Sustainable Development: Progress or Illusion - Coursework Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Tutor :xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Title : SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: PROGRESS OR ILLUSION Institution : xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Date :xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx @ 2012 Sustainable development: progress or illusion Introduction Sustainable development emerged from several environmental conservation movements that especially arose after 1960 (Egelston, 2007). It was however given its definition by the World Commission on Environment and Development or Brundtland Commission in 1987 which outlined its meaning as development which satisfies present needs without compromising future generations’ ability to achieve their own needs (Strange & Bayley, 2008). While the pursuit of sustainable development has faced challenges in the past, it is a growing feature and global issue which can not be said to be fading at all. This paper explores sustainable development as a concept, together with the principles underlying it. According to Roosa (2010), sustainable development is often thought to be a modern issue that came up during the post-war period. However, it is further traceable to the 18th century at a time when Enlightenment thinkers started questioning the effect of growing populations and a rapid industrialization. It was however during the 1960’s when there was the most considerable amount of environmental awareness in the relatively wealthy Northern hemisphere. After the Second World War, there had been a consumer boom and quick rise of technological innovation which in turn raised resource consumption considerably. This caused a lot of concern regarding the consequences of the new materialism on the environment and a possibility that some key resources were likely to be consumed at an extra-high rate. Gechev (2005) explains that with growth in the movement’s momentum, there was a shift of ecological thinking from the realm of academia to mainstream works. In 1962 for instance Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in the US, a book which suggested that pesticide use was killing wildlife and unknowingly damaging human health. Her book stimulated a lot of concern among the public about environmental issues and would later facilitate the start of the environmental movement. By then, terms for instance ecology was not frequently used anywhere. During the late 1960’s organizations conducting environmental campaigns started being in news headlines as they tried raising global consciousness. Egelston (2007) agrees that one of them, Friends of the Earth was created in 1969 and grew to an international network by 1971 with a presence in Sweden, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. As from the early 1970’s, there was also growth of Greenpeace from Vancouver’s peace movement and this expanded from Canada into several European countries by the late 1970’s as an international movement. During 1972, there was the publication of a book, The Limits to Growth, by the Club of Rome which was a think-tank of international stature (Roosa, 2010). Gechev (2005) argues that it was highly influential and modeled the relationship between the rapidly growing populations with the finite resources that were being consumed. It created computer simulations which predicted the effect of various changes and the interactions that were expected among variables such as pollution, population growth, resource depletion and food production. Although its methodology had many critics, the book nevertheless managed to greatly enhance awareness about environmental issues. By the early years of the 1970’s, there had been the setting up of various centres for the study of environmental issues worldwide. Within the discussed background, scientists and campaigners started establishing links between economic development and the environmental movement within the poorest countries of the world. According to Strange & Bayley (2008), a new aspiration of assisting the countries to achieve growth in the long term in order to attain the satisfaction of human needs without creating negative environmental effects came up, and this would henceforth be referred to as sustainable development. In 1972, there was the Stockholm UN Conference on the Human Environment. This was notably the first ever full international conference dealing with the environmental question. In it, various delegates considered economic and environmental priorities as matters which needed to be handled simultaneously. In 1980, the International Union of Conservation of Nature came up with the World Conservation Strategy which established a conceptual breakthrough by trying to join together development with environmental issues. Sustainable development as a phrase first made an appearance within the report subtitle. In 1987, there was another milestone in the effort. This came in the form of a United Nations- sponsored report named Our Common Future, in some circles also referred to as the or the Brundtland Report. The document offered a definition of sustainable development as a feature that satisfies present needs without limiting future generations’ capabilities to live comfortably and achieve the same objectives too. With time, the sustainability movement continued expanding its scope and becoming stronger. Environmental campaigns no longer limited themselves to ecology but also started dealing with financial and social dimensions. For instance, there was the Rio Summit of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, two concessions which addressed the broadest range of issues (Krishnamoorthy, 2008). According to Szabo (2011) the Kyoto Protocol grew from the Rio Summit and the two notably created limits for greenhouse gas production by the participant countries. In addition, they set out clear foundations for a market within which emissions can be created, and these offer penalties and commercial incentives that are intended to shape corporate behavior across the world. Since then, there has been a merging of social, commercial and environmental concerns within the sustainable development movement, and this is referred to as a triple bottom-line means of corporate performance measurement. An increasing number of corporations and other businesses started evaluating their success beyond the typical measurements that focused only on value creation for the benefit of shareholders. Through establishing a new orientation towards long-term measures and considering a wide range of externalities, the new approach tended to define a new way of measuring performance and conducting business in a responsible manner. However, while the new focus on sustainability started gaining strength, there’re was the appearance of conflicts between developing and developed countries’ understandings of sustainable development (Egelston, 2007). Roosa (2010) elaborates that later, there was a clear friction between social developmental and environmental components of sustainable development, an issue which was broadly addressed during the International Copenhagen Summit. In recent times, there has been some opposition to the attainment of sustainable development. This mainly arises from a conflict that pits developed against developing countries with regard to ways through which their economies can work on the reduction of global emissions. Various developed nations tend to seek general national caps while countries for instance Brazil, India and China, which have notably all inherited the problem of climate change from developed countries and have some of the largest populations in the world demand that measurement should be done on a per capita basis. Both sides of the debate on sustainable development have continued being prominent. Different experts foresee challenges arising from the effort. For instance one expert and the United Kingdom’s former science head, Sir David King believes that the century will be characterized by commodity wars. There are also scientists who think that if carbon emissions are not radically reduced, there will be a reduction of the habitable parts of the planet earth into only areas lying above 45°N. This is a latitude line which extends from the South of France to the northern parts of the United States (Krishnamoorthy, 2008). According to Strange & Bayley (2008), the mass media has been providing a lot of coverage of the issues, leading to more support for the protestors and dissenters while making the debate stronger as a current global issue. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted that it had erred in a prediction which it had made that there would be extinction of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035. This was taken up as evidence that the scientific society was only exaggerating the truth about climatic change and its threat. Krishnamoorthy (2008) suggests that currently, belief in the idea of climate change has been considerably reduced. However, most scientists within the field state that a 2°C change increase in atmospheric temperature as a result of human activities is an unavoidable fact. Any resistance within the public is viewed as a manifestation of denial. However, there are other groups of people who rationally acknowledge the analysis of climate change but still do not feel that they have enough control to enable them make any significant difference. According to Miltojevic & Ilic-Krstic (2011), the corporate world on its part believes that consumers find themselves helpless in relation to environmental degradation issues but will tend to respond to any engaging action which is likely to convert brands to have a more sustainable characteristic. When compared to the initial years of the effort, the current perception of sustainability has tended to embed itself much more into corporate thinking. For instance, in early 2011, Unilever, which is one of the leading Multinational Corporations, announced that it had come up with a Sustainable Living Plan which aims at reducing the impact of the company’s effect on the environment by half within the next ten years while doubling its sales simultaneously. In the earlier years, the sustainable movement objective sought to mostly cover the ecological aspect of the environment. With the passing of time, this however extended to others too. The same ecological drivers have been supplemented by economic and social ones (Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, 2010). According to Egelston (2007), ecological drivers have mainly been the attainment of protection of the atmosphere, an integrated approach in management and planning of land resources, better management of fragile ecosystems, conservation of bio-diversity, promotion of sustainable rural development, protecting seas, oceans, coastal areas and freshwater supplies and management of toxic wastes and chemicals. Advocates demand that systems should manage toxic chemicals in environmentally sound ways and also handle hazardous products, radioactive, sewage related and solid wastes in environmentally sound ways. The social component has included making major groups more effective in their efforts. This for instance involves supporting women, youth and children, indigenous people and communities, farmers, the scientific and technological communities. This is in addition to boosting the role of Non-governmental Organizations, local authorities, workers, trade unions, businesses and industries. The economic dimension has focussed on financial mechanisms and resource distribution, the transfer of environmentally sound capacity-building, cooperation and technology and the promotion of science towards enhancement of sustainable development. Efforts in this regard were aimed at the promotion public awareness, education and training while using international cooperation and national mechanisms in capacity building for sustainable agriculture and other economic activities within developing countries. There have been institutional arrangements within which international legal mechanisms and instruments have been used, especially with regard to trade (Gechev, 2005). The outcome of the environmental crisis has raised concern about the fundamental issues that define capitalism (Krishnamoorthy, 2008). According to Roosa (2010) for instance, in 2009, Jack Welch, a former Chief Executive Officer of General Electric declared that the sole focus on value creation for shareholders by businesses is the worst tragedy in corporate thinking. While the shareholder-oriented feature of capitalism still remains strongly entrenched in many areas, there is currently an expanding realization that focusing on short-term and narrow results will limit the prosperity and growth of businesses in the longer term. Developments in recent times have made it less difficult for firms to incorporate sustainability issues into their business activities. There is a rising public interest in the issue, especially in the developed nations and in addition to this, there has been the development of new processes and techniques for the measurement and reporting of sustainability. The global financial crisis has had a lot of effect on corporate strategy. According to Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen (2010), the Harvard Business Review published an article written by Mark Kramer and Michael Porter, both highly respected scholars. This advocated for a concept referred to as share value. This involves the creation of economic value in ways which will also result in the creation of value that will benefit the society through addressing its challenges and needs and challenges. The share value as a concept in the evaluation of business performance has started to gain support in many institutions. For instance, Unilever which has declared that it wants to continue for several centuries has opted to shift away from its emphasis on investor targets. Although at a gradual pace, the business value of sustainability is getting stronger and therefore gaining relevance rather than disappearing with time. As from the time of the Brundtland report and Rio Summit, sustainable development as a concept has evolved from the status of an interesting though at times controversial ideal to one which has achieved widespread endorsement within international institutions, civil society, governments and businesses (Miltojevic & Ilic-Krstic (2011). Egelston (2007) suggests that its almost universal acceptance as a guiding principle has been partly because of its flexibility. It has allowed stakeholders to modify it to be in line with their own purposes. However, this strength has also tended to be a liability as different interpretations have caused confusion and led to a compromising of implementation. Sustainable development has however, still been integrated into the governing and operations mandates of various major international organizations for instance the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization. According to Szabo (2011), the concept is part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which have received a wide endorsement by national governments. Sustainable development remains a current feature in the private sector, especially through Corporate Social Responsibility. Many voluntary initiatives have come up in the last two decades for instance the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Equator Principles, Global Compact, Global Reporting Initiative and Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Various international NGOs for instance Oxfam, Friends of the Earth and WWF have also raised their levels of involvement in the pursuit of sustainability as an ideal. Although there has been progress in acceptance, sustainable development’s implementation has not been totally successful especially in terms of policies and programs to enhance the lives of poor communities (Szabo, 2011). According to Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen (2010), many consensus-driven summits of the United Nations have led to broad goals and policies. These have been criticized as majorly being away from real-world policy. Implementation efforts have tended to take place within the atmosphere of market-based investment and mainstream economic approaches to planning, in a way which will not limit overall growth. Implementation has therefore not been able to surpass small incremental steps into real transformative action. There has been lack of leadership, with every sector waiting for the other, in the process limiting the ability to progress towards attainment of sustainable development. Politicians do not commit themselves to ensuring that commodity prices have higher costs in the interest of sustainable development, while consumers are not ready to pay extra costs. Businesses also do not lobby lawmakers to assist them raise costs (Strange & Bayley, 2008). Within developing countries, lack of adequate technological and financial resources and unfavourable terms of trade have limited sustainable development’s implementation. They lack enough access to the technology, with little infrastructural, resources, governance and business environment characteristics that can support effective stimulation of sustainable development. While strategies and plans are developed, the actions have not yielded fundamental changes, partly because actions tend to dwell more on environmental degradation’s s symptoms than the underlying sources of the problem. Policies and institutions that sought to deal with issues relating to sustainable development tended to be weak and directed towards addressing symptoms at the expense of sources. Sources are definitely within business and government tax, fiscal, budget, agriculture, trade and energy policies and the values which underlie them (Gechev, 2005). Egelston (2007) explains that in spite of challenges that have been faced, there has been considerable progress in metrics of sustainable development. Researchers in environmental organizations, universities, national governments and think tanks have strengthened the measures of sustainable development. There has been the development of indicators that supplement and strengthen the default measures of progress for instance the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Krishnamoorthy (2008) adds that in trying to offer a formal method of comparing companies and their impact, there has been the development of applications for instance the Natural Step and the Global Reporting Initiative which have gone a long way in making sustainability a more significant issue within investor and business communities globally. The indicators aim at reflecting a broader scope of the components of progress and try to refine the ideas of wealth, development and capital even further. Some of the measures include the Gross National Happiness Indicator developed in Bhutan and the Human Development Index by the United Nations Development Programme. While implementation remains a challenge, there is still some evidence of progress. According to Miltojevic & Ilic-Krstic (2011), there have been advances in poverty alleviation, as the world is generally on track towards the MDG goal of reducing the numbers of the absolute poor by half. This is however because of economic success within Asia, with little progress being visible in sub-Saharan Africa. The access to energy has witnessed improvement with electrification expanding in every developing region even though Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia lag behind. According to Strange & Bayley (2008), the environment has also become a topic with greater priority in business and governments than it was the case two decades ago. There are also efforts at integrating environmental aspects into economic policy making with greater effectiveness. For instance, there are legislative efforts in a number of developed nations aimed at pricing carbon, a rise in the recognition of the eco-system’s service value to communities and attempts at measuring progress made towards sustainable development. Climatic change and the environment have continued being rated as top concerns by citizens in several countries. From the study, one learns that sustainable development is about building communities so that everyone can be able to live comfortably while not consuming all the available resources. It is about having a longer term view of life. Human beings have a great impact on the environment due to the way that they live. In Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen (2010)’s view, leading sustainable lives implies leaving more of shared things such as energy, water, forests and cleaner air for future generations to enjoy too. While sustainable development establishes economic stability in the long-run, it does not generate short-term profits. It will be important for people to change habits in order to make sustainable development a norm rather than exception. Through cooperation within a framework of sustainable development, it is possible to achieve a green future. Some progress has been made in this regard and it is therefore possible to conclude that sustainable development is alive in society. Within the work setting, the implication is that there is need to pursue conservation at all times. Even if in small ways within the workplace, individual efforts are necessary because they make up community and by extension national and global efforts. Just like the public is supposed to push for enactment and implementation of environmentally sound national policies, an employee at the workplace should also advocate for changes in business and operational policy for everyone’s good. This is because according to Miltojevic & Ilic-Krstic (2011), business is one of the major players in the sustainable development agenda. Conclusion In conclusion, sustainable development as a concept can be traced back to the 1960’s movements against environmental degradation. Its actual existence as a phrase came up in is however in 1987 with the publishing of the Brundtland report. Sustainable development extends beyond only conservation of resources and covers the changing of culture in order to include conservation as part of it. Living sustainably implies only consuming the amounts that are actually needed while ensuring that there is no overconsumption that will make it difficult to replace. Some people really desire to live sustainably but cannot be able to because current business models are in favour of activities which do not consider future problems. Sustainable development is a strong social, economic and environmental issue that has gained acceptance and is getting stronger as a global issue. Bibliography Roosa, S, 2010, Sustainable Development Handbook, Fairmont Press: Lilburn Egelston, A, 2007, Sustainable Development: A History, Rutgers University Gechev, R, 2005, Sustainable Development: Economic Aspects, University of Indianapolis Press: Indianapolis Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, S, 2010, The United Nations and Global Energy Governance: Past Challenges, Future Choices, Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. 22 (2): 175-195 Krishnamoorthy, B, 2008, Environmental Management: Text and Cases, Prentice-Hall: New Delhi Miltojevic, V and Ilic-Krstic, I, 2011, Cultural Dimension of Sustainable Development as a Presumtion of Local Communities Development, Quality of Life, Journal of Food Science, Environmental Science & Public Health, Vol. 2 (1):33-37 Strange, T and Bayley, A, 2008, Sustainable Development: Linking Economy, Society, Environment, Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development: Paris Szabo, Z, 2011, Analysis of Research on Sustainable Development the Goals of Sustainable Development, Practical and Theoretical Framework in EU and Romania, Juridical Current, Vol. 14 (4): 253-261 Read More

It created computer simulations which predicted the effect of various changes and the interactions that were expected among variables such as pollution, population growth, resource depletion and food production. Although its methodology had many critics, the book nevertheless managed to greatly enhance awareness about environmental issues. By the early years of the 1970’s, there had been the setting up of various centres for the study of environmental issues worldwide. Within the discussed background, scientists and campaigners started establishing links between economic development and the environmental movement within the poorest countries of the world.

According to Strange & Bayley (2008), a new aspiration of assisting the countries to achieve growth in the long term in order to attain the satisfaction of human needs without creating negative environmental effects came up, and this would henceforth be referred to as sustainable development. In 1972, there was the Stockholm UN Conference on the Human Environment. This was notably the first ever full international conference dealing with the environmental question. In it, various delegates considered economic and environmental priorities as matters which needed to be handled simultaneously.

In 1980, the International Union of Conservation of Nature came up with the World Conservation Strategy which established a conceptual breakthrough by trying to join together development with environmental issues. Sustainable development as a phrase first made an appearance within the report subtitle. In 1987, there was another milestone in the effort. This came in the form of a United Nations- sponsored report named Our Common Future, in some circles also referred to as the or the Brundtland Report.

The document offered a definition of sustainable development as a feature that satisfies present needs without limiting future generations’ capabilities to live comfortably and achieve the same objectives too. With time, the sustainability movement continued expanding its scope and becoming stronger. Environmental campaigns no longer limited themselves to ecology but also started dealing with financial and social dimensions. For instance, there was the Rio Summit of 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, two concessions which addressed the broadest range of issues (Krishnamoorthy, 2008).

According to Szabo (2011) the Kyoto Protocol grew from the Rio Summit and the two notably created limits for greenhouse gas production by the participant countries. In addition, they set out clear foundations for a market within which emissions can be created, and these offer penalties and commercial incentives that are intended to shape corporate behavior across the world. Since then, there has been a merging of social, commercial and environmental concerns within the sustainable development movement, and this is referred to as a triple bottom-line means of corporate performance measurement.

An increasing number of corporations and other businesses started evaluating their success beyond the typical measurements that focused only on value creation for the benefit of shareholders. Through establishing a new orientation towards long-term measures and considering a wide range of externalities, the new approach tended to define a new way of measuring performance and conducting business in a responsible manner. However, while the new focus on sustainability started gaining strength, there’re was the appearance of conflicts between developing and developed countries’ understandings of sustainable development (Egelston, 2007).

Roosa (2010) elaborates that later, there was a clear friction between social developmental and environmental components of sustainable development, an issue which was broadly addressed during the International Copenhagen Summit. In recent times, there has been some opposition to the attainment of sustainable development. This mainly arises from a conflict that pits developed against developing countries with regard to ways through which their economies can work on the reduction of global emissions.

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