What is Sustainable Development?

by David Julain

Language can both help us see and also blind us. With out the means to communicate we would not be able to form societies or exchange ideas. Yet we can also be led believe that once a word or phrase has been used enough, the idea that it represents becomes an accepted fact. This is dangerous.

Consider the phrase "sustainable development". The dictionary defines sustain as to 'be able to carry weight..to keep from falling..endure with out giving away' This suggests a force against with which something is continually resisting. Development on the other hand means to 'unfold.. become bigger, more complex' Together the phrase tells us that something is going unfold or get bigger for a long period of time against some force.

This is not our every day understanding of this phrase. Those that have come across it probably have some fuzzy notion of an enterprise that is in some way environmentally sensitive. Very often 'sustainable development' is applied to any commercial activity that may have some vague concession to the environment. In the context of economics, sustainability often simply means to be able to sustain profits. Of course the enlightened economist would see that to do this the underlying social and environmental foundations must be stable.

There is also another type of development. Biological development.. the gradual unfolding of life. To sustain biological development requires a delicately maintained environment. One that precariously exists on earth, and that does not appear to exist on any other planet in our solar system. The climatic, and chemical balance of the earth is finely tuned to sustain biological development, against the inhospitable background of outer space.

Much economic development, however, upsets this fine balance. Consider the damaging effects of chemical intensive agriculture on soils, or the damage done to water ways in urban areas. The force that sustains this type of economic development appears to act as a force opposing biological development. We are led to the conclusion that sustainable development, in this narrow interpretation is impossible.

At this point we need to remind ourselves of the meaning of the word 'economy' .. the administration or conditions of concerns and resources of a community. Human economic activity is about meeting human needs for food, shelter etc. from a finite pool of resources. When an economy stops doing this it has failed by its very definition. Arguably the global economy is at this precipitance.

There is another important component to development. Social and cultural development, the unfolding of ideas, technologies and societies. If we do not nurture the social aspiration of individuals, then this too becomes a force that opposes true sustainable development. We have seen the destructive consequence of social un-development in the form of war, terrorism and political mischief.

It is clear we need to sustain our economy. Yet this is only going to happen if we maintain the biological productivity of the earth. The old economy is based very much on fossil fuels, non renewable resources and environmentally destructive industries. We can improve our quality of life, through our economies resource production and exchange, only by first sustaining biological, social and cultural development.

David Julian