Two Faces of Sustainability

As we noted here before, “sustainability” is one of those concepts that’s easy to abuse. I often wonder how the term can mean much of anything at all if a small-scale organic agriculture movement like Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and mega-corporations like Monsanto or Alcoa can also use it. Richard Heinberg notes in his book Peak Everything that some environmentalists are just abandoning using the term “sustainability” for that very reason. But we have some trust that it means something.

So we’ve taken a little time looking at a couple of major writings in the history of sustainability and tried to understand the tension in the word. They are the World Commission on Environment and Development’s (WCED) Our Common Future and the Earth Charter and then David Orr’s examination of “technological sustainability” and "ecological sustainability." 

Before we go on, we should note that most everyone involved with sustainability hold a few things in common. First, they recognize that a growing population using more materials will escalate human-caused environmental problems. Ehrlich and Holdren's I=P*A*T is essentially true (if inexact). Second, there are many human-caused social problems like disease and poverty that are often interlinked. Third, there are also many human-caused environmental problems like climate change, ocean acidification, toxification of air, land, and water, deforestation, mass extinction, and soil erosion. Fourth, social and environmental problems can, do, and will compound one another. Fifth, and finally, humans are intelligent moral creatures who can solve or ameliorate these problems. The difference is in how. So it's no wonder that we end up with different versions of sustainability. What should we sustain after all?

"Technological sustainability" is more or less synonymous with "sustainable development" as defined in Our Common Future. That document states:

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

• the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
• the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.

The WCED clarifies its meaning for development, "Development involves a progressive transformation of economy and society." Most corporate and governmental approaches to sustainability take this tack. As our Melissa Patterson says, "Sustainable development is intended to appeal to both environmentalists and economists. It is supposed to be a cross between furthering ourselves in economic growth while moving towards sustainable living. This approach involves a top-down approach that is very policy-oriented." Ryan Walker notes "[sustainable development] provides options that want to bring developing countries up to the level of developed countries so that the global economy remains strong." It is a technocratic and technological approach built on the assumption that technological progress is real progress.

“Ecological sustainability" has more in common with The Earth Charter and certainly with the local grassroots initiatives like Slow Food, the Transition Towns, and the work of places like the Post Carbon Institute (where David Orr and Richard Heinberg are fellows). As such, Orr emphasizes different relationships with technology, new forms of technology that require less elaborate maintenance, and lower material input. These might be tools and technologies Ivan Illich would call tools for conviviality. Gabrielle noted that in contrast to technological sustainability, the Earth Charter and ecological sustainability value indigenous peoples because their generations of wisdom and spiritual knowledge of how to live sustainably and provide for well-being. "Their lifestyles are something to be admired as well as mimicked during this struggle for a new sustainable world," she said.


One author we read, former New York Times science writer and DotEarth blogger Andrew Revkin, wrote, "Sustain what?" In an interview, he said the following:

That is always the question. Sustainability as a word is utterly vague until you apply it to a specific issue–sustainable ecosystem, sustainable energy system, sustainable transportation system, sustainable lifestyle. Then you can kind of get an answer. So sustainability is a trait, and not a fact, and yes, that is really what it is all about.

So our question is "Can we sustain the developed status quo, indigenous people, and the environment?"