Unformatted Attachment Preview
4
Sustainability and
Responsibilities
to the Future
in som
intuitively
tainable
A simple
Putting
only the
savings
geting
princip
palang
incom
spent
event
goos.
Simil
tion
eati
ints
rig
pr
th
m
e
793
DISCUSSION: Sustainability: Fad or Future?
It would be difficult to find almost any commission that studied questions of
institution in contemporary culture that economic development, environmental
has not in some way attached itself to the protection, and future generations in the
idea of sustainability. We find sustain- 1980s. Named for its chairman, former
able" used to modify: agriculture, archi- Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem
tecture, business, buildings, construction, Brundtland, the Brundtland Commission
communities, consumerism, development, focused on long-term strategies that
economics, ecosystems, forestry, market- might help nations achieve economic
ing, investing, transportation, and on and development without jeopardizing the
on. The concept of sustainability is every earth's capacity to sustain all life. The
where. Thousands of corporations, for Brundtland Commission published its
example, have replaced the traditional
findings in 1987 in a book titled Our
corporate annual report with an annual
Common Future, which offered what has
sustainability report. But one should be
become the standard definition of sus-
leery when any idea is so ubiquitous,
tainable development: sustainable
especially when it was originally intro
development is development that meets
duced as a critical alternative to the status
the needs of the present without
quo. Has "sustainability" lost its meaning?
compromising the ability of future gen-
Is it only a passing fad, or worse, is it a
erations to meet their own needs."
smokescreen behind which anything
Beginning with this report, the concept of
goes?
sustainability and sustainable develop
As most commonly used today, the
ment has guided much of the world's
concept of sustainability is about 30 years
thinking about global economic growth
old. It is traced to a United Nations
and development
74
CHAPTER 4 SUSTAINABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE FUTURE
75
In some ways, sustainability is an
intuitively clear idea. A practice is sus
tainable if it can continue indefinitely
A simple example comes from finance
Putting money into savings and spending
only the interest generated from those
savings exemplifies a sustainable bud.
geting practice. Spending down the
principal, as well as spending the princi
pal and the interest, is unsustainable. The
income will decrease as the savings are
spent, and thus the income will run out
eventually. Aesop's fable about the
goose that laid the golden egg captures a
similar insight. Limiting your consump-
tion to the golden eggs is sustainable;
eating the goose itself is not.
Sustainability also has a certain ethical
intuitiveness. As discussed in Chapter 2,
rights are sometimes explained in terms of
protecting those central human interests
that we identify as needs. In this sense, we
might explain human rights in terms of
every person having a right to what she
needs. Therefore, the Brundtland Com-
mission's definition of sustainability seems
simply to assert that this same human
right should be extended not only to
every person presently alive, but to future
generations as well. Sustainability in this
sense seems just another way to say that
equal opportunity should extend to
people not yet living.
Similarly, the Brundtland Commission's
economic goal had a certain intuitive
appeal. Economic development as prac-
ticed throughout the twentieth century, if
not throughout most of human history,
treated the productive capacity of the
earth as if it were infinite. But in the late
twentieth century, all signs are that
human consumption is approaching the
limits of that productive capacity. It is as if
we are beginning to look hungrily at the
goose itself rather than just at its eggs.
The Brundtland Commission's call for sus
tainable development, rather than simple
unrestricted growth, was a call for us to
dial back on both the quantity and quality
of our consumption
Sustainability is thus often character
ized in terms of three fundamental cate-
gories, frequently called the three pillars
of sustainability or the triple bottom
line." Sustainability has an economic
dimension that concerns production and
distribution of goods and services to meet
human needs. Economic sustainability
implies that we not use productive
resources, such as capital, labor, and nat-
ural resources at rates faster than those at
which they can be replenished. But sus
tainability also has both an environmental
dimension and ethical dimension that
restricts this economic activity to activities
that do not degrade the biosphere in such
a way that people are denied in the future
an equal right to meet their own needs.
There are three pillars of sustainability
economic, environmental, and ethical.
From one perspective, the explosion of
attention now paid to sustainability is
good news. The optimistic view is that
people worldwide have understood the
call to sustainable practices and that
global economic development is evolving
in a way that is promising for the future.
The hopes that were implicit in the
Brundtland report seem to be coming to
fruition. But skeptics remain unconvinced.
Some who are sympathetic to the goals
of Brundtland Commission, interpret the
universal attention to sustainability and
the explosion of businesses and countries
that now identify with sustainability as an
indication that something is amiss. To
understand this skepticism we should ask,
"What is being sustained?" It seems clear
that some who have jumped on the sus
tainability bandwagon believe that the
status quo is what we should sustain. To
commit to sustainability means that I
commit to finding ways to keep doing
what I am doing. But, if sustainable
development was introduced as an alter-
native to the status quo, if the present
patterns of consumption, production, and
growth are what has led to the present
predicament in which we find ourselves
bumping up against the limits of growth,
then it should be clear that not everything
that we are presently doing can be
"sustained." Some critics, for example,
would argue that sustainability cannot be
applied to the consumption patterns of
industrial societies such as the United
States, or to an energy industry built on
fossil fuels. Finding consumer giants such
as Walmart, or oil companies such as BP,
claiming allegiance to sustainability
76
PART II ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AS APPLIED ETHICS
solar, which will create a market for
solar, which in turn will creative et
ciencies that will drive down the price
of solar.
From this perspective, the only
resource we should value without hesit
tion is human creativity and ingenuity.
Importantly, these human characteristics
are likely to flourish more in a society
which is prospering, a society in which
education and technology are expanding,
a society which uses its resources for
today, rather than saving them for
tomorrow, so that we create added
incentives and opportunities for creative
solutions to today's problems. In short, we
could best serve future generations by
using our resources at present to support
the most vibrant and creative society
possible.
convinces these critics that the concept
has been severely corrupted.
In a similar vein, other critics claim
that sustainability is unjust if it implies
that the path to economic development
enjoyed by the western industrialized
countries is no longer open to the devel-
oping world. If sustainability means sus-
taining the status quo for the present
alignment of the world's economies, then
countries such as China, India, Brazil,
Pakistan, Russia, and Indonesia decidedly
are not in favor of sustainability. These
critics interpret the West's call for sus-
tainable development as the rich telling
the poor that they should be satisfied
with what they have and find another
way to prosperity.
Other critics doubt the very founda-
tions of the sustainability movement. Sus-
tainability is built on the assumptions that
there are limits to growth, that we have a
responsibility not to put future genera-
tions at a disadvantage in meeting their
needs, and that the best way to fulfil that
responsibility is to adopt policies that limit
growth. Each of these assumptions can be
challenged.
The sustainability movement takes as a
given the assumption that resources are
limited. But some argue that this misre-
presents the nature of resources. Human
beings do not value natural resources for
their own sake, but for the services that
they provide to us. There is no value in oil
itself, for example; oil is valued only in so
far as it can be used to provide us with
energy for transportation, electricity, and
heat. If we discover some substitute for
oil, solar power for example, then all the
oil reserves in the world will lose their
value. In economic terms, natural
resources are fungible; their value is
equal to whatever substitute they can
be traded for. Economics teaches us that
as the supply of one resource declines,
its price will increase which, in turn, will
provide greater incentives for human
creativity to find a substitute. For
example, as the supply of oil declines, its
price will rise, which will make alterna-
tive energy sources such as solar power
more competitive. Eventually, the cost
differential will shift demand from oil to
DISCUSSION TOPICS:
1. Can you think of a business or industry
that is not sustainable? Why do you
think it is not? How could it be made
sustainable?
2. Should present generations sacrifice
for the well-being of future genera-
tions? Why or why not? Does
posterity have rights, and do we have
duties to people who do not even
exist?
3. Do all presently living people bear the
same degree of responsibility to future
generations, or does that vary
depending on such things as wealth
or citizenship?
4. Do you consider your own lifestyle,
or the lifestyle of your family.
sustainable?
5. It is obvious that people can have such
emotions as love, empathy, and
compassion, and that they can be
motivated to help, their children and
grandchildren. It is also understand-
able that we might feel such emotions
for, and be motivated to help people
living in distant lands, even if we don't
know them personally. But can we feel
such emotions for, and be motivated
to help people living in distant future
generations?