Sociology. Anthony Giddens
made a significant impact on public debate and environmental activism. It made many more people aware of the damaging consequences of industrial development and technology, as well as warning about the perils of allowing pollution to increase. The report was an important catalyst for the modern environmental movement (for a wider discussion, see chapter 20, ‘Politics, Government and Social Movements’). Twenty years later, the team published Beyond the Limits (1992), an even more pessimistic report, castigating the world’s politicians for wasting the time, arguing that ecological ‘overshoot’ was already occurring. Then, in 2004, their 30-Year Update was released, arguing that, although some progress had been made in environmental awareness and technological development, the evidence of global warming, declining fish stocks, and much more, showed a world ‘overshooting’ its natural limits. This conclusion was also that of the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board of 2005, which is tellingly titled Living Beyond our Means. The basic conclusion from the original Limits report and its updates continues to resonate.
Following the publication of Our Common Future, ‘sustainable development’ came to be widely used by both environmentalists and governments. It was employed at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and has subsequently appeared in other meetings organized by the UN, such as the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. Sustainable development is the overarching UN framework covering a series of seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) goals for the period 2015 to 2030, including the elimination of poverty and hunger, gender equality, clean water and good sanitation for all, responsible consumption and production, protecting life on land, and taking action on climate change (UN 2019b).
For more on the global development, see chapter 6, `Global Inequality’.
Critics see the concept of sustainable development as too vague, neglecting the specific needs of poorer countries. It has been argued that the concept tends to focus attention only on the needs of richer countries; it does not consider how high levels of consumption in the more affluent countries are satisfied at the expense of people in developing countries. For instance, demands on Indonesia to conserve its rainforests could be seen as unfair, because Indonesia has a greater need than the industrialized countries for the revenue it must forgo.
Linking the concept of ecological sustainability to that of economic development appears contradictory. This is particularly pertinent where sustainability and development clash – for example, when considering new roads or retail sites, it is often the case that the prospect of new jobs and economic prosperity means sustainability takes second place, especially in times of economic recession. This is even more pronounced for governments in developing countries, which are badly in need of more economic activity. In recent years, ideas of environmental justice and ecological citizenship have come to the fore (as we see below), partly as a result of the severe problems associated with the concept and practice of sustainable development.
It is easy to be sceptical about the future prospects for sustainable development. Its aim of finding ways of balancing human activity with sustaining natural ecosystems may appear impossibly utopian. Nonetheless, sustainable development looks to create common ground among nation-states and connects the world development movement with the environmental movement in a way that no other project has yet managed to do. It gives radical environmentalists the opportunity to push for full implementation of its widest goals, but, at the same time, moderate campaigners can be involved locally and exert some influence. A more technology-focused approach, which may be seen as close to the sustainable development project, is known as ecological modernization, and we introduce this in the next section.
THINKING CRITICALLY
Sustainable development is ‘development which meets the needs of the present generation, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ How could we find out what the needs of future generations will be? Can sustainable development policies be devised from this definition?
For environmentalists, both capitalist and communist forms of modernization have failed. They have delivered wealth and material success, but at the price of massive environmental damage. In recent years, groups of academic social scientists in Western Europe have developed a theoretical perspective called ecological modernization (EMT), which accepts that ‘business as usual’ is no longer possible but also rejects radical environmentalist solutions involving de-industrialization. Instead they focus on technological innovation and the use of market mechanisms to bring about positive outcomes, transforming production methods and reducing pollution at its source.
EMT sees huge potential in the leading European industries to reduce the use of natural resources without this affecting economic growth. This is an unusual position, but it does have a certain logic. Rather than simply rejecting economic growth, proponents argue that an ecological form of growth is theoretically possible. An example is the introduction of catalytic converters and emission controls on motor vehicles, which has been delivered within a short period of time and shows that advanced technologies can make a big difference to greenhouse gas emissions. If environmental protection really can be achieved this way, especially in renewable energy generation and transport, then we can continue to enjoy our high-technology lifestyles.
Ecological modernizers also argue that, if consumers demand environmentally sound production methods and products, market mechanisms will be forced to try and deliver them. Opposition to GM food in Europe (discussed above) is a good example of this idea in practice. Supermarkets have not stocked or pushed the supply of GM foods, because large numbers of consumers have made it clear that they will stay on the shelves.
The theory of ecological modernization sees that five social and institutional structures need to be ecologically transformed:
1 science and technology: to work towards the invention and delivery of sustainable technologies
2 markets and economic agents: to introduce incentives for environmentally benign outcomes
3 nation-states: to shape market conditions which allow this to happen
4 social movements: to put pressure on business and the state to continue moving in an ecological direction
5 ecological ideologies: to assist in persuading more people to get involved in the ecological modernization of society (Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000).
Global society 5.3 Solar power: ecological modernization in practice?
A key plank of the ecological modernization perspective is that non-polluting technologies, such as renewable energy projects, can make a big impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable technologies can also be made available to developing countries to help them avoid the high-polluting forms of industrialization which have caused so much environmental degradation.
One widely reported recent example is the massive solar power plant (actually four linked sites) being constructed in Ouarzazate, Morocco, which could supply the energy needs of 1 million people. This is crucial to the country’s ambitious target of generating over 40 per cent of its electricity from renewables – a huge change given its previously heavy reliance on imported fossil fuels such as coal and gas. The technologically innovative aspect of the plant is not just its size – the many rows of solar mirrors cover an area as large as thirty-five football pitches or the size of the capital city, Rabat – but also its attempt to store the energy generated from the sun using salt.
The plant generates heat that melts the salt, which is then able to store the heat, which in turn generates enough steam