Sustainable Development Social Construct

Distinguished guests, my colleagues and all present, thank you very much for the
opportunity present this short paper.
With the entire world showing concern for the environment in the last two decades of the
20th century, the idea of sustainable development has become a theme common to much research
in the past few years. I take this opportunity to discuss, briefly, the concept of sustainable
development and highlight that development on a sustainable basis presents more of a social
problem rather than one that may be addressed by science alone.
Allow me first to present a short history of how this idea has emerged and developed.
he basic concept of !Development without destruction" was set out by #arbara Ward and
$ene Dubos in their book, Only One Earth: the Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet, in
%&'2. hey defined that humanity(s fundamental task is
!To devise patterns of collective behaviour compatible with the continued flowering of
civilizations."
)ince the release of the World *ommission on +nvironment and Development $eport,
commonly referred to as ,he #runtland $eport(, in %&-', the idea of sustainable development
has become the new global philosophy guiding advances in human welfare. he concept
incorporates economic and social development with an overriding concern for the protection of
the natural environment in the hope of preserving nature to enable future generations meet their
needs. he #runtland report defined the concept of sustainable development as.
!evelopment" that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs## $%CE!" &'():(*+
he *onvention on #iological Diversity /*#D0 is an international treaty that was adopted
at the +arth )ummit in $io de 1aneiro in %&&2. he *onvention laid down three main goals.
*onservation of biological diversity /or biodiversity02
)ustainable use of its components2 and
3air and e4uitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources.
his further was strengthened with the adoption of the Addis Ababa 5rinciples and
6uidelines on the )ustainable 7se of #iodiversity in 3ebruary 2008. In this conte9t, sustainable
use involves !the use of components of biological diversity in a way and at a rate that does not
lead to the long:term decline of biological diversity, thereby maintaining its potential to meet the
needs and aspirations of present and future generations."
And now I proceed to discuss the social construction of sustainability:
he differences in views about the meaning and value of sustainability are rooted partly in
different philosophical and moral conceptions of the appropriate way to conceive of the
relationship between humanity and nature. his means that what can and should be done to
achieve a sustainable society is not fundamentally a scientific or technical issue. And this in turn
has important implications for the way we conceive of the role of science, and indeed e9pertise
in general, in addressing these dilemmas.
In this way, the sustainability debate connects to a larger set of issues about science and
knowledge in modern society. In common with virtually every discipline in the social sciences
and humanities, debates over sustainability span a spectrum between an empirically based view
of science as, in the main, telling us true things about the real world, and a more skeptical, and
relativistic perspective that argues that scientific understanding is, to some degree at least,
socially constructed.
Without engaging with this general debate here, I want to suggest that the tension between
these two views must be addressed in any attempt to develop a viable sustainability strategy. In
this connection, the distinction made by ;ewby /%&&<0, between a more science:based and a
more problem:based approach to sustainability may be a useful way to conceive of this issue. As
argued elsewhere /*ohen et al., %&&-0, sustainability, unlike, say, climate change, is an inherently
problem:driven rather than scientific, concept.
=f course, good scientific analysis is crucial to addressing the problems of unsustainability.
We need to tap our best current understanding of how comple9 ecological, social and economic
systems interact, and what the likely implications of various forms of action are. >owever, in the
end, sustainability is ultimately an issue of human behavior, and negotiation over preferred
futures, under conditions of deep contingency and uncertainty. It is an inherently normative
concept, rooted in real world problems and very different sets of values and moral ?udgments.
And science itself is not entirely neutral with respect to some of these issues. hree conclusions
follow.
3irst, scientific analysis can inform, but not resolve the basic 4uestions posed by the
concept of sustainability.
)econd, scientific analysis itself embeds important value ?udgments and social
commitments which themselves must be open for e9amination and discussion.
3inally, other forms of knowledge /e.g. traditional environmental knowledge, various
forms of lay understandings of risk0 have important things to contribute to the
sustainability discussion.