| Date | Topic |
| WEEK 6 | The call for sustainable development reflects a more ecological approach to improving quality of life and habitat in the world's city-regions and their hinterlands. |
| Feb. 13 | The next industrial revolution; Is sustainable capitalism possible? BioDry movie clip 1. "Quite an operation" |
| Feb. 15 | Sustainable Development/ Natural Capitalism and technological optimism. Cities: The Front Lines in the Battle for Sustainability, Disasters, New Threats --Old Fears. |
Assigned Readings
O'Connor, M. (1994). Is sustainable capitalism possible? Is capitalism sustainable? political economy and the politics of ecology. M. O'Connor. New York, Guilford Press: 152-173.
(jump to notes below)
Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins (1999) Natural capitalism: creating the next industrial revolution. New York, Little, Brown and Company: 1-21. (jump to notes below)
Ravetz, J., Sustainable City-Region Working Group., et al. (2000). City-region 2020: integrated planning for a sustainable environment. London, Earthscan: Chap. 1. (jump to notes below)
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2006). The State of the World's Cities 2006/2007: The Millennium Development Goals and Urban Sustainability, 30 Years of Shaping the Habitat Agenda. Sterling, Va., Earthscan. Part III: 3.1-3.8.
RECOMMENDED NEWS CLIP: Pig farms
Topic introduction
The concept of sustainable development has changed the terms of debate about environment-development relations and the urban prospect. These changes are promising. "We have in the past been concerned about the impacts of economic growth upon the environment. We are now forced to concern ourselves with the impacts of ecological stress--degradation of soils, water regimes, atmosphere, and forests--upon our economic prospects" (WCED 1987:5). While the mainstream discussion about sustainability is promising, it still suffers from considerable confusion. Often there is a failure to distinguish between growth and development—but some scholars and activists are making considerable advances in conceptualizing the sustainability challenge and a new field of “sustainability science” has emerged. Across a wide range of fields, our understanding of how knowledge gets created, integrated, and shared is dramatically changing. These epistemological shifts—broadly defined here as movement towards more ecological approaches to knowledge production and management—are evident in academic domains including the social, natural, and life sciences; the humanities; computer science and engineering. It is also evident in professional domains involving business, government, and non-profit organizations.
O'Connor, M. (1994). Is sustainable capitalism possible? Is capitalism sustainable? political economy and the politics of ecology. M. O'Connor. New York, Guilford Press: 152-173.
O’Connor and other ecological marxists and ecosocialists argue that the prospects for a sustainable capitalism are dim. But there may be hope for some kind of ecological socialism--a society that pays close attention to ecology along with the needs of human beings in their daily life, as well as to feminist issues, antiracism, and issues of social justice and equality generally. Globally, it is around these issues that there is movement and organization, agitation and action .....Politically, this means that sooner or later labor, feminist, urban, environmental, and other social movements need to combine into a single powerful, democratic force--one that is both politically viable and also capable of radically reforming the economy, polity, and society. Individually, social movements are relatively powerless in the face of the totalizing force of global capital. With respect to defining sustainable development, O'Connor (1994: 153) notes:
There is a struggle, worldwide, to determine how "sustainable development" or sustainable capitalism will be defined in the discourse on the wealth of nations. This means that "sustainability" in the first place, is an ideological and political, not ecological and economic question.
O'Connor begins by looking at the problem from an epistemological perspective: i.e., a perspective that examines the basis of knowledge, how it is derived, validated and tested. This ties into one of the principal concerns of political ecologists--HOLISM.
O'Connor asks: Who would be against "sustainability?"
He then goes on to spell out three different meanings held by various actors
I. Earliest meaning of sustain: "support," "uphold the course of" or "keep into being"
What corporate chief, treasury minister, or international civil servant would not embrace this meaning?
II. Another meaning is "to provide with food and drink, or the necessities of life"
What underpaid urban worker or landless peasant would not accept this meaning?
III. Still another definition: "to endure without giving way or yielding."
What small farmer or entrepreneur does not resist "yielding" to the expansionary impulses of big capital and the state, and thereby take pride in "enduring"?
IV. He also notes a forth meaning of to sustain: that is, ecological sustainability.
O’Connor argues that ‘Defining sustain in these four ways, the short answer to the question "Is sustainable capitalism possible?" is "No," while the longer answer is "Probably not" (p. 154). He bases his argument on the observation that capitalism embodies two serious contradictions: (1) "internal" or first contradiction (related to demand) and (2) a second contradiction (stemming from a cost-side profit squeeze). The argument advanced is that capitalism cannot effectively deal with (resolve) these contradictions (p. 154).
Capitalism’s first contradiction: Demand Crisis
The first contradiction of capitalism (i.e., the realization or demand crisis) states that "when individual capitals attempt to defend or restore profits by increasing labor productivity, speeding up work, cutting wages, and using other time-honored ways of getting more production from fewer workers, meanwhile paying them less, the unintended effect is to reduce the final demand for consumer commodities. Fewer workers, technicians, and others in the labor process produce more, who by definition are able to consume less, absent a deflation of prices. Thus, the greater the produced profits, or the exploitation of labor, the smaller the realized profits, or market demand--all other things being equal. Of course other things are never equal: government budget deficits, mortgage and consumer credit, business borrowing, and an aggressive foreign trade policy, among other things may buoy up demand to keep capital "sustainable." (see section on poor prospects for international Keynesian, p. 160-161)
Capitalism’s second contradiction: Cost Crisis
"If the costs of labor, nature, infrastructure, and space increase significantly, capital faces a possible "second contradiction," an economic crisis striking from the cost side" (p. 162) (examples: wage advances in advance of productivity in the 1960s, oil shocks of the 1970s). Cost side crises originate in two ways:
I. "When individual capitals defend or restore profits by strategies that degrade of fail to maintain over time the material conditions of their own production, for example by neglecting work conditions (hence raising the health bill), degrading soils (hence lowering the productivity of land), or turning their backs on decaying urban infrastructure(hence increasing congestion costs)." (p. 162) "When individual capitals attempt to defend or restore profits by cutting or externalizing costs, the unintended effect is to reduce the "productivity" of the conditions for production, and hence raise average costs. EXAMPLES: permanent yield monoforests in Sweden were expected to keep costs down, but it turned out that the loss of biodiversity over the years has reduced the productivity of forest ecosystems and the size of the trees; the nuclear energy debacle, agriculture as an "adjunct to industry" and associated problems of top soil loss and contamination, etc.).
II. "When social movements demand that capital better provides for the maintenance and restoration for these conditions of life (e.g., demanding better health care, protesting the ruination of soils in the name of environmental protection, defending urban neighborhoods in ways that increase capital costs or reduce capital flexibility." (p. 162).
Following Marx, O’Connor spells out three conditions of production:
1. human labor power: the "personal conditions of production" (human labor power not only as a source of industrial labor power in wage work, but also as household labors, human reporduction, and non-commodity subsistence production (p. 7)
2. environment: the "natural or external conditions of production" (biogeophysical nature--the planet and its sources of raw materials, sink and habitat)
3. urban infrastructure/space--the "general, communal conditions of production." (this includes social infrastructure such as transportation, delivery of health care and educational services, law and order....p. 7; 163)
Conditions of production are treated as if they are commodities in capitalism even though they are not produced in accordance with the laws of the market. Hence they are referred to as "fictitious commodities" with "fictitious prices." The fictitious price of labor power is the wage rate (consider here the arguments about raising the minimum wage). The fictitious price of environmental and urban infrastructure/space is rent. (p. 163).
O’Connor (1994: 163) argues that sustainable capitalism "would require all three conditions of production to be available at the right time and the right place and in the right quantities and the right qualities, and at the right fictitious prices." But, he adds, serious bottlenecks in the supply of labor power, natural resources, and urban infrastructure and space make this unlikely.
Supply-side bottlenecks are especially vexing when the economy is weak. One response has been for capitalist ventures to abandon the "general circuit of capital" --"that is, the long and tedious process of leasing factory space, buying machinery and raw materials, renting land, finding the right kind of labor power, organizing and implementing production, and marketing commodities--and finds its way into speculative ventures of all kinds. Money capital, based on the expansion of credit, or money that cannot find outlets in real goods and services, jumps over society, so to speak, and seeks to expand the easy way--in the land, in stock and bond markets, and in other financial markets."
From C-M-C to M-C-M’ to M-M’
"Hence the present economic anomaly: the value of claims on the surplus or profits grows at the same moment that the real value of fixed and circulating capital stagnates or declines. This tends to make a bad economic situation worse, for it causes growing economic indebtedness and the danger of a financial implosion." (p. 164)
The capitalization of nature: a response to the cost crisis and limits of brute cost shifting
Notes from Martin O’Connor (1994) "On the Misadventures of Capitalist Nature."
From cost shifting to the capitalization of nature
What is cost-shifting? A systematic displacement of costs away from private capitalist enterprise onto the state and taxpayers, workers, the public at large, future generations, and non-human nature. Competitive enterprises will seek to lower input costs and to offload costs onto other parties (government, communities, future generations, etc) when profits and survival are under threat. (p. 8)
BUT THIS LEADS to the second contradiction of capitalism: "attempts by individual capitalist enterprises to maintain or improve profitability through free-riding on existing conditions of production (physical environment, labor, and social services and infrastructures) lead TO HIGHER COSTS OF PRODUCTION FOR CAPITAL AS A WHOLE." (p. 127)
Where cost shifting becomes impossible, an alternative tactic is the capitalization of the conditions of production. "This means designating as valuable stocks erstwhile "uncapitalized" aspects of the physical environment (nature) and of civil society (infrastructure, households and human nature) (p. 128).
The capitalization of nature: "the representation of the biophysical milieu (nature) and of nonindustrialized economies and the human domestic sphere (human nature) as reservoirs of "capital," and the codification of these stocks as property tradeable "in the marketplace"--salable at a price that signifies the value (utility) of the goods and services flows as inputs to commodity production and in consumption" (p. 126).
"From the point of view of capital, the delineation of clear "property rights" over natural domains facilitates their hightest value use. At the same time, local communities and social movements...may be enticed to cooperate, through representing them as the stewards of the social and natural "capitals" whose sustainable management is, henceforth, both their responsibility and the business of the world economy" (p. 128).
"More often then not this capitalization is not a signal of authentic respect and sustenance, but works instead as a vehicle for disappropriation, dispossession, and continued cost shifting on a huge scale" (p. 128).
Compare the household as an EXTERNAL DOMAIN with nature as an External Domain
At the turn of the industrial revolution (1800s) wages paid to industrial labor permitted bare survival in squalid conditions. "Neither industrialists not governments paid much attention to the conditions recruited for the regeneration of the labor force. The domestic/communal domain of human reproductive activity, and of regeneration of labor power more generally, was placed on the side of "nature." Relative to capital it was an external domain.
the same can be said of the environment: it has been an external domain:
"David Ricardo at the beginning of the 19th century had been able to write of the "indestructible" powers of the land, and to aver that: the brewer, the distiller, the dyer, make incessant use of their air and water fot the production of their commodities; but as the supply is boundless, they bear no price" (p. 3). Now, however, it is painfully clear that raw material and services (source, site, scenery, and sink) furnished by nature are not indestructible and/or nonscarce.
The capitalization of nature is a response to the cost crisis and second contradiction of capitalism. No longer does capitalism simple exploit better and more intensively a nature (and human nature) external to itself. "In what we might call the ecological phase of capital, the relevant image is no longer of man acting on nature to "produce" value, henceforth appropriated by the capitalist class. Rather, the image is of nature (and human nature) codified as capital incarnate , regenerating itself through time by controlled regimes of investment around the globe, all integrated in a "rational calculus of production and exchange through the miracle of a price system extending across space and time." (p. 131)
Check out this illustration: from
James Boyle Shamans, Software, and Spleens: Intellectual Property Rights in the Information Age.
The patented Harvard Mouse, a tansgenic species (part human blood) developed for purposes of drug and other types of scientific testing.
Recent controversy. Sick dude had his diseased spleen removed, doctors made a fortune tapping the genetic info embodied in the spleen--without the permission of the donor. They made some kind of medicine from the genetic code--the dude had a rare blood disorder. The dude found out and wanted some coin from the deal--after all wasn’t he the owner of the spleen. Not once it was discarded the judge decided. The spleen is "naturally occurring raw material" Scientists are artists/capitalist-entrepreneurs who should be allowed to control it/ reap profits from its exploitation; The genetic info in the spleen’s DNA becomes (human nature) becomes a commodity (nature becomes capitalized) human genes can be patented! What are the implications of this? Half chimp, half-human--can thread a needle, can work in garment sweatshop.
KPBS: biopirarcy (wheat from India now patented)
Hawken, Paul, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins (1999) Natural capitalism: creating the next industrial revolution. New York, Little, Brown and Company: 1-21. (pdf file)
Excert from the authors Web site where you can read parts of the book on-line
"For decades, environmentalists have been warning that human economic activity is exceeding the planet's limits. Of course we keep pushing those limits back with clever new technologies; yet living systems are undeniably in decline.These trends need not be in conflict—in fact, there are fortunes to be made in reconciling them.
Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins, is the first book to explore the lucrative opportunities for businesses in an era of approaching environmental limits.
In this groundbreaking blueprint for a new economy, three leading business visionaries explain how the world is on the verge of a new industrial revolution—one that promises to transform our fundamental notions about commerce and its role in shaping our future. Natural Capitalism describes a future in which business and environmental interests increasingly overlap, and in which businesses can better satisfy their customers' needs, increase profits, and help solve environmental problems all at the same time.
Natural capital refers to the natural resources and ecosystem services that make possible all economic activity, indeed all life. These services are of immense economic value; some are literally priceless, since they have no known substitutes. Yet current business practices typically fail to take into account the value of these assets—which is rising with their scarcity. As a result, natural capital is being degraded and liquidated by the wasteful use of such resources as energy, materials, water, fiber, and topsoil.
The first of natural capitalism's four interlinked principles, therefore, is radically increased resource productivity. Implementing just this first principle can significantly improve a firm's bottom line, and can also help finance the other three. They are: redesigning industry on biological models with closed loops and zero waste; shifting from the sale of goods (for example, light bulbs) to the provision of services (illumination); and reinvesting in the natural capital that is the basis of future prosperity.
Citing hundreds of compelling stories from a wide array of sectors, Natural Capitalism shows how these four changes will enable businesses to act as if natural capital were being properly valued, without waiting for consensus on what that value should be. Even today, when natural capital is hardly accounted for on corporate balance sheets, these four principles are so profitable that firms adopting them can gain striking competitive advantage—as early adopters are already doing. These innovators are also discovering that by downsizing their unproductive tons, gallons, and kilowatt-hours they can keep more people, who will foster the innovation that drives future improvement.
Natural Capitalism's preface states: "Although [this] is a book abounding in solutions, it is not about 'fixes.' Nor is it a how-to manual. It is a portrayal of opportunities that if captured will lead to no less than a transformation of commerce and of all societal institutions. Natural capitalism maps the general direction of a journey that requires overturning long-held assumptions, even questioning what we value and how we are to live. Yet the early stages in the decades-long odyssey are turning out to release extraordinary benefits. Among these are what business innovator Peter Senge calls 'hidden reserves within the enterprise'—'lost energy,' trapped in stale employee and customer relationships, that can be channeled into success for both today's shareholders and future generations. All three of us have witnessed this excitement and enhanced total factor productivity in many of the businesses we have counseled. It is real; it is replicable…"
Book Excerpts and Downloadable Chapters
naturalcapitalism.org is published by Rocky Mountain Institute.
1739 Snowmass Creek Road | Snowmass, CO 81654-9199 | Ph: 970.927.3851
Copyright 2003–2004. All Rights Reserved.
Excerpts from chapter 1:
The traditional definition of capital is accumulated wealth in the form of investments, factories, and equipment. Actually, an economy needs four types of capital to function properly:
human capital, in the form of labor and intelligence, culture, and organization
financial capital, consisting of cash, investments, and monetary instruments
manufactured capital, including infrastructure, machines, tools, and factories
natural capital, made up of resources, living systems, and ecosystem services
The industrial system uses the first three forms of capital to transform natural capital into the stuff of our daily lives: cars, highways, cities, bridges, houses, food,medicine, hospitals, and schools.
CONVENTIONAL CAPITALISM
- Economic progress can best occur in free-market systems of production and distribution where reinvested profits make labor and capital increasingly productive.
- Competitive advantage is gained when bigger, more efficient plants manufacture more products for sale to expanding markets.
- Growth in total output (GDP) maximizes human well-being.
- Any resource shortages that do occur will elicit the development of substitutes.
- Concerns for a healthy environment are important but must be balanced against the requirements of economic growth, if a high standard of living is to be maintained.
- Free enterprise and market forces will allocate people and resources to their highest and best uses.
CAPITALISM AS IF LIVING SYSTEMS MATTERED
Natural capitalism and the possibility of a new industrial system are based on a very different mind-set and set of values than conventional capitalism. Its fundamental assumptions include the following:
- The environment is not a minor factor of production but rather is “an envelope containing, provisioning, and sustaining the entire economy.”
- The limiting factor to future economic development is the availability and functionality of natural capital, in particular, life-supporting services that have no substitutes and currently have no market value.
- Misconceived or badly designed business systems, population growth, and wasteful patterns of consumption are the primary causes of the loss of natural capital, and all three must be addressed to achieve a sustainable economy.
- Future economic progress can best take place in democratic, market-based systems of production and distribution in which all forms of capital are fully valued, including human, manufactured, financial, and natural capital.
- One of the keys to the most beneficial employment of people, money, and the environment is radical increases in resource productivity.
- Human welfare is best served by improving the quality and flow of desired services delivered, rather than by merely increasing the total dollar flow.
- Economic and environmental sustainability depends on redressing global inequities of income and material well-being.
This book introduces four central strategies of natural capitalism that are a means to enable countries, companies, and communities to operate by behaving as if all forms of capital were valued.
1. RADICAL RESOURCE PRODUCTIVITY.
Radically increased resource productivity is the cornerstone of natural capitalism because using resources more effectively has three significant benefits: It slows resource depletion at one end of the value chain, lowers pollution at the other end, and provides a basis to increase worldwide employment with meaningful jobs. The result can be lower costs for business and society, which no longer has to pay for the chief causes of ecosystem and social disruption. Nearly all environmental and social harm is an artifact of the uneconomically wasteful use of human and natural resources, but radical resource productivity strategies can nearly halt the degradation of the biosphere, make it more profitable to employ people, and thus safeguard against the loss of vital living systems and social cohesion.
2. BIOMIMICRY.
Reducing the wasteful throughput of materials— indeed, eliminating the very idea of waste—can be accomplished by redesigning industrial systems on biological lines that change the nature of industrial processes and materials, enabling the constant reuse of materials in continuous closed cycles, and often the elimination of toxicity.
3. SERVICE AND FLOW ECONOMY.
This calls for a fundamental change in the relationship between producer and consumer, a shift from an economy of goods and purchases to one of service and flow. In essence, an economy that is based on a flow of economic services can better protect the ecosystem services upon which it depends. This will entail a new perception of value, a shift from the acquisition of goods as a measure of affluence to an economy where the continuous receipt of quality, utility, and performance promotes well-being. This concept offers incentives to put into practice the first two innovations of natural capitalism by restructuring the economy to focus on relationships that better meet customers’ changing value needs and to reward automatically both resource productivity and closed-loop cycles of materials use.
4. INVESTING IN NATURAL CAPITAL.
This works toward reversing worldwide planetary destruction through reinvestments in sustaining, restoring, and expanding stocks of natural capital, so that the biosphere can produce more abundant ecosystem services and natural resources. All four changes are interrelated and interdependent; all four generate numerous benefits and opportunities in markets, finance, materials, distribution, and employment.Together, they can reduce environmental harm, create economic growth, and increase meaningful employment.
Kodiak, Alaska --Bio Dry case study illustrations of industrial ecology
Bio Dry (Kodiak, Alaska, Seafood Waste Processing Plant) power point file, biodry.ppt
Bio Dry movie: Old abandoned plant 1: dryer explosion.mpg
Bio Dry movie: Old abandoned plant 2: maggot room.mpg
Salmon unloading from truck: fishflow_alaska.MPG
Ravetz, J., Sustainable City-Region Working Group., et al. (2000). City-region 2020: integrated planning for a sustainable environment. London, Earthscan: Chap. 1.
Sustainability in cities and regions is the key agenda for the new millennium. But what is a sustainable city and how can it achieve the necessary balance between social, economic and environmental goals for both present and future generations? City-Region 2020 offers a vision for how things can and should change - a direction of travel towards the future. (From the Foreword by Michael Meacher MP UK Secretary of State for the Environment.)
Drawing from the most comprehensive and detailed case study project ever undertaken on sustainable development at the city and regional scale, this leading-edge publication translates principles into practice for the sprawling post-industrial conurbation of Greater Manchester. It sets a standard for the integrated strategic management of cities and regions, with methods and tools such as sustainability indicators and appraisals that can be applied anywhere in the western world.
This valuable guide presents: a 25-year horizon for the evolution and restructuring of the urban system * a focus on linkages and synergies between economic, social and environmental sectors * technical scenarios for land use, energy and material flows * spatial scenarios for each area and settlement type * lateral thinking on cultural, informational, localization and globalization trends * and practical actions for national and local government, business, the voluntary sector and the public. It is a unique landmark for the new urban and regional agenda.
Source: SANDAG 2004, Regional Comprehensive Plan
Background information on sustainable development
Over the past two decades, thousands of academics, researchers and activists from around the world have churned out a vast literature analyzing diverse, often conflicting, theories and practices of “sustainable development.” Much of this work calls for balancing the so-called 3 Es of sustainability: Equity, Economic efficiency and Environmental stewardship. The grist for this analytic mill continues to pile up. A wide range of actors—including governmental, corporate, non-profit, grassroots, religious, tribal, and all sorts of combinations of these—are engaged in projects and policy-making ostensibly aimed at promoting sustainability. The theatre for these efforts spans geographic scales (local, regional, national, city-region, transborder, global). The formal and informal institutional drivers are also varied—including government agencies, social movements, public-private sector collaboratives, corporate associations, international and regional institutions, networks, research-based consortia, among others.
EARTH SUMMIT
In June 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), known as the Earth Summit, took place in Rio de Janiero. The 12 day Conference was the largest the UN has ever held. Robinson (1993: xiii) notes that it was attended by 116 Heads of State or Government, 172 States, 8,000 delegates, 9,000 members of the press and 3,000 accredited representatives of non-governmental organizations.
On June 14, 1992, three landmark documents were adopted at the Earth Summit by consensus: the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, and the Statement of Principles on Forests. The Rio Declaration, makes "eradicating poverty a global goal, and adopts the notion that those who pollute--rich nations, mostly--should pay for the cleanup, then help poor countries improve their standards of living in environmentally sound ways" (Smith, Carey, Hong, 1992: 71). Agenda 21 is an 800 page document that specifically outlines over 120 initiatives to be put into motion between now and the year 2000. It includes measures to cut energy use, protect ocean resources, promote sustainable agriculture, and control toxic wastes.
The Preamble of Agenda 21 begins with the following statement:
Background notes on Sustainable Development
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (WCED, 1987: 43).
Usage of the sustainable development concept now suggests how the lessons of ecology can, and should, be applied to economic processes--both locally and globally. During the late 1960s, as MacNeil, et al., (1991) point out in their book, Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World's Economy and the Earth's Ecology, environmentalists understood their challenge to be primarily one of cleaning up the mess left by two decades of rapid and unrestricted postwar growth. Professionals tended to view the environmental costs of development, as external to development, to be dealt with by measures external to development. In other words, environmental concerns were viewed largely as an "add-on" to development, seldom as an integral "build-in." MacNeil, et al. (1991) note that "This mind set was pervasive and became reflected in add-on institutions promoting add-on policies often requiring add-on technologies. The environment debate thus focused mainly on the adverse impacts of development on the environment; the impacts of a degraded environment on the prospects for development were largely ignored" (p. 21). The concept of sustainable development has shifted attention to this latter concern. In the landmark publication on this subject, Our Common Future, the WCED points out:
We have in the past been concerned about the impacts of economic growth upon the environment. We are now forced to concern ourselves with the impacts of ecological stress--degradation of soils, water regimes, atmosphere, and forests--upon our economic prospects. We have in the more recent past been forced to face up to a sharp increase in economic interdependence among nations. We are now forced to accustom ourselves to an accelerating ecological interdependence among nations. Ecology and economy are becoming ever more interwoven--locally, regionally, nationally, and globally--into a seamless net of causes and effects. (WCED, 1987: 5)
This can be represented as:
D--------> E
E -------->D
The multiple goals of sustainable development as applied to cities
Source: Diana Mitlan and David Satterthwaite, Cities and Sustainable Development, the background paper to Global Forum '94, Manchester City Council and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), June 1994.
MEETING THE NEEDS OF THE PRESENT....
* Economic needs - includes access to an adequate livelihood or productive assets; also economic security when unemployed, ill, disabled or otherwise unable to secure a livelihood.
* Social, cultural and health needs - includes a shelter which is healthy, safe, affordable and secure, within a neighborhood with provision for piped water, sanitation, drainage, transport, health care, education and child development. Also a home, workplace and living environment protected from environmental hazards, including chemical pollution. Also important are needs related to people's choice and control - including homes and neighborhoods which they value and where their social and cultural priorities are met. Shelters and services must meet the specific needs of children and of adults responsible for most children rearing (usually women). Achieving this implies a more equitable distribution of income between nations and, in most, within nations.
* Political needs - includes freedom to participate in national and local politics and in decisions regarding management and development of one's home and neighborhood - within a broader framework which ensures respect for civil and political rights and the implementation of environmental legislation.
......WITHOUT COMPROMISING THE ABILITY OF FUTURE GENERATIONS TO MEET THEIR OWN NEEDS
* Minimizing use or waste of non renewable resources - includes minimizing the consumption of fossil fuels in housing, commerce, industry and transport plus substituting renewable sources where feasible. Also, minimizing waste of scarce mineral resources (reduce use, re-use, recycle, reclaim). There are also cultural, historical and natural assets within cities that are irreplaceable and thus non-renewable - for instance, historic districts and parks and natural landscapes, which provide space for, play, recreation and access to nature.
* Sustainable use of finite renewable resources - cities drawing on freshwater resources at levels which can be sustained (with re-cycling and re-use promoted). Keeping to a sustainable ecological footprint in terms of land area on which city-based producers and consumers draw for agricultural and forest products and biomass fuels.
* Biodegradable wastes not overtaxing capacities of renewable sinks (e.g. capacity of a river to break down biodegradable wastes without ecological degradation)
* Non-biodegradable wastes/emissions not overtaxing (finite) capacity of local and global sinks to absorb or dilute them without adverse effects (e.g. persistent pesticides, greenhouse gases and stratospheric ozone-depleting chemicals).
Source: Diana Mitlan and David Satterthwaite, Cities and Sustainable Development, the background paper to Global Forum '94, Manchester City Council and International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), June 1994.
Below is an image I created that adapts the work of Satterthwaite and Friedmann:
Click here or the image itself for a larger version.
HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SUSTAINABILITY MOVEMENT
UN CONFERENCE ON THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
In 1972 in Stockholm, the United Nations held the first international conference on the environment, which brought together the industrialized and developing nations to delineate the "rights" of the human family to a healthy and productive environment. From this event, the United Nations Environment Programme was developed.
WORLD COMMISSION ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
The World Commission on Environment and Development, or Brundtland Commission named after its chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, was formulated in 1987 by an urgent call from the UN General Assembly to create a "global agenda for change." The assigned task was to propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond, find ways of cooperation between nations for mutally supportive objectives, consider ways the international community can deal more effectively with environmental concerns, and define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues. In its final report, "Our Common Future," the Commission agreed on an analysis, broad remedies, and recommendations for a sustainable course of development.
UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 1992
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), or Earth Summit, was an unprecedented international meeting of delegations from 178 countries, heads of state of more than 100 countries, and representatives of more than 1,000 non-governmental organizations or NGOs that took place in June, 1992, in Rio de Janeiro. Its purpose was to develop a global consensus on measures needed to balance development pressures against an increasingly imperiled global environment. Its mandate was to define plans of action for achieving a future that is environmentally sound and equitable between nations and peoples as well as generations, to elaborate strategies and measures to halt and reverse the effects of environmental degradation, and to strength national and international efforts to promote sustainable and environmentally sound development in all countries.
The following five major agreements are associated with UNCED:
Agenda 21 - a broad, 40-chapter statement of goals and potential programs related to sustainable development;
The Rio Declaration - a brief statement of principles on sustainable development;
The Biodiversity Treaty - a binding international agreement aimed at strengthening national control and preservation of biological resources;
The Statement of Forest Principles - a non-binding agreement on development, preservation, and management of the Earth's remaining forests;
The Framework Convention on Climate Change - a binding international agreement that seeks to limit or reduce emissions of gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane, associated with the potential for global warming.
UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) is an inter-governmental body of the United Nations established in 1993 that meets annually to review progress at the international, regional and national levels in the implementation of recommendations and commitments contained in the final documents of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). It elaborates policy guidance and options for future activities to follow up UNCED and achieve sustainable development, and promotes dialogue and builds partnerships for sustainable development with governments, the international community and the major groups identified in Agenda 21.
JOHANNESBURG SUMMIT 2002
Johannesburg Summit 2002 – the World Summit on Sustainable Development – brought together tens of thousands of participants, including heads of State and Government, national delegates and leaders from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses and other major groups to focus the world's attention and direct action toward meeting difficult challenges, including improving people's lives and conserving our natural resources in a world that is growing in population, with ever-increasing demands for food, water, shelter, sanitation, energy, health services and economic security. When the United Nations General Assembly authorized holding the World Summit on Sustainable Development, it was hardly a secret— or even a point in dispute— that progress in implementing sustainable development has been extremely disappointing since the 1992 Earth Summit, with poverty deepening and environmental degradation worsening. What the world wanted, the General Assembly said, was not a new philosophical or political debate but rather, a summit of actions and results.
The World Development Report 2003: Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World (a copublication of the World Bank and Oxford University Press) ponders our opening theme and asks:
How can productive work and a good quality of life be provided for the 2.5–3 billion people now living on less than $2 a day (and the 3 billion people likely to be added to developing countries by 2050) in an environmentally and socially sustainable way?" World Development Report 2003 asks where problems and opportunities are likely to arise,why they arise, and how the problems can be solved—in different settings (on fragile lands, on relatively favored agricultural lands, and in urban areas) and at different scales (local, national, and global). World Development Report 2003 examines the relationship among competing policy objectives—reducing poverty, maintaining growth, improving social cohesion, and protecting the environment—over a 50-year horizon." For a useful summary of Achievements and Challenges in this regard, click here.
World Urban Forum II 2004 13-17 September 2004, Barcelona, Spain
Main Web site: http://www.unhabitat.org/wuf/2004/
Selections:
- Report of the Second Session of the World Urban Forum (updated 1 November 2004).
- Dialogues (complete set of reports, pdf 1.4m),
- Web site with all dialogues as seperate pdf files, click here.
- Dialogue on urban sustainability (Environment, economy, society: commitment to a
culture of partnerships for sustainable urbanization). - Dialogue on Urban Renaissance (The evolving city: New powers for local governments
in a globalizing world) - UN-Habitat The Habitat Agenda in the Urban Millennium
World Urban Forum III 2006 Vancouver, June 19-23
http://www.unhabitat.org/wuf/2006/default.asp
"The World Urban Forum was established by the United Nations to examine one of the most pressing issues facing the world today: rapid urbanisation and its impact on communities, cities, economies and policies. It is projected that in the next fifty years, two-thirds of humanity will be living in towns and cities. A major challenge is to minimize burgeoning poverty in cities, improve the urban poor's access to basic facilities such as shelter, clean water and sanitation and achieve environment-friendly, sustainable urban growth and development.
The World Urban Forum is a biennial gathering that is attended by a wide range of partners, from non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, urban professionals, academics, to governments, local authorities and national and international associations of local governments. It gives all these actors a common platform to discuss urban issues in formal and informal ways and come up with action-oriented proposals to create sustainable cities.
The third session of the World Urban Forum (WUFIII) will be hosted by the Government of Canada. It will take place in Vancouver, Canada, from 19 to 23 June 2006 and have as its main theme, Our Future: Sustainable Cities – Turning Ideas into Action.
The number of people attending the World Urban Forum has risen sharply from 1,200 at the first World Urban Forum in Nairobi in 2002, to 4,400 at the second World Urban Forum in Barcelona in 2004. " (excerpt from WUF web site).
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (2006). The State of the World's Cities 2006/2007: The Millennium Development Goals and Urban Sustainability, 30 Years of Shaping the Habitat Agenda. Sterling, Va., Earthscan. Part III: 3.6-3.8.
3.6 Cities: The Front Lines in the Battle for Sustainability
3.7 Double Jeopardy: The Impact of Conflict and Natural Disasters on Cities
3.8 Urban Insecurity: New Threats, Old Fears
Pollution and Sustainability, select details in pdf format
Conflict and Natural Disaster, select details in pdf format
New Threats, Old Fears, select details in pdf format
New Orleans: Poor residents suffer deepest impact of Hurricane Katrina, select details in pdf
LETTER TO ALL BY CHIEF SEATTLE
