Sustainable Development: Environmental Policies and Social Justice
The Debate on Sustainable Development and Environmental Policies
A New Stage of Conflict: Similarities and Differences in the Debate on Sustainable Development
The paradigm called “sustainable development” starts from a doubly problematic situation:
- The worsening of global-scale environmental problems and the awareness that there are limits imposed by “environmental compatibility.”
- The intensification of social imbalances between North and South.
The concept of “Sustainable Development” will create a new scenario (cognitive and international) of confrontation between different social development strategies, which consist of the following:
- The production and consumption patterns in industrialized countries have reached their limits of environmental tolerance.
- The growing gap between North and South is responsible for serious environmental damage at the regional level.
As for the solutions, there seems to be a general consensus:
- Certain limits of tolerance and regenerative capacity should not be exceeded.
- Certain criteria of “generational justice” will have to be fulfilled.
- Only those strategies that link the ecological aspects of economic and social development can provide adequate solutions to the problem of “sustainable development.”
Four Lines of Sustainable Development Discourse
The interpretation of nature has two variants in the sustainability debate:
- Nature is reduced to a simple production function (natural capital). Nature is, to a large extent, replaceable by artificial capital (money and technology).
- Nature is a global agent of ecological and social functions. In addition to the production side, cultural and environmental elements are considered.
Four theoretical trends can be differentiated:
- Business as Usual: Nature is considered to have a productive role in economic development. Sustainable development is reduced to “sustainable growth.”
- Green Economy/Ecological Modernization: This discourse rejects the idea that natural capital can be replaced by artificial capital.
Its starting point is the environment as an area of use. Failure due to overexploitation and pollution is related to the problem of “collective good.”
Spoilage costs are externalized and come back with a positive sign in the GNP as repair costs.
A decisive improvement in the condition of the resolution of the problem is the “collective good” through the internalization of negative externalities (environmental costs). This strategy promotes the dissociation of growth, the waste of resources, and material-intensive consumption → “efficiency revolution.”
- Structural Greening: A structural change in the lifestyle of the West, both in production and consumption patterns, will allow for sustainable development. This discourse not only takes into account the stress limits of the medium but also global issues of social justice.
- Traditionalism/Modernism: Modern Western civilization and its instrumental relationship with nature are the causes of evil.
Sustainable development is the preservation or restoration of traditional cultures that have for centuries lived in harmony with nature and are based on biocentric and religious cooperation.
Operational Concept of Sustainable Development
Sustainability implies three general rules of environmental management:
- The rate of exploitation of renewable resources should not exceed their rates of regeneration.
- Non-renewable resources could be used only to the extent they are offset by the creation of new renewable resources and increased productivity of resources.
- The rate of harmful emissions will not exceed the processing capacity of the environment.