Science for sustainable development

1. Sustainable Development
Economy

2. Economy: Sustainability
INTRODUCTION
• The desire to make something sustainable – to make it
last – is a common human desire.
• But sustainable development is
• used regularly by a vast number of people,
• in different ways
• and to mean different things.

3. Economy: Sustainability
SYSTEMS AND HIERARCHIES
• Consider interconnections or systems.
• For a household, an area, a town, a country, a continent or
more.
• Systems might be based or focussed on:
• People
• Physical elements (e.g. water, air quality, resource,
etc.)
• Geographies
• Or other elements.

4. Economy: Sustainability
POSSIBLE LEVELS
Single Organisation Individual / group / team /
company
Multi-organisations Sector / bigger sector /
cross sector / all
Community Individual / network / linked
networks
Geographical Local / regional / national /
international / global

5. Economy: Sustainability
ACTIVITY 1
Think about a ‘system’ (something you know well) – your
family, your school, a club or society you belong to, a group of
friends, etc.
Try drawing the structure and connections of this group.
Think about levels, links, inputs, sub-groups, what keeps the
‘system’ functioning.
There is no right answer to this.

6. Economy: Sustainability
ACTIVITY 2
Collect four articles on environmental, economic and/or
development issues. Use newspapers, online journals or
blogs, or TV / Radio sources.
For each item, answer the following questions:
1. What is the key point?
2. How do you feel about it (Agree? Disagree? Bored?
Angry? Sad? Disbelief? etc.)
3. What are the environmental and / or development issues
in the items?
4. Is there any unusual / subject specific language?
5. Are there any mentions of connections, global
interdependencies, etc?

7. Economy: Sustainability
HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR SUSTAINABILE DEVELOPMENT
• Why did the Ancient Egyptian, Mayan and Polynesian
civilisations collapse?
• One of the theories is that human demand and
exploitation damaged their support systems.
• Combined with other factors, they could not ADAPT to the
changes in time
• and so could not continue their way of life.

8. Economy: Sustainability
PREDUCTIONS: PESSIMISTS?
• Malthus 1798
• Mill (ca. 1800)
• Rachel Carson 1965 Silent Spring
• Club of Rome Report 1972 The Limits to Growth
Many historically predicted problems have been solved but
can we always find a technological solution to our problems?

9. Economy: Sustainability
RECENT MILESTONES - 1
1972 - international conference in Stockholm, Sweden
“sustainable development” phrase first used
1980 - International Union for the Conservation of Nature
and Natural Resources (IUCN), the World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF) United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), produced the World Conservation Strategy
1983 - the Brandt Commission
1987 - “Our Common Future” and the ‘Brundtland’
definition
“Sustainable development is development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs.”

10. Economy: Sustainability
RECENT MILESTONES - 2
1992 - the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit (United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development);
‘Agenda 21’ - an extensive international agenda for action
for sustainable development for the 21st century.
2000 - United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders
UN HQ New York adopted the United Nations Millennium
Declaration, to reduce extreme poverty with a series of time-
bound targets - with a deadline of 2015 - that have become
known as the Millennium Development Goals.
2002 - World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
took place in South Africa.

11. Economy: Sustainability
CONFLICTING ASPECTS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Different things to different people.
Driven by individual, group or system values, beliefs and
circumstances.
Values something that you / a group thinks is ‘a good
thing’ or ‘makes life meaningful’
Beliefs a starting point for a developed argument
(not limited to a religious or faith context)
Circumstances personal factors: such as parental
influence, relative wealth, disability,
gender, etc.

12. Economy: Sustainability
ACTIVITY 3
1. Choose a topic (e.g. nuclear power, wind generation,
motorway construction, genetically-modified food, etc.).
2. Write one sentence on your view of this topic.
3. Now expand the sentence to include your perspective
(where you’re coming from) and the basis of your opinion
(brief reasons).
4. Analyse your statement – and note the values, beliefs and
personal circumstances that have affected you viewpoint.

13. Economy: Sustainability
SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIES AND DEVELOPMENT CAN BE
ASSISTED BY:
Governments - using Laws, Guidelines, fines and tax
advantages. These can be positive (incentives or rewards) or
negative (punishments and fines) – or both.
International trade bodies (e.g. EU initiatives, Carbon
trading schemes /offsets, trade and import tariffs / bans, and
more)
Individuals – buying and investing ethically, supporting
‘green’ and / or ‘fairtrade’ producers / sellers; boycotting
unethical companies / countries; living in a more ‘green’ or
sustainable way, with less waste, etc.

14. Economy: Sustainability
ACTIVITY 4
1. Write down something you did recently as a purchaser or
consumer. Make a short list
(a) what factors (if any) you took into account beforehand; (b) your
reasons for these; and (c) any factors that, looking back, you think
might have thought about
2. Draw a diagram to show what led to your decision to
purchase or consume in the way that you did.
3. List any values, beliefs and circumstances that are relevant
to this situation.
4. If you think about your values and your behaviour in this
example, are there any contradictions? If there are any,
how could you put this right?

15. Economy: Sustainability
ACTIVITY 5
Discuss some of the issues involved and research the costs and
benefits. Use this to report back to the class in a future lesson – or
run as debates sessions in small groups. Examples could be:
a) For some environmentalists, long distance flights are
unsustainable. People who work in the airlines will probably
disagree, however.
b) Some people believe we should protect all the forests that are
still standing. However, for many people in developing
countries, the money to be made from logging and farming in
forested areas is their best chance of escaping poverty.
c) Some people think wind farms are an important alternative
energy source – however, communities living near to proposed
sites may not be so keen and the energy produced might not
be the most cost effective.