SUSTAINABILITY IN THE 1980s

Sustainable development

In the 1980s the idea that continuous economic growth could not be eco­logically sustainable was replaced by the notion of 'sustainable develop­ment', which argued that ways could be found to sustain economic growth without creating too much pollution or environmental degradation.

The environmentalists of the 1970s had used the term 'sustainability' to refer to systems in equilibrium: they argued that exponential growth was not sustainable, in the sense that it could not be continued forever because the planet and its resources were finite. In contrast, sustainable development sought ways to make economic growth sustainable, mainly through technological change. In 1982, the British government began using the term 'sustainability' to refer to sustainable economic expansion rather than sustainable use of natural resources.

Many of the ideas associated with sustainable development were articulated in the 1980 World Conservation Strategy (cited in the Introduction), which argued that while development aimed to achieve human goals through the use of the biosphere, conservation aimed to achieve those same goals by ensuring that use of the biosphere could continue indefinitely. National conservation strategies based on this World Conservation Strategy were adopted in 50 countries. The Australian National Conservation Strategy, like many others, argued that development and conservation were different expressions of the one process and that economic growth could be achieved through a more appropriate use of resources. It called for sustainable modes of develop­ment, a new international economic order, a new environmental ethic and population stabilisation (DHAE 1984) - but the World Conservation Strategy and its national equivalents had little impact on the wider public or on national policies.

In the mid-1980s, however, the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED 1990) rejuvenated the concept of sustainable development in its report Our Common Future (also referred to as the Brundtland Report, after the commission's chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who was prime minister of Norway at the time). In October 1987, the goal of sustainable development was largely accepted by the governments of one hundred nations and approved in the UN General Assembly.

The Commission defined sustainable development as 'development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'.

Promoting economic growth

In the foreword to the report Bruntland said, 'What is needed now is a new era of economic growth - growth that is forceful and at the same time socially and environmentally sustainable' (WCED 1990: xvi). This call for economic growth was made in the name of the developing coun­tries, but the notion that affluent nations might reduce their own growth to make room for the growth of poorer nations was not entertained. Jim MacNeill (1989: 106), secretary-general to the Brundtland Commission, argued that:

the most urgent imperative of the next few decades is further rapid growth. A fivefold to tenfold increase in economic activity would be required over the next 50 years in order to meet the needs and aspi­rations of a burgeoning world population, as well as to begin to reduce mass poverty. If such poverty is not reduced significantly and soon, there really is no way to stop the accelerating decline in the planet's stocks of basic capital: its forests, soils, species, fisheries, waters and atmosphere.

Although the Brundtland definition of sustainable development is the one that is most often quoted, there are many other definitions of sus­tainable development, and while it has been argued that interest groups define sustainable development to suit their own goals, they are nearly all premised on the assumed compatibility of economic growth and envi­ronmental protection.

Sustainable development aims to achieve economic growth by increasing productivity without increasing natural resource use too much. The key to this is technological change. The Australian Commission for the Future (Commission for the Future 1990: 27) argued:

Rather than growth or no-growth, as the debate about environment and development has sometimes been cast, the central issue is what kind of growth. The challenge of sustainable development is to find new products, processes, and technologies which are environmen­tally friendly while they deliver the things we want.

Instead of being the villains as they were in the 1970s, technology and industry were now seen to provide the solutions to environmental prob­lems. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC 1990) launched a Business Charter for Sustainable Development that stated:

Economic growth provides the conditions in which protection of the environment can be achieved, and environmental protection, in balance with other human goals, is necessary to achieve growth that is sustainable.

In turn, versatile, dynamic, responsive and profitable businesses are required as the driving force for sustainable economic development and for providing managerial, technical and financial resources to contribute to the resolution of environmental challenges..

Business thus shares the view that there should be a common goal, not a conflict, between economic development and environmental protection, both now and for future generations.

The conflict between economic growth and environmental protection was thus being denied, even when energy use per unit of GDP began to increase again in the late 1980s. The concept of sustainable development enabled a new breed of professional environmentalists to partner with economists, politicians, business people and others to achieve common goals rather than confronting each other over whether economic growth should be encouraged or discouraged. By avoiding the debate over limits to growth, sustainable development provided a compromise that on the face of it suited everyone.

More radical environmentalists continued to resist this win-win mentality, Wolfgang Sachs (1992b: 21), for example, arguing that by 'translating an indictment of growth into a problem of conserving resources, the conflict between growth and environment has been defused and turned into a managerial exercise' that forces development planners to consider nature.