The fact that sustainable development rests on an ethical statement, moral imperatives, and theories does not bring us much further though. Although that fact is an important fi rst step towards fi nding what we treasure – or, as Daly (2007) puts is, what is to be sustained – we must be more specifi c about what we want to treasure. Thus, we must turn to the problem of defi ning sustainable development’s indicanda. However, rather than using the term indicanda, we will from now on use the term ‘themes’, because it resonates more nicely with everyday vocabulary and is more frequently used in the academic literature.
Regarding sustainability themes, it is important to distinguish between ‘key sustainability themes’ and ‘any other sustainability themes’. Thus, we include only themes that theories from chapters 2–4 regard as the most important ones. We call those the key themes. Indeed, some of the vagueness that many scholars have attributed to the concept of sustainable development is a result of wanting it to cover everything that is good and desirable, and thus they have not made a necessary prioritization among the themes. Thus, themes must be ranked according to importance: the most important ones, which we call key, and other themes, which we call secondary. The diff erence between a key theme and a secondary theme is that whereas the former is fundamental in achieving sustainable development, the latter is not. This is not to say the secondary themes are unimportant, rather that they are subordinated to the key themes. Thus, unless key themes are addressed, whatever else we do proves insuffi cient. To use Rawls’ terminology, all key sustainability themes have ‘lexical priority’ over all other sustainability themes. This is an order that requires that we satisfy the key themes in the ordering before we
satisfy the secondary themes (and the secondary before we consider the tertiary, etc.). A theme does not come into play until higher ones are either fully met or do not apply. A lexical ordering avoids, then, having to balance themes at all; those earlier in the ordering have an absolute weight, so to speak, with respect to later ones, and hold without exception.
To illustrate our claim, we go back four decades to a rather heated debate in planning research. In 1973 an article entitled ‘If planning is everything, maybe it’s nothing’ appeared in the journal Policy Sciences. The article, by Aaron Wildavsky (1973), provided provocative reading for planners of that period. Wildavsky argued that the planner had become the victim of planning; his own creation had overwhelmed him because planning had become so large and complex that planners could no longer control its dimensions. Moreover, planning extended in so many directions that the planner could no longer shape it: ‘He [the planner] may be economist, political scientist, sociologist, architect or scientist. Yet the essence of his calling – planning – escapes him. He fi nds it everywhere in general and nowhere in particular. Why is planning so elusive?’ (ibid., p. 127).
About a decade later, Wildavsky got a fi erce reply from Ernest Alexander in Town Planning Review (Alexander, 1981): ‘If planning isn’t everything, maybe it’s something’. He took up the cudgels for planners and others associated with planning. Alexander felt that for too long he and his colleagues had failed to articulate a reasoned response to Wildavsky, because the article’s provocative title and deliberately polemic style made its unpleasant conclusions easy to dismiss: ‘This last audience, of planners and people involved in planning, is the most important one for Wildavsky’s argument. Unfortunately, in dismissing it, either through ignorance or through apathy, we may have thrown the baby out with the bathwater’
(ibid., p. 131).
The link between the contemporary debate about the content and policy implications of sustainable development on the one hand and the planning controversy four decades ago on the other is relevant. There is every reason to believe that sustainable development is about to become, like planning did, everything (remember the all-inclusive UN SDGs). Thus, sustainable development has increasingly been presented as a pathway to all that is good and desirable in society. Thus, the parallel to Wildavsky’s concern is all too relevant. The concept of sustainable development has become so large and complex that decision-makers can no longer control its dimensions (though we must give the UN credit for trying). Moreover, the concept extends in so many directions that decision-makers can no longer shape it. Not surprisingly therefore, as we mentioned in the introduction of this book, a number of scholars argue that the concept of sustainable development is about to become, if it has not already become, a useless concept.
However, as Alexander stressed in his heroic defence of his profession, it is unquestionable that sustainable development is something. We use the term ‘key themes’ to separate the important ‘somethings’ of sustainable development from the ‘everythings’. So what do the theories from chapters 2–4 tell us about sustainable development’s somethings?
Satisfying human needs
Using diff erent concepts, most theories on satisfying human needs start by laying out conditions for preventing poverty and deprivation. Maslow (1943) puts physiological needs, that is, physical requirements for human survival, at the bottom of his well-known pyramid. Max-Neef (1991) develops a theory of human needs in which he identifi es fundamental human needs. Doyal and Gough (1991) argue that physical health and autonomy are the basic needs which humans must satisfy to avoid serious harm. Rawls (1999) suggests that there are primary goods that people should rationally want, whatever else they want. We always want liberty, opportunity, and money (the primary goods), supposes Rawls, as all-purpose means to our personal ends in life. Our Common Future (WCED, 1987) urges all nations to focus their eff orts on eliminating poverty and satisfying essential needs.
And UN SDG 1.1 aims to eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere by 2030.
A theory on satisfying human needs contains, however, more than merely ways of preventing poverty and deprivation. Indeed, Our Common Future argues that in addition to basic needs people have legitimate aspirations for an improved quality of life. Doyal and Gough acknowledge that even their basic-needs approach is about more than mere survival. To do well in their everyday lives, they argue, people must do much more than survive. Amartya Sen (2009) seems to agree. He argues that seeing people’s needs only as basic needs gives a rather meagre view of humanity. In Monitoring Global Poverty, the World Bank (2017) suggests a twin goal of ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity.5 Thus, a theory of satisfying human needs must go beyond the basic-needs approach. A richer approach is called for. Indeed, one can argue that a meaningful life begins where basic needs end.
We acknowledge that a theory of human needs must be richer than one solely focusing on survival and preventing poverty and deprivation, and this introduces us to theories on human development. This makes sense. After all, we are talking about sustainable development. Alkire (2010) argues that most of the academic literature on human development now focuses on the capability approach. Thus, the capability approach is the main philosophical and theoretical foundation for the concept of human development, which inevitably includes the concept of human needs. The capability approach has been pioneered by Amartya Sen and others and has more recently been further developed by the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum and others. Sen (2009) contrasts the capability approach to the utility- based or resource-based lines of thinking. The capability approach acknowledges that quality of life should be judged by a person’s capability to do things that he or she has reason to value.
The capability approach acknowledges though that some capabilities are more critical than others. Sen (1987) refers to basic capabilities, which are the basics considered necessary for survival and to avoid or escape poverty or other serious deprivations. Nussbaum (2000) argues that basic capabilities are necessary for
developing the more advanced capabilities. Hence, while the notion of capabilities refers to a very broad range of opportunities, the concept of basic capabilities refers to the real opportunity to avoid poverty or to meet or exceed a threshold of wellbeing (Robeyns, 2011). Thus, a theory of human needs can be seen as a two- stage process. First, persons must be provided with the means and opportunities to prevent poverty and deprivations. Second, persons must be provided with an enhanced set of capabilities to do things they have reason to value.
Thus, the key sustainability themes for the imperative of satisfying human needs are:
• eradicating extreme poverty
• enhancing human capabilities.
Ensuring social justice
Injustice, whether experienced personally or by people around us, is something we strongly respond to at a very early age (Sen, 2009). Thus, although people might disagree about what justice is and how it should guide practical life, we all seem to have a capacity for a sense of justice. Rawls refers to this capacity as one of our moral powers. To ask whether a society is just is to ask how it distributes the things we prize – income and wealth, duties and rights, powers and opportunities, offi ces and honours. A just society distributes these goods in the right way; it gives each person his or her due. The hard questions begin when we ask what people are due, and why.
Starting with social contract theory, Rawls develops a theory of justice that he calls ‘justice as fairness’ (Rawls, 1999). In a purely hypothetical situation he places people in an original position behind a ‘veil of ignorance’ to agree upon principles of justice which are those free and rational men would accept. He argues that people in the original position would choose two principles of justice.6 The fi rst principle is often referred to as the liberty principle. Part (a) of the second principle is often referred to as the diff erence principle, and part (b) the fair opportunity principle.
Maff ettone (2010) argues that the liberty principle is particularly important in social justice, and that participation is a particular feature of this liberty.
Correspondingly, we argue that the liberty principle is particularly important in sustainable development. Maff ettone further argues that the fi rst principle implies a principle of equal participation. Participation, he says, ‘takes place in the traditional constitutional context through the democratic election of a representative body with extensive legislative powers’ (ibid., p. 63).7
The right to vote is an important part of participation. However, we need an understanding of participation that in two senses is ‘richer’ than ‘seen in terms just of ballots and elections’ (Sen, 2009, p. 326). First, though ballots have an important role, they can be seen as just one part of the participation process. The eff ectiveness of ballots themselves ‘depends crucially on what goes with balloting’ (ibid., p. 327).
Indeed, balloting can be thoroughly inadequate on its own, as is amply illustrated by the astonishing electoral victories of ruling tyrannies. This understanding of participation was acknowledged in Our Common Future: ‘participation requires a political system that secures eff ective citizen participation in decision making’
(WCED, 1987, p. 65). Thus, participation in itself is not enough, but must be embedded in a system that makes it possible to transfer individual voices into action. In this sense, participation is a central part of governance, which in its broadest sense refers to ‘the intersection of power, politics and institutions’ (Leach et al., 2010, p. 65). Second, participation of the ‘low voices’ should be given particular attention. Such voices include poor people, nature, and future generations. Whereas poor people have a low voice, nature and future generations have no voice at all; they are what Meadowcroft (2012) refers to as ‘absent constituents’.
There are three additional reasons to include rich participation in our defi nition of social justice. First, rich participation acts as a safety valve against political neglect in following up the imperative of ensuring social justice (Sen, 2009). Second, rich participation enables collective processes of monitoring, refl ection, debate, and decision that establish the goals to be pursued (Meadowcroft et al., 2005). Thus, rich participation can infl uence norms and values, and can make acceptable any necessary changes in unsustainable policies and practices. Third, we acknowledge the ‘pervasive demands for participatory living’ around the world (Sen, 2009, p. 322).
Sen and Rawls both underscore the link between justice, participation, and democracy. Rawls sees the central ideas and aims of his justice-as-fairness conception as those of a conception for a constitutional democracy. Sen argues that there is an intimate connection between justice and democracy.
Notwithstanding the importance of the liberty and opportunity principles, justice relates closely to how we distribute wealth and income in society, making Rawls’ diff erence principle, which regulates the primary goods of income and wealth, particularly relevant. Sen argues that although justice is not the same as equality, justice is closely related to the concept of equality. Sen is arguing neither for equality of welfare nor for equality of capability to achieve welfare. Still, Sen argues that every normative theory of social justice demands equality of something – something that is regarded as particularly important in that theory. Rawls too regards equality as a central part of social justice. Although his diff erence principle does not require an equal distribution of income and wealth, its underlying idea expresses a powerful, even inspiring vision of equality (Sandel, 2009).
Ultimately, conceptions of social justice concern two questions: Who gets what? and Says who? Ideas of democratic, ‘rich’ participation and of equal (or fair) distribution of primary goods come close to answering those questions.8
Thus, the key sustainability themes for the imperative of ensuring social justice are:
• ensuring rich participation
• ensuring fair distribution.
Respecting environmental limits
To respect environmental limits, we need to know the current status of global natural capital, how humans interact with and depend on these resources, and how to make policy decisions when the environmental problems to be solved are complex and decisions (including to do nothing) have uncertain and possibly irreversible consequences.
Presently, the most promising take on identifying and quantifying environmental limits is the ‘planetary boundary approach’, an approach that originated from a group of researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm Environment Institute, and the Tọllberg Foundation (Rockstrửm et al., 2009; Steff en et al., 2015). These researchers have identifi ed nine planetary boundaries that defi ne a safe operating space for humanity with respect to Earth’s systems. Two of these boundaries, climate change and biosphere integrity, are what the researchers call
‘core boundaries’. Each of the two core boundaries has ‘the potential on its own to drive the Earth system into a new state should they be substantially and persistently transgressed’ (Steff en et al., 2015, p. 1).
Neoclassical economics is designed to examine how scarcity of resources should aff ect human decisions (Backhouse & Medema, 2009). A central insight is that there are mutual gains from transactions, and that, in a perfect market, the allocation of resources will be ‘Pareto effi cient’, meaning that nobody can become better off without making someone else worse off . If, however, a transaction imposes costs on people who are not part of the exchange, such as the emission of carbon dioxide into the air, the people who generate such ‘negative externalities’ should pay a fee refl ecting the costs they impose on others. This type of fee is known as a Pigovian tax (Pigou, 1932).
However, traditional neoclassical economics may not adequately deal with complex interactions in the biosphere. The theory is based on the assumption that natural capital and other forms of capital are substitutable and can therefore be expressed in one unit, either utility or monetary. To maximize utility, the various forms of capital should be allocated so that the marginal costs of production equal the marginal benefi ts from the goods and services consumed. This kind of marginal approach may be less suited to address complex ecosystems where marginal changes may result in non-marginal and irreversible damage to ecosystems, habitats, and other critical components of natural capital.
A promising alternative to the utility-based neoclassical economics framework is the asset-based approach to natural capital (see, for example, Ekins, 2014; Helm, 2015). Whereas the standard economic approach is to sustain ‘utility’ from consuming products and services, the natural capital approach is to sustain the
‘capital’ that can generate future products and services. This approach leads to a discussion of what part of how much natural capital should be sustained for the future – all of it or part – and results in the notions of strong and weak sustainability (Pearce et al., 1990; Turner, 1993; Neumayer, 2013). Environmental economists, using the natural capital approach, argue that on aggregate, renewable natural
capital should not decline over time, and that special attention should be paid to maintain the ‘critical natural capital’ necessary for essential ecosystem services (Ekins, 2014; Helm, 2015). Ecological economists argue that because the biosphere is fi nite, the growth of physical throughput cannot be sustained indefi nitely, and that economic growth must be reduced (Daly, 2007).
Environmental policy decisions may have uncertain, irreversible, non-linear, and long-term consequences. Pindyck (2007) demonstrated how these characteristics make conventional cost–benefi t analysis based on expected values less suitable for environmental policy issues, and concluded that using an option analysis approach, which incorporates these characteristics, will result in an environmental policy that is often more ‘precautionary’ in the sense of favouring earlier and more intense intervention.
Many environmental decision-making problems, such as mitigating climate change and safeguarding biosphere integrity, are characterized by radical uncertainty where decision-makers are not able to know all of the possible outcomes of a decision. Emissions of greenhouse gases to levels with which we have no prior experience and depletion of important ecosystems like the rainforests are examples of such decisions. In these cases, we cannot derive optimal decision rules based on probability distributions of outcomes and options theory. One way to proceed is to apply the ‘safe minimum standard of conservation’, according to which all projects and decisions that could entail species extinction should be rejected.
Closely related to this standard is ‘the precautionary principle’ as referred to in the 1992 Rio Declaration: ‘Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientifi c certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost- eff ective measures to prevent environmental degradation.’9 As Martin Weitzman has argued in several infl uential papers on environmental risk (e.g., Weitzman, 2009), if there is a signifi cant chance of utter catastrophe, that chance – rather than what is most likely to happen – makes the most powerful case for strong climate and environmental policies.
Keeping these concepts and approaches in mind, the key sustainability themes for the imperative of respecting environmental limits are:
• mitigating climate change
• safeguarding biosphere integrity.
Having fi nished step 3 by deriving six key sustainability themes from theories laid out in philosophical texts on needs and justice, and from recent scientifi c insights on environmental limits, our model for sustainable development now looks like fi gure 5.3.