government should always have ways set aside as an alternative economic development incase there is a drought. The various indicator measures of strong sustainable do not give explanation of the clear trade-offs needed to achieve a sustainable development. Weak sustainable development Weak sustainability results from standard economic assumptions involving absolute replacement of capitals with the treatment of all capital equally. It is argued that the principles of neo- classical economics can be applied to the answer of the environmental troubles; it aims at integrating the capitalist growth with the environmental concerns. The environment is considered to be a measurable resource hence although the goal of policies to promote weak sustainable development is economic growth, environmental costs are mostly put into considerations. Thus the environmental cost of growth should determine whether there should be a tradeoff; the nature of the resources of the earth is realized in the setting of the rates of resource harvests set at levels either below or similar to the managed regeneration rates using environment as a waste sink is based on the belief that the rates of waste disposal should not exceed those of natural or managed assimilation by the counterpart ecosystem3. According to this approach a sustainable development is economic growth achieved by the competence of the economic within a system, subject to constancy of the stock of the environmental assets while the economy is allowed whatever social goals are deemed suitable. There are two dimensions of sustainability: the objective of the traditional economic growth- sustainable development seen as the sustainable growth of real incomes per capita over time and the sustainable use of the resources and environment. This implies that reasonably rate of growth of incomes per capita is the same as the sustainable use of resources and the environment and implies some rate of use of the environment which does not deplete its capital value4. Weak sustainable has a great influence on the international agencies, among them being the World Bank, the United Nations. It is related with an anthropocentric and techno centric view of nature, in which nature is seen as the source of both material surrounding wealth. Nature is seen as a full potential in the service of mankind and the material and environment creation are assumed as a partnership, though that which is easily technically manipulated by the enlightened managers with the managerial and administrative tools. The tools includes environment impact assessments, cost benefit analysis which takes account for the non-market aspect of environmental goods and services and insignificant changes to market forces to take account of market failure by aspects like policy tools as taxes, tradable permits and fees5. Other advocates, for example, Redcliff and Goodman argue that the accounting for resource method is highly ethnocentric and biased in favor of the other view of the development process. Another disadvantage is that weak sustainable development values the environment only in terms of money and not its worth, for instance, in terms of the cultural values. Hence it leaves the neo-classical with all its demerits intact. It also reduces environmental problems to managerial which are easily within the context of the dominant political and economic system. Conservation of environment thus becomes the main target of policy and it is understood as the achievements of the efficiency through the exclusion of the waste. Apart from motivating the radical reform, sustainable development here becomes the distinction of ever expanding improvements. Nevertheless the beneficiaries of development are basically the existing generation. Environmental management aspect always assumes the experience of the local people and as a result the policy makers and the government can run the risk of importing unsuitable solutions to the environmental problems from elsewhere. Weak sustainable development is mostly preferred to the strong one because their procedure includes the adjustment of the national accounts and the overall measures or indicators. The strong one use measures involving several indicators and tools like carrying capacity for each specified topic or sections. The limitation of weak sustainable development is that it does not provide full information for correct and relevant implementation of the policy. The sustainability measures and examples can be based on the qualities of weak sustainable development although it would recognize all thresholds and irreversibility in the capitals. Originally these general measures used a simple accounting unit, for example, values, weight; which was later changed to the value which was commonly used or famous in the capita. The format of the sustainable development would be contented if the overall value of wealth only inclines but does not decline while the capita’s value are used to determine how close or far the level of currents of the stock from the threshold. This makes it easier to provide information about the procedure of resource allocation and capital thresholds thus ensuring sustainable patterns of resource use. The impacts of strong and weak sustainable development in the business conduct The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), a NGO serving globe businesses’ interests promotes world trade and savings based on open and justice competition. It also comes up with guidelines and terminologies to be used by the importers and exporters. This body developed a charter for sustainable development in business involving a number of principles, for example, corporate priority, integrated management and employee education. To date, many companies have embraced it and In addition, several industry relations use it as the foundation for their sustainability programmes. It is voluntary and the companies just join it to live to its principles. Organizations which aim to benefit from the sustainable development have wide goals to attain than the ordinary ones. Generally they aim to be in a socially responsible way, together with protection of the environment. They seem to put in to consideration the wellbeing of their workers, future generation, customs as well as the community. Their success is more focused on the long-term even if they cannot afford to assume the short-term cash flow. Sustainable development provides these businesses with a set of ethics to guide them and helps to put in the same principles in the workers6. The less developed businesses can boost their performance by employing a creative and more talent personnel in a position which calls for more participation or sensitive. The wider visualization of success needs special business tools, relationships and practices; being ready to embrace any kind of change, ideas or suggestions comes along with any selection of business opportunities7. Investing in large long term firms means that we operate on long duration of time and it takes time to start enjoying the profits. These businesses should be the best in terms of the planning, implementing and deliverance of the sustainable contributions to its wellbeing; the environment contributions and the economic prosperity within a firm system of management. A sustainable development gives the framework in which the business operates enabling maintenance of a highly regarded reputation which ensures that there is continuous access to consumers, minerals resources and capital. This in return will help to qualify the output for the shareholders, attract and maintain high caliber workers and provide more opportunities of developing the business. If not well managed some business aspects may detract from sustainable development while others may facilitate the development, for example, by informing the stakeholders about a new approach is embedding a suitable development custom which involves every part of the company8. The measure of the sustainable development must be real spatial scales. The strong sustainable suggests that any scale leading to a national wide measure must fulfill the criteria of a sustainable development. This strong sustainable should be measured at project, local, regional, state and national balances and only when all the scales indicates some sustainable development, the national measures would be considered sustainable. Only the scale of important that are currently investigated requires to be considered in the weak sustainable development. Hence in both strong and weak development, relevance of the scale is not necessary but what is important is the exactly region under investigation. Both are not based on complimentary capitals but could be used to make up a national measure on the models of a region. To know that changes are required to encourage sustainable resource use, it is necessary to first identify the framework of the sustainable development and let it be the determinant of the development that is required. A modeling procedure may be necessary to identify whether the sustainable development is attained or to show how and where the investment of the capital stock is made hence it is easier to know where to make changes in resource allocation9. Conclusion Introduction of general sustainable development seems to be semantic, but it is valuable to keep in mind that neither strong sustainable development nor weak development procedures are in general useful. If does not know how assets are invested or consumed and the decisions which can better be taken to about where to invest; how can he make decisions about the development to make. The results of global warming also affect the sustainable development, for example, the countries which are prone to climatic changes have the least resources to spend on adaptations. This is because the resources like the forests are affected by the climate changes hence cannot be relied upon. Their development can only be short term, incase the climate changes and the resource is not in use the development is not sustained. References Baker, S. 2000. Sustainable development. Liverpool: Routledge Publishers. Bradbrook, J. 2005.The law of energy for sustainable development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Glasbergen, P and Biermann, F. 2007. Partnership, governance and sustainable development: reflections on theory and practice. New York: Edward Elgar Publishing. Jeroen, C. 1996.Ecological economics and sustainable development: theory, methods, and applications. New York: Edward Elgar Publishing. Interscience Enterprises. 2002. International journal of sustainable development. Volume 5. New York: Interscience Enterprises Press. Lawn, P. 2006. Sustainable development indicators in ecological economics. New York: Edward Elgar Publishing Roberta, D& Peter, N. 1995. European Transport and communication networks: Policy evolution and change. New York: Wiley Publishers. 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