By Paul Fitzgerald
The sustainable development debate was embraced in government and business circles because it was seen as a way to appropriate environmental concern and incorporate it into the capitalist industrial paradigm.
It serves only to confuse the issues and obscure the real questions.
The first confusion is over the word "development". In their document Ecologically Sustainable Development, the environmental lobby groups (Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace, the Wilderness Society and World Wide Fund for Nature) use Herman Daly's definition of development as "qualitative improvement" as opposed to growth which is "quantitative increase in physical scale".
But surely context makes meaning. In the context of a discussion about "appropriate development" for Third World countries, the word "development" refers to putting effort and resources into ventures that will enable people to provide their basic needs for themselves and to change from an export-orientation to a self-sufficiency orientation.
It has a very different meaning in the context of a discussion about "sustainable development" in a developed country.
In the Australian context, for all practical intents and purposes, "sustainable development" means "sustainable growth". In business and in policy-making circles, and in the community at large, development is synonymous with economic growth.
And economic growth is not sustainable. If it continues, any reduction in pollution per unit of output, and any energy conservation measures, will never be enough. This is because of what I think of as the "Trainer equation". It goes like this: because of the exponential nature of growth, even if we cut the amount of pollution per unit of production by 30%, but continue with growth at just 3% per annum, then in only 13 years we will again be producing as much pollution as before the cut. That's because the growth of production is exponential but the cut in pollution is not. The same principle is true for energy conservation measures.
By talking politely about economic growth, the lobby groups are tacitly implying acceptance of the unacceptable. By saying it's a red herring (which they do!) they are allowing industry and government to interpret them as being in favour of economic growth.
What's behind this so-called debate is not the extent to which the environment is degraded or the urgent need to do something about repairing it. The driving force is the perceived need of industry for quick decisions. The business lobby wants "clear and consistent guidelines" that have been laid down in advance. But the more use that is made of "clear and consistent guidelines", the greater will be the restrictions on information, genuine debate and public participation in decision-making.
The focus of the debate needs to shift to a discussion about real sustainability. We need to start talking about redefining "work", irection of decentralisation and increased levels of self-sufficiency (without losing sight of the problems of regional inequality), the application of already existing "low tech" technology, and the possibility of a non-growing economy.
I believe that the ecologically sustainable society must be a socialist society of some sort. But it also must have a non-growing economy. For a socialist to believe that a country such as Australia should pursue economic growth, the following beliefs would have to be held:
- That the average per capita production and consumption is too low to permit a good life. (This would mean ignoring the fact that the wealthiest 5% of Australians hold 50% of the private wealth and it would mean ignoring the potential of redistributive measures.)
- That the desirable higher levels of production and consumption are possible for everyone, everywhere (for socialists surely cannot pursue wealth that depends on continuing inequalities in resource use).
- That the expanded global production and consumption would be indefinitely ecologically sustainable.