Susfuinnble Development, Vol. 3,109-119 (1995) METHODS OF .docx

Susfuinnble Development, Vol. 3,109-119 (1995)
METHODS OF DEFINING
’SUSTAINABILITY’
Andrew D. Basiago, Department of Land Economy,
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
The notion of ’sustainability’ emerged in
The Ecologist’s A Blueprint for Survival, in
1972. The quest to make modern civiliza-
tion ’sustainable’ inspired the UN’s
Stockholm Conference in 1972 and the
’global trusteeship’ of subsequent inter-
national environmental treaties. ’Sustain-
ability’ is related to ’futurity’, hence the
Brundtland Commission in 1987 defined
sustainable development as ’development
which meets the needs of the present,
without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own
needs’. ’ Sust ainabilit y’ animates ’the
precautionary principle’, affirmed by the
European Union (EU) in 1990 in its
Bergen Declaration on Sustainable Devel-
opment, which requires ecological pre-
servation in cases of scientific uncertainty
where serious or irreversible damage is
threatened. The Earth Summit in 1992
established ’sustainable development’ as
the most important policy of the 21st cen-
tury. ’Sustainability’ is at the heart of The

Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development and Agenda 21, accords
signed at the Earth Summit that herald a
new paradigm of society, economics and
CCC 0968-0802/95/030109-11
0 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment
the environment. The E U s Fifth Environ-
mental Action Programme (1993) pursues
’sustainability’ in industry, energy,
transport, agriculture and tourism.
’Sustainability’ has also been endorsed by
the Clinton Administration (1994). In the
light of these events, ’sustainability’ is
now used widely in biology, economics,
sociology, urban planning, ethics and
other domains. It is regarded as tanta-
mount to a new philosophy, in which
principles of futurity, equity, global
environmentalism and biodiversity must
guide decision-making. Far from being a
mere doctrine of development science,
’sustainability’ has emerged as a universal
methodology for evaluating whether
human options will yield social and
environmental vitality.
INTRODUCTION
he call for ‘sustainability’ has become as
commonplace in today’s world as cries of T ‘liberty’ and
‘democracy‘ once were. ‘Sus-
tainability’ is advanced as an alternative to societal
and environmental entropy. Speth (1992) contends

that acid rain, global warming, ozone depletion,
deforestation and desertification jeopardize global
security. ’[Ilf population growth continues to out-
pace the creation of new jobs, if pressures on
resources mount and growth proves unsustuinuble, if
social and ethnic tensions increase’, he writes, the
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
DEFINING ’SUSTAINABILITY’
effects might include ’civil unrest’, ’regional con-
flict’, ’the collapse of governments’, ’adoption of
authoritarian measures’ and ’waves of ecological
refugees‘. Speth urges the world to choose a course
of ’sustainable development’. Other commentators
describe ‘sustainability’ as the Rosetta Stone of
biodiversity conservation, development economics,
environmental justice, urban planning and envir-
onmental ethics. It is spoken of with reverence, as if
a new emancipating philosophy. In this paper,
definitions of ’sustainability’ in biology, cconomics,
sociology, planning and ethics are explored, with a
view to understanding its emergence as a general-
ized methodology of social and environmental
vitality.
ORIGINS OF ’SUSTAINABILITY’
The notion that the world’s civilization is not
‘sustainable’, that a ‘sustainable’ paradigm must
be designed, had its origins in the international
environmental law and policy of the 1970s and
1980s.

In A Blueprint for Survival (The Ecologist, 1972), a
distinguished panel wrote that our ‘industrial way
of life with its ethos of expansion’ is not ‘sustainable’.
The rates of growth in population and consumption
are undermining human survival prospects by
disrupting ecosystems and depleting resources.’
The panel concluded that a stable society would
cause minimum ecological disruption, practice
maximum conservation and maintain a constant
population. ’Our task is to create a society which is
sustainable and which will give the fullest possible
satisfaction of its members’, they wrote.
Apprehension in Britain that our global society is
not ‘sustainable’ was shared internationally. The
UN Conference on the Human Environment at
Stockholm (1972) brought developed and develop-
ing nations together for the first time to debate ’the
rights of humanity to a healthy and productive
environment’. Participants addressed transbound-
ary pollution, co-operative management of shared
resources and the global commons and agreed to
open their courts to transboundary proceedings.
Stockholm set the stage for later treaties protecting
the global commons, the World Heritage Conven-
tion, the Whaling Convention and the Montreal
Protocol on Ozone Depletion. These agreements
created the doctrine of ’global trusteeship’ on which
the doctrine of ‘sustainable development’ would be
founded (Boyle, unpublished comments).
’Sustainable development’ first appeared in the
World Conservation Strategy drafted by UNEP and
IUCN (1980). It should be advanced through
‘conservation’, defined as ‘the management of

human use of the biosphere so that it may yield
the greatest sustainable benefit to present genera-
tions while maintaining its potential to meet the
needs and aspirations of future generations’ (Eblen
and Eblen, 1994).
Cousteau (1980) wrote in his Bill of Rights for
Future Generations: ’[Fluture generations have a
right to an uncontaminated and undamaged Earth ...
Each generation ... has a duty as trustee for future
generations to prevent irreversible and irreparable
harm to life on Earth...‘. This duty, ’the futurity
principle’, is the handmaiden of ’sustainability’.
The U N s World Commission on Environment
and Development (1987), chaired by Gro Harlem
Brundtland of Norway, renewed the call for
’sustainable development’ to alleviate poverty,
feed the world and safeguard the environment.
Their report, Our Common Future, defined sustain-
able development as ’development that meets the
needs of the present, without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own
needs‘ (Brundtland, 1987).
In the Bergen Declaration on Sustainable Devel-
opment, European nations endorsed ’the precau-
tionary principle’, a corollary of ’sustainability’.
This canon holds that ’where there are threats of
serious or irreversible damage, lack of full, scientific
certainty should not be used as a reason for
postponing measures to prevent environmental
degradation’ (Friends of the Earth, 1994). Under
this rule, embedded in the Single European Act as
amended by the Maastricht Treaty, a development

proponent has the burden of proving that the
environment will not be irreparably damaged.
Blowers (1993) describes ‘the precautionary princi-
ple’ as a means ‘to protect the future against the
harmful actions of the present’.
At the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in
June 1992, the largest gathering of world leaders in
history, over 120 nations endorsed ‘sustainable
development’ as the most important economic
and environmental policy for the 21st century. In
addition to treaties on biodiversity, world forests
and world climate, the Earth Summit produced The
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
(UNCED, 1992). The numerous references to ’sus-
tainable development’ in its 27 principles suggests
an integration of economic development and
environmental protection. Agenda 21, a fifth
accord to come out of the Earth Summit, is ’a
blueprint on how to make development socially,
economically and environmentally sustainable’
(Keating, 1993).
The EUs Fifth Environmental Action Programme,
Towards Sustainability, called for changing ‘the
patterns of growth in the Community in such a
way as to reach a sustainable development p a t h
110 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
A.D. BASIAGO
(CEC, 1993). ’Sustainability’ has been endorsed by
the Clinton Administration, which signed the Rio

accords. The American Under-Secretary of State for
Global Affairs, Wirth, believes that ’sustainable
development can integrate and harmonize the
enormously powerful economic and environmental
forces at work in today’s world (Wirth, unpub-
lished remarks).
THE MANY USES, DEFINITIONS AND
DOMAINS OF ’SUSTAINABILITY’
Although the world has agreed on a new paradigm
of ‘sustainable development’, few can agree on
what ‘sustainable development’ might actually
mean. The Brundtland report defined ’sustainable
development’ as ’a process in which the exploita-
tion of resources, the direction of investments, the
orientation of technological development and insti-
tutional change are all in harmony, and enhance
both current and future potential to meet human
needs and aspirations’ (Brundtland, 1987). Frequent
references to ’sustainable development’ in the 27
principles of the Rio Declaration (UNCED, 1992)
suggest a type of development that integrates
economic growth and environmental protection.
But how is such development to be achieved?
Clearly, ‘sustainable development’ is characterized
by ‘sustainability’, but what is ‘sustainability’?
Biologists speak of ’sustainability’ when they talk
of the interaction between human and natural
systems. The biological definition of ’sustainability’
concerns itself with the need to save natural capital
on behalf of future generations, particularly the
genetic diversity contained in plant and animals
species, or ’biodiversity’. The biological definition
of ‘sustainability’ touches on the domain where

human urbanization meets undisturbed ecosystems
and the consequences of that interaction.
Economists speak of ‘sustainability’ when they
analyse whether the modern production system
will collapse because it will exhaust the natural
capital on which it depends. The economists’
definition of ’sustainability’ encompasses instru-
ments to internalize the environmental costs of
industrial activity in the economy by way of public
intervention in private markets. The economists’
definition of ‘sustainability’ examines how markets,
as conventionally conceived, fail to protect the
environment.
Sociologists speak of the ‘sustainability’ of indi-
viduals, families and neighbourhoods when they
establish a causal relationship between race and
the siting of toxic and hazardous enterprises in
America’s inner city ghettos. The sociological
definition of ’sustainability’ concerns itself with
the ’sustainability’ of human beings as reflected in
problems such as environmental racism. The socio-
logical definition of ’sustainability’ addresses the
domain in which human interest groups make
decisions over the use of natural resources and
other humans are affected in their daily lives, and
the equity issues that obtain.
Urban planners speak of ‘sustainability’ when
they draft creative plans to integrate cities and
nature in unprecedented ways. The urban defini-
tion of ’sustainability’ seeks to reduce notions of
‘sustainability’ to the practical planning of regions,
communities and neighbourhoods. It involves the

pursuit of a design science that will integrate
urbanization and nature preservation.
Environmental ethicists speak of ‘sustainability’
when they ponder whether nature has ‘rights’ and
whether the current rate of species extinction
caused by humanity is ethical. The ethical definition
of ’sustainability’ asserts that preservationist nat-
ural resource principles (also variously called
ecocentric, Gaian and precautionary) are superior
to those that are conservationist and exploitative.
The ethical definition of ’sustainability’ probes the
domain where humans ponder whether they are a
part of, or apart from, nature, and how this should
guide moral choice.
There is no precise definition of ’sustainability’.
The term has come to be used to describe a wide
variety of social concerns. Let us examine these
methods of defining ’sustainability’ further, for they
may help us to arrive at a comprehensive definition.
BIOLOGICAL METHODS OF DEFINING
‘SUSTAINABILITY’
Miller (1988) uses a biological method to define
‘sustainability’ when he distinguishes ’sustainable’
natural ecosystems (e.g. marshes, grasslands, forests)
from simplified human systems (eg. cornfields,
factories, houses). A natural ecosystem ’captures,
converts and stores energy from the sun’. A
simplified human system ’consumes energy from
fossil or nuclear fuels’. A natural ecosystem
’produces oxygen and consumes carbon dioxide’.
A simplified human system ‘consumes oxygen and
produces carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil

fuels’. A natural ecosystem ’creates fertile soil’. A
simplified human system ’depletes or covers fertile
soil’. A natural ecosystem ’stores, purifies, and
releases water gradually’. A simplified human
system ’often uses and contaminates water and
releases it rapidly’. A natural ecosystem ‘provides
wildlife habitats’. A simplified human system
‘destroys some wildlife habitats’. A natural eco-
system ‘filters and detoxifies pollutants and waste
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 111
DEFINING ’SUSTAINABILITY‘
products’. A simplified human system ’produces
pollutants and waste’. A natural ecosystem is
’usually capable of self-maintenance and self-
renewal’. A simplified human system ‘requires
continual maintenance and renewal at great cost’.
In the light of this conflict between natural and
human systems, the biological method of defining
’sustainability’ cherishes ’biodiversity’. Wilson
(1994), the Harvard biologist who has led biodiver-
sity conservation efforts, defines biodiversity as ‘the
genetic-based variation of living organisms at all
levels’, including the variety of genes within a
species and among species and the variety of
natural ecosystems. He identifies three benefits of
biodiversity. Firstly, biodiversity maintains ecosys-
tems in a healthy condition. Ecosystems with the
greatest variety of plants and animals are the most
stable and efficient. Secondly, biodiversity contains
largely unstudied and untapped reservoirs of new

drugs, crops, fibres and energy sources. Thirdly,
biodiversity encompasses those natural environ-
ments that humans naturally affiliate with, which
are ’psychologically restorative’.
Wilson has developed the ‘species-area curve’ to
estimate the impact of habitat destruction on
biodiversity. This method holds that when a habitat
is reduced to one-tenth of its original size, the
number of species eventually drops in half. Apply-
ing this method to the tropical rain forests, where
more than half of the plant and animal species live,
Wilson estimates that a quarter of a per cent of
species (one in 400) is made extinct each year. He
finds this rate of current extinction not ’sustainable’
because it is between 1000 and 10,000 times faster
than before humans emerged on Earth and ’far in
excess of the rate at which new species are being
created (Wilson, 1994).
The loss of biodiversity at rapid rates in modern
times has implications for economic strength and
the quality of life. In California, one of the worlds
most biologically diverse areas and its eighth
wealthiest economy, natural resource management
methods have been introduced that define ‘sustain-
ability’ in terms of both ‘biological diversity’ and
‘social and economic viability’. THE Agreement on
Biological Diversity (California Department of Fish
and Game, 1991) recognizes the state’s rich natural
heritage as fundamental to its economy. ‘Sustain-
ing’ natural ecosystems is deemed essential to
maintaining the state’s prosperity.
California will use regional methods to conserve
the diversity of its air, water, plant communities,

fishes, wildlife habitat, recreation and aesthetic
values. Where past natural resource policies con-
served individual sites, species and resources, it is
now widely recognized that the full variety of life
forms in the state, the genetic diversity among them
and the communities and ecosystems they inhabit
occur across a variety of jurisdictions and owner-
ship. In a new ‘bioregional’ approach, California
will manage and protect entire ecosystems, biolo-
gical communities and landscapes (California
Department of Fish and Game, 1991).
An Executive Council will guide California’s
programme to protect biodiversity and maintain
economic vitality on a ‘bioregional’ basis. The
council may: acquire land; establish restoration
projects, mitigation and development banks, plan-
ning and zoning authorities and alternative land
management practices; assist private landowners;
direct education, monitoring and research pro-
grammes; and impose fees, incentives and regula-
tions. Measurable baselines and standards of
diversity will be crafted to direct its efforts to
conserve biological resources over time at the
landscape, ecosystem, species and genetic level
(California Department of Fish and Game, 1991).
The Clinton Administration also takes the view
that the fate of the economy and the environment
are interlinked. According to Wirth (1994), ’the
economy is inextricably tied to the environment and
totally dependent upon it’. Several major biological
systems underpin the world economy. Croplands
provide food, feed, fibre and vegetable oils. Forests
supply fuel, lumber, paper and other products.

Grasslands are the source of meat, milk, leather and
wool. The oceans and freshwater streams and lakes
produce food and industrial resources. These
biological systems ’provide all our food and,
along with fossil fuels and minerals, ’supply all
the new materials for industry’.
The implication of biologcal methods of defining
‘sustainability’ is that biological systems form the
foundation of all economic activity. If these systems
fail, so does the economy.
ECONOMIC METHODS OF DEFINING
‘ SUSTAINABILITY’
Economic methods of defining ‘sustainability’ make
a similar connection between biology and econom-
ics. Milbrath (1989) writes that modern economies
inexorably expand. To create jobs for workers
displaced by productivity, they must grow. Even-
tually, they choke on abundant wastes or deplete
the natural resource systems on which they rely.
This dilemma will worsen in severity over the next
50 years as the population doubles and people
strive for higher living standards. Resources used to
sustain growth, especially fossil fuels, will become
scarce. Many wastes cast into the environment
based on unnatural compounds will not be
absorbed by the biosphere. ‘We have built an
economic system that cannot sustain its trajectory’,
he fears.

The effect of failed economic methods on biolo-
gical systems, of creating a false dichotomy between
the economy and the environment, is most evident
in the plight of many developing nations. Repetto
(1992) observes that deforestation in Costa Rica has
damaged its earning potential, despite the fact that
the value of some tree species has quadrupled in
recent decades. In the Philippines, soil erosion from
deforestation has reduced hydroelectric output and
thwarted the irrigation of lowland rice paddies.
Repetto (1992) contends that present accounting
methods are inadequate to inform the policy
choices that developing nations must make to deal
with the crisis of environment and development
because they assign no economic value to changes
in natural resource stocks. Nations ’fell forests,
degrade soils, pollute groundwater, and hunt their
fish and wildlife to extinction’, but ‘these losses are
not factored into measured income’. They must be if
policy-makers are to be able to plan for ‘sustain-
ability’ or ’be held accountable for the wholesale
disruption of natural systems now underway’
(Repetto, 1992).
Repetto (1992) thinks that a method that accounts
for environmental assets is needed. Under the U N s
System of National Accounts (SNA), adopted after
the Second World War to chart global economic
development, a false dichotomy between the
economy and the environment misguides policy.
The asset value of natural resources is not recog-
nized. This departs from classical economics, in
which natural resources, human resources and
invested capital are accounted for. The SNA

concentrates on labour and invested capital only.
Development is deemed the product of savings and
gains in physical capital, such as plant and
equipment. These are valued as ‘income-producing
capital and their depreciation is written off as a
charge against the value of production’, but the loss
of natural resources ‘entails no such charge against
current income’. Low income countries, for whom
natural resources are ‘principal assets’, are encour-
aged to view natural resources as ’abundant’ and
’free gifts of nature’ rather than as forms of capital.
Consequently, some are achieving current yields at
the cost of future production, mistaking impover-
ishment for progress. National economic growth is
overstated when the loss of natural capital is not
accounted for. A superior method would measure
the depreciation of natural resource assets as the
capitalized present value of reductions in future
income from their use (Repetto, 1992).
Gilman (1994a) ascribes the failure of conven-
tional development accounting methods to depreci-
ate natural resources to the ’dangerously
A.D. BASIAGO
outmoded nature of economic thinking in general.
A ’sustainable economics’ is emerging that might
better serve as a guide for the 21st century.
According to Gilman, conventional economic
concepts ‘provide the basis on which those in
power all over the world ... justify the destruction
of the Earth. Their ’continued dominant use’ has
‘become seriously outdated and destructive’.
Conventional economics recognizes only three

’factors of production’: land, labour and manufac-
tured capital. ‘Land encompasses ‘raw materials,
such as minerals and timber’. ‘Labour’ includes
‘all direct human inputs into economic activity’.
‘Manufactured capital’ consists of ’buildings, tools
and equipment’. In ’economic activity’, ’labour’
uses ‘manufactured capital’ to convert ‘land into
’goods and services‘, which are either ’consumed
to produce ’utility’ and ’welfare’ or ‘invested in
production (Gilman, 1994a).
An ‘Earth-friendly approach would embrace five
forms of ’capital’ : environmental, human, socio-
organizational, manufactured and credit capital.
Environmental capital includes not just ’land, but
‘all natural systems, including the atmosphere,
biological systems and even the sun’. Human
capital includes not just ’labour’, but the ’health,
knowledge, skills and motivations’ of individuals.
Socio-organizational capital encompasses the meta-
physical dimension of culture: all ’habits, norms,
roles, traditions, regulations [and] policies’; all ‘law,
government, the feeling of community, the
dynamics within families.. . art and knowledge’.
Manufactured capital includes all ’buildings, tools
and equipment’, all household durable goods and
anything made but not yet returned to the environ-
ment. Finally, credit capital includes all ‘money and
debt’ (Gilman, 1994a).
These forms of capital interact in complex ways.
Firstly, how environmental capital is used affects
environmental, human and manufactured capital.
Acid rain from sulphur dioxide negatively affects
environmental capital (lakes and forests), human
capital (respiratory health) and manufactured capital

(buildings). Secondly, some environmental capital,
such as solar energy, is ’self-maintaining’ and ’self-
building’. This could be ‘of enormous human
benefit’. Thirdly, important forms of environmental
capital (e.g. the tropical rain forests) cannot be
replaced with other forms. Fourthly, human and
socio-organizational capital tend to be enhanced or
multiplied with use. Sharing of knowledge and
skills is socially optimum. Fifthly, although the
value of manufactured capital lies in use, its least
adverse impact occurs during use. Thus everything
that can be done, such as ’long-life designs, easy
repair and good recycling’, to prolong product life
span (from the initial extraction of raw materials to
their ultimate disposal, when most damage to other
forms of capital occurs) maximizes the net value of
manufactured capital. Lastly, although credit can
effectively allocate productivity, it can also burden
the future with today’s extravagance and usually
concentrates wealth. A rational framework adapted
to these interactions may be the path to a ’sustain-
able’ economy (Gilman, 1994a).
A major restructuring of the economy is implied
by economic methods of defining ‘sustainability’.
To be implemented, society would have to account
for the biological ramifications of economic activity
in unprecedented ways.

SOCIOLOGICAL METHODS OF
The failure to integrate economics and the environ-
ment has had profound social consequences. In the
USA, decisions to sacrifice environmental quality
for economic development have sparked charges of
racism and cast into doubt whether practices that
burden poor, minority communities with environ-
mental costs for the benefit of the majority are
’sustainable’.
The evidence establishing a linkage between
racial discrimination and environmental injury is
convincing. Black and Hispanic neighbourhoods in
Los Angeles have high concentrations of air toxins
from polluting industries and high rates of cancer,
emphysema and respiratory problems (Mann,
1991). Chicago’s Southside is /a minefield of toxic
hazards‘, including ‘abandoned factories, toxic
waste dumps, industrial air pollution, and tainted
water’ (Nelson, 1987). Chavis (1987) found that
three out of five of the largest commercial hazar-
dous waste landfills in the USA are located in
predominantly black or Hispanic communities. He
concluded that ’race proved to be the most
significant among variables tested in association
with the location of commercial hazardous waste
facilities’. A 1990 study by Greenpeace discovered
that hazardous waste incinerators are 89% more
common in America’s minority communities than
nationally (Reynoso, 1994).
Hamilton (1991) believes this correlation between
race, toxins and land use results from ‘a conscious
political strategy’. With ‘the environmental crisis

escalating and space for waste decreasing’,hazar-
dous waste companies, ’fearing organized opposi-
tion from more privileged constituencies’, target
communities with residents not ‘likely to oppose
waste sites’ - ’the elderly, those without advanced
education, poor people on fixed incomes, and
working people of moderate wages’. These are
communities of colour. ’Sustainability’ involves not
merely ’growth management’ and ‘conservation’,
but addressing the economic inequality that
contaminates ’lands and populations’.
Braile (1994) avers that the disproportionate
share of environmental hazards that fall on poor
and minority communities cannot be blamed on
intentional racism. There is no proof that commu-
nities hosting ’locally undesirable land uses’ are
predominantly poor or minority when the facilities
are sited. After a facility is sited, property values
decline. The poor (who tend to be minorities) move
in, and the wealthy (who tend to be white) move
out. Anderton repeated Chavis’ 1987 study and
found hazardous waste facilities correlated not with
race, but with areas where many industrial workers
live (Braile, 1994). The implication of these findings
is that rather than focus narrowly on race,
society should address how ‘market dynamics’
spread environmental risks and the failed tech-
nologies that create such risks in the first place.
Whichever interpretation prevails, established in
American publications is a method of defining
‘sustainability’ as the socially equitable sharing of
environmental harm. This method does not merely
work social equity. It addresses the general envir-

onmental degradation that comes first at the
expense of underprivileged populations.
A s an alternative to such inequality, Farmer
(1995) has developed a model of ’sustainable‘
economies. She writes that ’sustainable’ economies
are ’holistic’, ‘diverse’, ‘fractal’ and ‘evolutionary’.
These economies account for the sociological
ramifications of economic activity.
’Sustainable’ economies are ’holistic’ in the sense
that they are based on both supply- and demand-
side capital flows, promote independence and a
diversified capital base, encourage subsistence
farming for domestic production and reindustria-
lize for diversity. They are based on inclusionary
models. “on-sustainable’ economies embrace
supply-side economics, promote overdependence
on export production and foreign capital and
encourage rapacious resource use such as defor-
estation. They are based on exclusionary models
(Farmer, 1995).
A ’sustainable’ economy is ‘diverse’ if it ’strives
for a diversified economic base at every scale’.
’Sustainable’ economies diversify work and tasks,
foster biodiversity through such practices as refor-
estation and habitat reclamation, farm to meet
diverse agricultural needs, conserve fertile soil,
encourage domestic agricultural production and
seek to democratize ownership. ”on-sustainable’
economies specialize work and tasks in a manner
that creates an alienated labour force and rote work,
favour single-crop exports that reduce land fertility,
practice overgrazing and desertification and seek to

A.D. BASIAGO
concentrate corporate ownership of capital (Farmer,
1995).
A ‘sustainable’ economy is ‘fractal’ if ’non-
hierarchical organizational structures occur at all
scales of economics’. ’Sustainable‘ economies have
policies of labour-intensive, appropriate technology
based production for full employment, whereas
’non-sustainable’ economies seek ’surplus’ labour
and environmental resources because they are
viewed as essential for ever-expanding markets in
a ‘zero sum’ society (Farmer, 1995).
A ‘sustainable’ economy is ‘evolutionary’ if it
grows towards ’diversity, equity and democracy,
conservation of resources and the greatest potential
quality of life’. ’Sustainable’ economies are founded
on the equitable distribution of wealth and
resources, proportional benefits and burdens, the
democratization of decisions regarding production,
distribution and consumption and direct or parti-
cipatory democracy. The hierarchy of such an
economy is ‘flat’. “on-sustainable’ economies
tend towards conformity, inequality, autocracy,
depletion of resources and declining quality of
life. They are founded on the concentration of
wealth, a rising gap between the rich and poor,
downward pressure on wages and unemployment.
The hierarchy of such an economy is autocratic,
with key decisions concentrated in few ‘hands - the

‘pyramid of corporate capitalism (Farmer, 1995).
Farmer’s thinking tracks a growing body of
publications that attempts to frame an ethos of the
’sustainable’ society. Under this view, it is shallow
to speak only of the ’sustainability’ of plants and
animals and of ecological processes. Economic
patterns that have deleterious biological effects
also affect human beings in negative ways. The
goal must be a world in which both humans and
nature thrive. Thus ‘sustainability’ encompasses the
condition of humans within the economy.
PLANNING METHODS OF DEFINING
’SUSTAINABILITY’
Millichap (1993) identifies the temporal dimension
of ‘sustainable development’ (a concern for future
generations) and its spatial dimension (a concern
for the global environment) as long-established
concerns of city and regional planning. Futurity
emerged in planning in the public health legislation
of the Victorian era. Environmentalism was evident
first as a regard for neighbourhood amenity, but has
been widened to encompass the Earth under the
influence of urban planning policies concerned with
such phenomena as pollution and habitat destruc-
tion.
Millichap contends that what relevance
’sustainability’ has to land use planning is found
in the interplay of its future and spatial dimensions.
Policies aimed at the spatial dimension can help to
protect the future dimension. For example, compact
city forms that allow for efficient transport reduce

carbon dioxide emissions and thus serve to protect
future generations from global warming (Millichap,
1993).
This dynamic is found in the work of Calthorpe.
Calthorpe (1993), a prominent urban designer
whose ideas have become associated with ’sustain-
ability’, is a critic of the modern metropolis in the
USA. The USA continues to build ’post-World War
I1 suburbs’, he writes, ’as if families were large and
had only one breadwinner, as if the jobs were all
downtown, as if land and energy were endless, and
as if another lane on the freeway would end traffic
congestion’. The result is ’suburban sprawl’.
Calthorpe (1993) blames sprawl for serious urban
ills. Environmental stress, traffic congestion, unaf-
fordable housing, loss of open space, burdensome
lifestyles for working families, isolation of the
elderly and family breakdown are by-products of
fractured settlement patterns. Zoning laws segre-
gate social groups and isolate people from activities
in inefficient networks of congestion and pollution.
Sprawl has brought congestion, high housing and
transportation costs, lost productivity associated
with long commuting times and declining air
quality. Inner city ills linked to sprawl include
‘decay, job flight, racial isolation, disinvestment,
and isolation of services, as capital moves to cheap,
clean, suburban l a n d . Sprawl ‘increases pollution,
saps inner-city development, and generates enor-
mous costs’ (Calthorpe, 1993).
As an alternative to sprawl, ’the next American
metropolis’ would place housing, parks, and
schools within walking distance of jobs, shops,

transit and civic services. In a modern version of the
traditional American town, cities would have
’walkable streets’ and town centres with integrated
commercial, recreational and civic uses. Commu-
nities would be designed to re-emphasize the public
domain. Town commons, with shops, parks, civic
buildings and a village green, would return.
Americans would again enjoy ‘diverse and
human-scaled communities’ (Calthorpe, 1993).
At the heart of Calthorpe’s vision is the ’pedes-
trian pocket’ or ‘transit-oriented development’.
Pedestrians, Calthorpe believes, are the catalyst of
a sense of community. Neighbourhoods of mixed
commercial and residential uses would be built
around transit stops as ’armatures for controlling
growth. Land use patterns would put riders and
jobs within an easy walk of stations. This strategy
would promote open space and public transit.
Reduced car use would benefit working families.
Less land would be consumed, less traffic gener-
ated, less pollution produced (Calthorpe, 1993).
An urban plan based on a network of such
neighbourhoods would limit sprawl and channel
development back to the city or around suburban
transit stations. This would create order in the
‘balkanized metropolis’. Major natural features
would form a system of parks, trails and cycle

ways throughout the metropolis and greenbelts
would preserve open space at the edge of the
repon. Nature preserves in the form of ‘leftover
land, small and large parks, preserved river banks,
open shorelines, and meadow ridges’ would dot the
city. Urban growth boundaries would be set to
preserve major natural resources at the edge of the
metropolis. These boundaries would be large
enough to accommodate growth for the next
generation, but small enough to encourage in-fill,
redevelopment and density, hallmarks of ‘sustain-
ability’ (Calthorpe, 1993).
Berkebile, a leading American proponent of
’sustainability’, believes that contemporary cities
are not ’sustainable’ because of the world view on
which they are based. The dominant design
philosophy seeks to bend nature to its will and
break everything into its smallest components. In
transport, for example, the pursuit of speed and
convenience have led to wasted resources, poor air
quality, ozone depletion and isolated communities
(Gilman, 1994b).
Berkebile conceives of ’sustainability’ in terms of
‘restorative design’. This ethic ’seeks to imitate the
efficiency and diversity of nature’. In ’restorative
design’, biodiversity would be improved by return-
ing land to natural habitat. Wherever possible,
paved surfaces would be replaced with urban
forestry and wildlife corridors. Solar aquatic and
other decentralized wastewater treatment systems
would be used. Old buildings, with ‘embodied
energy’, would be restored rather than destroyed.
New buildings would use daylight, solar and waste
energy as well as natural ventilation and cooling

from adjacent forests. City edges would be softened
and integrated with the surrounding reaches.
Urban centres would be made more efficient,
accessible and friendly (Gilman, 1994b).
‘Restorative design’ is a WAY of designing.
Restorative designers would consider how to
restore the environment with each design. They
would ask questions such as ‘How can we improve
the quality of life without diminishing the oppor-
tunities of future generations?’ and ’How can we
design to operate on current solar income?’ They
would create buildings and neighbourhoods that
embrace the climate, the sun, the earth, water and
landscape and that combine the best of new energy
technologies. They would include in the design
process representatives of unrepresented ‘stake-
holders’: the air, water, soil, flora and fauna; the
ecosystems on which they depend; and the human
communities affected by development (Gilman,
1 994b).
In The Hunnover Principles, ’a guide to the search
for sustainability’, McDonough (1992) urges
designers to ‘insist on the rights of humanity and
nature to coexist in a healthy, supportive, diverse,
and sustainable condition’. They must recognize
that ’the elements of human design interact with
and depend upon the natural world. All aspects of
human settlement are to be considered ‘in terms of
existing and evolving connections between spiritual
and material consciousness’. For ‘sustainability’ to
emerge, designers must ’accept responsibility for
the consequences of design decisions upon human
well-being, the viability of natural systems, and

their right to co-exist’. Upholding the futurity
principle must involve creating ’safe objects of long-
term value’. Future generations are not to be
burdened ’with requirements for maintenance or
vigdant administration of potential danger due
to the careless creation of products, processes, or
standards‘. We must eliminate ‘the concept of waste’
from industry, for in nature, ’there is no waste’.
’Human designs should, like the living world,
derive their creative forces from perpetual solar
income’, the principles state.
An advisor to President Clinton on ’sustainable
development’, McDonough envisions a new indus-
trial order. Consumer items would be designed for
total compost. Goods would be designed to return
to the soil. Offices and warehouses would be
generic. Consumables such as televisions would
be brought back to distributors for composting. All
carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic or radioactive pro-
ducts would be unmarketable. Shoes would not be
tanned with chromium. Nickel would be taken out
of coinage. Soaps would be designed for suitability
with local water conditions and manufactured in
the inner city to foster employment. Fossil fuel use,
which consumes capital reserves to meet current
operating costs, would be eliminated. Solar energy
would be the primary energy of civilization
(McDonough, unpublished remarks).
Planners define ‘sustainability’ in terms of settle-
ment patterns that will allow civilization to survive
and even thrive. In their work, ‘sustainability’ is
reduced to a theory of urbanization.
ETHICAL METHODS OF DEFINING

‘SUSTAINABILITY’
Scherp (1994) shows that when notions of ‘sustain-
able development‘ are adapted to national
accounting systems, three ethical models of ‘sus-
tainability’ emerge. In these models, ‘sustainability’
constitutes nature preservation, conservation (or
stewardship) of natural resources, or merely eco-
nomic development that plans for resource sub-
stitution.
Under the first model, the ‘conservation of natural
capital’ approach, caution is taken to prevent the
total stock of natural capital from declining over
time on the grounds that many non-renewable
natural resources do not have human-made
substitutes (Scherp, 1994). Ozone holes cannot be
plugged. The three species that are lost every hour
to tropical deforestation cannot be brought back into
existence by genetic engineering. This model har-
monizes with the precautionary principle, invoked
to protect all irreplaceable natural capital from
development in the face of scientific uncertainty.
In the second model, ‘the total stock of all forms
of wealth must not diminish. In this model, human
and natural capital can be used as substitutes for
one another. The environment can be degraded and
its wealth depleted so long as human capital exists
to clean up the damage or substitute for exhausted
natural capital, and so long as prices accurately

express the trade-off (Scherp, 1994). A wetland is
drained to prevent disease and its natural filtration
properties lost, but affordable sewage technology is
implemented. Elephants are removed from their
tropical dry savannah habitat and placed in zoos so
that land can be developed for housing. In other
words, ’sustainability’ will be achieved if human
capital replaces all natural capital lost to develop-
ment.
The third model is ‘the concept of environmental
functions or services’. This model holds that natural
resources offer rival functions and ’sustainability’ is
merely a matter of preserving possible uses or
functions of the environment for future generations.
The underlying premise of this model is that not all
natural functions are necessary to support human
life (Scherp, 1994). The river is polluted to dredge
gravel for roads. The wolf is slain to save the flock.
’Sustainability’ will be achieved if the wise or
’sustainable use’ of resources leads to appropriate
choices between economic development and the
environment, because not all natural capital is
necessary for human survival.
These methods of defining ‘sustainability’ have
profound implications for how natural resource
use is to be governed. Pierce and Turner (1990)
describe the first model, which seeks to prevent
the total stock of natural capital from declining
over time, as ’preservationist’. It implies that
environmental standards protecting ‘entire eco-
systems and geographical zones’ must be imposed
on economic activity in a ’pre-emptive’ manner.
A.D. BASIAGO

Precautionary standards protecting biodiversity
and ecological processes must be met before the
economic feasibility of projects can be analysed.
According to Rees (1990), this model is the view
advanced by Pearce in Blueprint for a Green
Economy. Present generations, who should leave
future generations a stock of environmental assets
no less than they inherited, are instead shifting
‘the burden of environmental risks to future
generations’. ’Sustainable development’ requires
that humans learn to keep the stock of natural
capital constant and live on the interest that
natural capital generates.
The second model, which has as its goal that the
total stock of afl wealth - natural and human -
should not diminish over time, Pierce and Turner
(1990) describe as ‘conservationist’. It is concerned
not with the preservation of nature, but with the
’sustainability‘ of ’resources productivity’. The
emphasis here is on conserving and expanding the
productivity of the economy and doing so in a
manner that can be sustained indefinitely.
According to Millichap (1993), Britain’s environ-
mental strategy This Common Inheritance embraces
this model by equating ’sustainable development’
with ’stewardship’, our ‘moral duty’ to serve as
’custodians’ of natural resources. Stewardship is
exemplified, he suggests, in the policies which
allow development in green belts only if a national
or regional need is met or important environmental
benefit gained and no alternative site exists.
The third model, which contemplates preserving

possible uses or functions of the environment, is
seen by Pierce and Turner (1990) as essentially
‘exploitative’. It involves merely a promise by living
generations to future generations that the produc-
tive capacity of the economy has been expanded.
Shiva (1992) distinguishes the first model from
the second and third by posing two interpretations
of ’sustainability’. The first meaning of ’sustain-
ability’, that of nature, involves ’a recovery of the
recognition that nature supports our lives’ and is
‘the primary source of sustenance’. This meaning
implies ’maintaining the integrity of nature’s pro-
cesses, cycles and rhythms’. The second meaning of
‘sustainability’, that of markets, implies only ‘main-
taining supplies of raw materials for industrial
production’. This is conventional ‘conservation’, or
‘making available sustained yields of raw materials
for development...’.
Hence the ethical methods of defining ’sustain-
ability’ imply a choice between a philosophical
revolution and the status qua. The revolution would
require giving the environment unprecedented
standing. In the status quo of capitalism, ’sustain-
ability’ concerns the mere substitutability of
resources.
DEFINING ‘SUSTAINABILITY’
’SUSTAINABILITY’ AS A METHODOLOGY

When we examine ’sustainability’ in these different
realms, we find that it is used to describe a
constellation of ideas. In biology, ‘sustainability’
has come to be associated with the protection of bio-
diversity. In economics, ‘sustainability’ is advanced
by those who favour accounting for natural resources.
In sociology, ‘sustainability’ involves the defence of
environmental justice. In planning, ’sustainability’
is the process of urban revitalization. In environ-
mental ethics, ’sustainability’ means, alternatively,
preservation, conservation or ’sustainable use’ of
natural resources.
These ideas do not describe a particular social
end-state. Rather, they all relate in some way to the
vitality of natural and human systems. It is as if
‘sustainability’ is not a tangible goal, but an organ-
izing principle governing activity at all levels of a
system, a quality that characterizes social alterna-
tives that will yield vitality.
‘Sustainability’ therefore seems less a doctrine
enshrined in the rarefied reaches of political
philosophy and more a research methodology
belonging to the workaday world of applied social
science. Perhaps, as a method, ‘sustainability’ is like
the empirical method in the physical and natural
sciences, which sets up a schema for asking
important questions, but does not provide, a priori,
an answer. Rather, ’sustainability’ acts as a kind of
selection pressure identifymg which social options
are valid, but not necessarily which are optimum.
This becomes even more evident when we break
‘sustainability’ down into its essential components.
Broadly speaking, ’sustainability’ is embodied in

four principles: futurity (a concern for the welfare of
future generations), equity (the fair sharing of
economic benefits and burdens within and between
generations), global environmentalism (a recogni-
tion of the global dimension of ecological problems
associated with use or depletion of natural capital
by one or some at the cost of others) and
biodiversity (the maintenance of the integrity of
ecological processes and systems).
These principles of ‘sustainability’ only have
meaning as criteria in a process of inquiry asked
at the initial stages of development. Will the
development leave on behalf of future generations
an undiminished stock of natural capital? Is it
equitable, now and for the future? What will be its
impact on the global environment? Will biodiver-
sity be lost? ‘Sustainability’ channels economic
development towards outcomes advantageous to
life.
The operation of ‘sustainability’ as a research
methodology might best be demonstrated by the
following scenario. Imagine that a hospital is
needed in a remote location of a national park to
prevent deaths that have occurred there and that
will continue if the hospital is not built. Imagine
also that destroying a meadow to build the hospital
will cause the extinction of an endangered plant
species, the medicinal properties of which are
unknown. The ’sustainability analysis’ might pro-
ceed as described in the following list.
Futurity. The hospital should be built,
because a hospital enhances the welfare of

future generations, or not built, because
future generations have a right to any
benefits the plant might possess.
Equity. The hospital should be built, so as
not to burden the present generation with
preventable deaths, or not built, so as not to
burden future generations with the depri-
vation of any benefits the plant might
possess.
Global environmen talism. The hospital should
be built, because its impact on the global
environment will be negligible, or not built,
because the meadow to be lost is a small but
essential component of the global environ-
ment.
Biodiversity. The hospital should be built,
because human genetic diversity is part of
overall biodiversity and the hospital will
save many patients who will go on to
reproduce, or not built, because plant
species diversity is a more critical form of
biodiversity.
The implications of ’sustainability’ as an analy-
tical tool are profound when applied to reality.
Consider the outcome if Western nations had
performed a ’sustainability analysis’ before decid-
ing to rush food aid to famine victims in the Sahel.
(i) Futurity. The humanitarian effort is defen-
sible, because future generations benefit by
inheriting a world in which starving people
are fed.
(ii) Equity. The humanitarian effort is defensi-
ble, because it is not fair for human beings to

starve to death in a world of agricultural
surplus.
(iii) Global environmentalism. Food aid to the
Sahel is not defensible, because it will
sustain communities engaged in ecologi-
cally destructive practices with global rami-
fications.
(iv) Biodiversity. Food aid to the Sahel is not
defensible, because these practices involve a
net loss of biodiversity.
In this manner, ’sustainability ‘ may come to be
applied to a wide variety of human activities.
A.D. BASIAGO
’Sustainability analysis’ may amount to a new
decisional paradigm in which only those options
are supported that increase social and environ-
mental vitality.
CONCLUSIONS
The advent of ‘sustainability’ represents something
substantial. Our planetary civilization has grown to
the point where it is beginning to jeopardize its
natural life support systems. A protocol, ’sustain-
ability’, has been crafted to guarantee the main-
tenance of the earths resources. ‘SustainabiIity’ is a
methodology designed to maximize the vitality of

social and environmental systems. ’Sustainability’
requires applying four criteria - futurity, equity,
global environmentalism and biodiversity - to the
development process. These ’sustainability’ criteria
act as constraints on untoward forms of develop-
ment. They are premised on the belief that
humanity will only succeed in a cosmic sense if it
finds a way to meet human needs, while at the same
time maintaining the integrity of biological systems,
accounting for the loss of natural resources from the
economy, working social equity, regenerating
human settlements and conserving natural capital.
The very breadth of objectives to which ’sustain-
ability’ is put - in realms biological, economic,
social, urban and ethical - suggests that in
‘sustainability‘, humanity has found a method
to govern universal functioning aboard the Earth
‘island.
REFERENCES
Blowers, A. (1993) Environmental policy: the quest for
sustainable development, Urban Studies, 30, 775-796.
Braile, R. (1994) Is racism a factor in siting undesirable
facilities? Garbage, Summer, 13-18.
Brundtland, G.H. (1987) Our Common Future, World
Commission on Environment and Development, Brus-
sels.
California Department of Fish and Game (1991) The
Agreement on Biological Diversity.
Calthorpe, P. (1993) The Next American Metropolis, Prince-
ton Architectural Press, New York, 15-38.

Chavis, 8. (1987) Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States,
United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice,
New York, xiii.
Commission of the European Communities (CEC) (1993)
Towards Sustainability, CEC, Brussels.
Cousteau, J.Y. (1980) The Cousteau Almanac, Dolphin
Books, Garden City, xix-xx.
Eblen, R. and Eblen, W. (1994) The Encyclopuedia’>f the
Environment, Houghton Mifflin, Boston and New York,
680, 752.
The Ecologist (1972) A Blueprint for Survival, Penguin,
Harmondsworth, 15-29.
Farmer, M. (1995) Sustainable Economics, Farmer, San Luis
Obispo (self-published).
Friends of the Earth (1994) Planningfor the Planet, Friends
of the Earth, London, 9-32.
Gilman, R. (1994a) Design for a sustainable economics, In
Context, 32,52-59.
Gilman, R. (1994b) Restorative design, In Context, 35,9-11.
Hamilton, C. (1991) Race, environment and land, Archi-
tecture California, Aug, 5 5 5 8 .
Keating, M. (1993) The Earth Summit’s Agenda for Change,
Centre for Our Common Future, Geneva, viii.
Mann, E. (1991) L.A.’s Lethal Air, Labor/Community

Strategy Center, Los Angeles.
McDonough, W. (1992) The Hannover Principles,
McDonough, New York (Self Published).
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State University Press, Albany, 1-38.
Millichap, D. (1993) Sustainability: a long-established
concern of planning, Journal ofPlanning Law, 1111-1119.
Miller, G.T. (1988) Comparison of a natural ecosystem
and a simplified human system, Environmental Science,
92.
Nelson, D. (1987) Our toxic trap, Chicago Sun-Times, May
31.
Pierce, D. and Turner, R. (1990) Economics of Natural
Resources and the Environment, John Hopkins University
Press, Baltimore, 226-238.
Rees, W.E. (1990) Sustainable development as capitalism
with a green face, Town Planning Review, 61, 91-94.
Repetto, R. (1992) Accounting for environmental assets,
Scientific American, Jun, 94-100.
Reynoso, R. (1994) Communities must take control of land
use, Sun Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, 9 Sep, B-1.
Scherp, J. (1994) What does an economist need to know
about the environment? Economic Papers, 107,643.
Shiva, V. (1992) Recovering the real meaning of sustain-
ability. In: The Environment in Question (Eds D.E. Cooper

and J.A. Palmer), Routledge, London, 187-191.
Speth, J.G. (1992) A post-Rio compact, Foreign Policy, 88,
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June.
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biodiversity, Nature Conservancy, Jul/ Aug, 24-29.
BIOGRAPHY
Andrew D. Basiago
Department of Land Economy
University of Cambridge
19 Silver Street
Cambridge CB3 9EP, UK
~~ ~ ~

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