What Is Sustainability?

There is a need to retrieve “Sustainability” and the various words associated with it from the ubiquity that has destroyed their conceptual clarity, argues Venkataraman Ganesh, reporting from the United Nations General Assembly – Economic and Social Council (UNGA-ECOSOC). Is it possible to bring conceptual clarity back to the term?

It is widely felt today that “sustainability” and the various words associated with it have become ubiquitous to the point that there is little conceptual clarity on what the term means. In a way, it has become a fashionable trend today to attach the word “sustainable” before nearly everything (sustainable transport, sustainable communities, sustainable housing, sustainable economic growth), and this loss in conceptual clarity, along with the word’s perceived misuse, has been received with alarm in some circles[i]. Is this a bad thing, though?

In their book What is Sustainable Technology?, Mulder, Ferrer, and Lente argue that the vagueness of the concept is important, as it helps emphasize the inter-connection of the many challenges that the world faces. Mulder et al. do not mind the proliferation of the word “sustainability”: they argue that it is precisely this that ensures that the objectives of “sustainability” are met while allowing for a variety of paths to achieve the same. What is needed is an understanding of what broadly constitutes this idea of sustainability – the common minimum goals that different articulations must agree to in order to be deemed an articulation of sustainability.

Usage of the word Sustainability over time

Engaging in a Foucauldian analysis of sustainability and tracing its genealogy is one way of trying to understand what the concept of sustainability really means. A search of Google Books NGram viewer for the usage of the word sustainability shows that the word seems to have come into existence in the mid-1970s. The word “sustainable” was first used in modern English language in The Limits to Growth, a seminal work commissioned by the Club of Rome, an influential global think-tank[ii]. However, the principle of “continuously enduring and sustainable use” was first discussed in Hans Carl von Carlowitz’s Sylvicultura oeconomica in the year 1713[iii]. A mining official in Saxony, Carlowitz was worried by the rampant cutting of trees for the firewood that ran smelters – a process that had left large tracts of Saxony treeless. Carlowitz advocated what is today called sustainable yield forestry, and it is in his work that the German word for “sustainable”, nacchaltig makes an appearance for the first time. The next major articulation of sustainability was made comparatively recently. Defining sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need”, the Brundtland Commission’s report is noteworthy for its linkage of environmental protection, economic growth, and social equity. The report forcefully argued that unless poverty was eradicated, sustainability could not be achieved, and this, coupled with its broad definition of sustainable development, ensured that sustainability and sustainable development were catapulted into the limelight. The Brundtland Commission’s definition had something for everyone – it was a definition that nearly all stake-holders could relate to. This inclusivity, however, was criticized as it was felt that the Commission’s definition of sustainability had made the word sustainability ubiquitous to the point of meaninglessness. It is this lack of conceptual clarity that we need to overcome. What are the broad contours of sustainability?

There are four major aspects that must be incorporated into the definition of sustainability. The ideas of intergenerational justice and respect for the bearing capacity of the ecosystem are the substance of the concept as posited by Carlowitz. It is important that these two aspects be made the cornerstone of any definition of sustainability. A definition of sustainability will also need to incorporate the question of time horizon – are we looking at sustainability over the next 100 years or the next 1000 years? Intergenerational Justice doesn’t answer that. The final and the most important aspect that must be a part of a definition of sustainability would be the scale at which the question of sustainability is being considered. Are we looking at sustainability of a city, a district, or a state? The three visions of sustainability that would be put-forth while examining each of these different scales may not necessarily overlap. A sustainable city may not lead to a sustainable country; it is, hence, important to ensure that the question of scale is addressed adequately.

To conclude, a broad contour of sustainability would include the concepts of intergenerational justice, the carrying capacity of the ecosystem, the time horizon, and the scale that one considers for evaluating sustainability. Furthermore, in the opinion of the writer, social equity and economic growth are the preserves of governance and law – not sustainability. For instance, the construction of dams often displaces already marginalized people. Does this single fact alone make construction of dams unsustainable? It does not. It is the duty and the obligation of the state and its various institutions to ensure that justice is delivered. Failure of the state machinery to resettle displaced people points to a problem with law enforcement, and it is important that this distinction between sustainability and governance be maintained.