Summaries

At the same time the objective of sustainable development is to create a world where the ambitions of prosperity and welfare can be fulfilled in a sustainable – a lasting – manner. This desire for a society that can continue to exist into the distant future is the other dimension, time, or ‘now’ and ‘later’.

Sustainable development is a highly complicated process, and it is a given that at least decades will be required for achieving large-scale improvements. This means that the time dimension is a very large one, stretching far into the future, while these major improvements are only possible using drastic transitions.

Sustainable development concerns a large number of things. A good way of gaining an overview of all these issues is through the ‘Triple P’, the triangle of people, planet and profit. Sometimes the wider concept ‘prosperity’ is used instead of ‘profit’.

Nobody can say whether the world will move towards true sustainability. Should this not happen, there is a risk that there will not only be no real improvements to the living conditions of people in the poorer regions of the globe, but also that the richer areas will descend into wretched conditions, possibly even marking the end of our civilisation.

On the other hand, should we move towards sustainability, we will certainly not end up with a world in which all the problems have been solved. As stated, solutions to existing problems will nearly always result in new problems. But if the developments are favourable, the outcome may be a world where prosperity is being increasingly equally distributed, both in terms of the people living at that time and in terms of the present and future generations.

We can use a top-down approach to sustainable development through governments, large companies and international organisations. We can also use a bottom-up approach, in which individuals and groups can take the initiative themselves. Both approaches – top-down and bottom-up – complement and strengthen each other, and everybody can make a contribution to sustainable development in the world.
Aside from the ‘top-down’/‘bottom-up’ categorisation, there is also that of ‘control’ as opposed to ‘adaptation’. From the former perspective, it is endeavoured to keep everything under control, while in the latter the emphasis is more on going with existing natural forces.

One such flaw is one-way traffic, where valuable resources are taken from one location and accumulated at another. Problems arise at both places, in the form of either a shortage or a surplus. Shortages occur when the soil, ores, fossil fuels and clean water are depleted, while surpluses occur in the form of CO2 in the atmosphere, dumped waste and manure. In order to deal with this flaw, cycles will have to be closed, which means that in a number of cases a change – a substitution – is required in terms of materials, food sources or energy sources.

Another flaw in the fabric entails positive feedback. Every living thing tends to grow, and if this growth is uninhibited that tendency can result in growing past safe boundaries. Should this happen, disasters can occur – a disruption of the natural balance, rampant growth, plagues, the collapse of the ecosystem, species becoming extinct, etc. This holds for every type of plant or animal, including human beings.
An example of this can be found in the stock market system, as well as in the centuries of continued growth of the global population. Both growth processes are amplified by positive feedback, making both processes unstable and resulting in the occasional unexpected reversal to the system, such as a stock market crash.

A flaw that pertains to the environment is the continuous overexploitation of the natural world. Natural cycles in the environment are utilised by people for their own purposes, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but the degree to which it occurs is greater than nature’s ability to recover. This results in deforestation, the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of animal and plant species. Using the ecological footprint we are able to determine the extent of the effect humanity has upon the natural environment. It can be compared to the biocapacity of the natural environment in a country or the world as well as to the fair share – the average footprint we can permit ourselves without being detrimental to the natural world.

Extracting certain resources is very damaging to the environment. One of the most important scarce resources is clean water, which is necessary for agriculture, industry, hygiene, consumption and other purposes. Its scarcity is contributing to droughts, refugee crises and tensions between countries, with the accompanying threat of war, in various regions on the planet.
Agriculture and the meat industry do not adopt a particularly sustainable approach either, and monoculture and the bio industry, with their focus on mass production of foodstuffs and raw materials, create a great deal of damage. Despite its prevalence, agricultural activity does not provide sufficient food, with the primary reason being that the meat industry is an inefficient method for producing food.

The consequences are drastic, and many species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction as a result of loss of habitat and climate change, amongst other things. This process has the ability to be self-reinforcing, as the extinction of a species could unbalance an ecosystem. The migration of species is also a contributing factor to this.
The accelerated process of extinctions due to human activities is not a new phenomenon, and our history is dotted with mass extinctions of species in the past.

A basic flaw is the unequal distribution in the world – the unequal distribution of prosperity, health and education, as well as the degree of freedom and recognition of human rights, the differences in power and those differences in terms of culture, politics, finance and even the armed forces. This inequality is once again an example of positive feedback, as those with a great deal of power or wealth can use it to further increase their power and wealth, while those with little go into debt in order to survive, making them even poorer. The result of this for poor nations is the debt trap, while for poor individuals it results in the poverty trap.

One of the consequences of the large gap in prosperity and power is that the wealthy nations are able to partially transfer their problems to the poor ones. This transfer takes place in the form of exporting waste and environmental issues, as well as in the form of using cheap labour in poor nations to manufacture cheap goods for the wealthy ones. One can also transfer problems forwards from the present generation to future ones, such as through depleting scarce resources and overexploiting the natural world. Attempts have been made to stop this transfer through the Basel Convention.

Dehumanisation is a major cause of social exclusion, resulting in individuals and nations not having a real opportunity of participating in local or international society. This in turn leads to feelings of discontentment and resentment, which are fertile ground for terror and, ultimately, war and genocide. This amplifies the entire process through positive feedback, as it gives rise to refugees, immigration, poverty and increased levels of discrimination.

Vicious circles. Problems that create or amplify each other, often in the form of positive feedback. Many major problems are dependent on each other. Consequently they cannot be dealt with independently of each other. For this reason, the only way of creating structural improvements is by tackling the problems through their relationships.

The intended transitions can be achieved with the aid of sources of vigour, which could be employed to eradicate the flaws in the fabric from the system, or decrease their effect.

A major source of vigour can be found in the inspiring ideas on issues such as solidarity, peace, democracy, participation, human rights and emancipation. These ideas are anchored in influential documents, including the Earth Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and they are implemented through laws, treaties and organisations such as the European Court of Human Rights.

All of these aspects lead to an improvement of the position of the individual. In part thanks to these bodies, individuals are able to be meaningful in respect of sustainable development in many ways. Participating in an NGO is an example of the role they play as citizens, while other roles are those of the consumer and of the professional. In each of these roles people are able to devote their energy to sustainable development.

Another source of vigour is the natural environment. It provides us with valuable materials, some of which are renewable, and it is also a source of knowledge as well as rest and recreation. To a certain level, the natural world is also able to deal with and clean the waste and pollution caused by people.

Thanks in part to the study of the natural world, science and technology are likewise important sources of vigour. Science creates an understanding of the causes of unsustainability and the ways in which we can change them, while technology provides us with the tools to practically implement the ideas provided by science.

And then there are the companies, which have the economic means to implement all that which the NGO’s, the natural world, science and technology propose. Companies that accept corporate social responsibility are able to weigh up their economic interests against the general interests of human beings and of the natural environment. This makes them an indispensable link when it comes to finding a proper balance between people, planet and profit – a factor that certainly also holds for smaller enterprises in developing nations, who are able to start up using micro credit.

Companies are able to act sustainably and engage in corporate social responsibility thanks to the contribution of responsible professionals. They can not only contribute once they have graduated and have commenced a career - various examples demonstrate that students can also make a significant contribution to sustainable development, such as during practical training and other projects.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have set the agenda for sustainable development in the years from 2000 till 2015. They have been partially effective, as some of these goals have been realized fully or partially, while others were less successful. Their successors are the Sustainable Development Goals, which set the agenda for 2015 till 2030. These seventeen SDGs have a wider scope, setting goals for all nations.
All seventeen goals have been detailed in the form of concrete and assessable sub goals. The 17th goal describes the need for cooperation.

When all potential sources work closely together, the transitions required for sustainable development can be undertaken. Such a close collaboration could, for example, adopt the form of a public-private partnership, where practically-oriented activities can be undertaken while also being responsible – through the triangle made up of governments, companies and civil society – for transition management.

Chapters 1 through 4 together make up a SWOT analysis, the results of which are summarised in the 17 SDGs. They are the point of departure for the following four chapters.

India’s economic growth is comparable to that of China, although it is at a slower pace and started later. Its government structure is less centralised than China’s, allowing for development to be controlled at a much more local level. A large proportion of the population is still rural with much still being done by hand. This includes children, and child labour is widespread. The population is growing rapidly, which will eventually lead to population density rising to unprecedented levels. This poses problems for both food production and the environment, and the introduction of much more efficient methods for producing food and industrial products will be essential.

In the EU the political process of unification is an important method for strengthening peace and democracy.  One of the problems Europe is presently facing is its aging population, a consequence of the baby boom following the Second World War that has been followed by a dramatic decrease in the birth rate. Europe’s ecological footprint is excessive as a result of a process that started with the continent’s industrialisation – the continent is largely deforested. In comparison to the rest of the world, Europeans are relatively well-aware of the environmental issues. In certain respects, Europe is leading the way, such as when it comes to the implementation of the Paris Agreement, but the EU states also transfer a large number of their problems to the rest of the world.

The ECOWAS region and, barring the Arabic north, the African continent in general is the world’s ‘problem child’. The region is faced with a population explosion that is taxing its natural resources, food and the environment. Education, clean water, healthcare and vaccination programmes are all in short supply. Moreover, several nations are dealing with wars, dictatorships and anarchy, while genocide is even at issue in some of the states. In most regions on the planet progress is being made in respect of the Sustainable Development Goals, but in Africa, and in the ECOWAS region in particular, less than average. Nevertheless, in some respects real progress has been made in recent years, giving hope for a real improvement.

The wealthy nations bear a responsibility for the poorer ones due to, amongst other things, our world’s history. This is because the situation in many impoverished countries has been partly caused by the wealthy ones, a factor that still holds today, in view of transferring problems, debts and trade protection.  Responsibility can be borne on legal grounds, based on international treaties and legal liability, for example, or on moral grounds on the basis of solidarity.

Acting responsibly is not always an easy task. One of the reasons might be because of the ‘prisoner’s dilemma’, which means that actors (such as companies and governments) are compelled to make less responsible choices because others are doing the same. Another dilemma is highlighted in the ‘tragedy of the commons’, which illustrates that it is only possible to properly distribute scarce resources in order to prevent overexploitation if all the involved parties work together.

When it comes to making responsible decisions, it is essential to first determine the consequence scope and consequence period of a decision through a comprehensive stakeholder analysis. In this it is important to distinguish between short-term and long-term solutions, and to create policy for both. The ‘Directions for a good decision’ are a guideline for sustainable decision-making and actions.

The future is explored by prophets and fortune-tellers, but they will most likely not help us when it comes to determining a sustainable policy. Science fiction authors and futurologists explore possible futures, which is at the very least beneficial with respect to sounding out the possible consequences of given developments. One of the methods they employ is the trend analysis.

Predictions about the future are very diverse, with doom-mongers fearing a wide variety of disastrous developments, some due to environmental issues, rampant technology and cosmic threats, while optimists like to point out current positive developments and expect that the other major issues will also be solved in a natural way. The reality lies somewhere between these extremes – there are real threats to our civilisation, ones that can be averted with a great deal of effort by many of us.

An important way of exploring the future is to use models, scenarios and simulations. One must realise that models are always a simplified representation of reality, which means that the results of simulations never have a predictive value. Rather, they serve to explore possible future developments.

Certain growth patterns can be identified, both in many simulations as well as in real life – uninhibited or exponential growth, inhibited or logistical growth, weakly inhibited growth and growth that leads to collapse.

A range of separate scenarios have been created for the world population and the individual regions, which can be divided into high, medium and low scenarios. The scenarios for the ECOWAS region, India, China and the EU all fit within a ‘standard scenario’ that outlines developments since prehistory, through the introduction of agriculture and improved farming methods, mechanisation, industry and healthcare and all the way to the present industrialised Western society. The standard scenario is not an essential one, as there are many variations and deviations to it.

The scenarios contained in the World3 model (by Meadows et al), published in a Club of Rome report, have greatly influenced the ideas and policies concerning sustainable development. The most recent models demonstrate, as do the first, that there are many scenarios that will lead to global catastrophe. But there are also scenarios that exhibit a world undergoing sustainable development, which leads to a stable society.

The results of the Meadows model are confirmed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The scenarios it developed likewise show that we could face a rosy future if we take the problems confronting us seriously. A determining factor is the question of whether sufficient attention is being paid to major environmental issues, and solving the question of poverty is in part also dependent on this.

Climate change is caused by the anthropogenic greenhouse effect, the result of an increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour. Not everyone believes that the anthropogenic greenhouse effect has been completely proven to exist, but almost the entire scientific community is convinced that it is real, given the increasing evident rise in temperatures and the fact that theoretical models can predict even the details of this rise. These models are highly complex because many types of feedback exist that can influence the scope of the rise in temperatures.

Climate change can result in a number of developments, including rising sea levels. Some of the consequences are non-linear, making them difficult to predict. For example, the weather is becoming increasingly changeable in many parts of the world, and the number of serious hurricanes is increasing, as are the number of forest fires and failed harvests, while deserts grow. It is even conceivable that the oceanic thermohaline circulation decreases or disappears entirely.  Because the Atlantic Gulf Stream is a part of it, if the thermohaline circulation were to taper off, the temperatures in western and northern Europe would increase at a slower pace or even decrease.

There are also consequences from climate change for the natural environment, which is disrupted by the changes, as well as for human society in the form of disasters, failed harvests and climate refugees.

While not everyone is equally convinced of the reality of climate change, the precautionary principle means that it is wise to engage measures.

Technical solutions are being sought out through cutting energy consumption and using sustainable energy sources. Biofuels can be part of the solution, but there are major associated disadvantages to it, such as the threat to world food production and to the natural environment. Nuclear fission is a hotly debated issue in respect of the question of the degree to which it can really be labelled as sustainable. Nuclear fusion could provide a decent solution, but it is not yet available to us.

Consumers are able to play a role in decreasing the rate of climate change by watching their energy usage through, amongst other things, using low-energy products or fewer products. The mobility offered by cars can profit from a switch to a hydrogen economy.

The Kyoto Protocol is an example of a political instrument, which has been developed by the EU into an economic instrument in the form of tradable emission rights: a cap and trade system. The idea is that these measures lead to a lower emission of greenhouse gases. The Paris Agreement is the first global agreement to combat climate change; it has been signed by all major countries.

At the same time, several types of sustainable energy are becoming more and more competitive compared to fossil fuels. If current trends continue, it is to be expected that especially solar and wind energy will outcompete oil, gas and goal, thus perhaps solving the climate crisis by existing economic processes.

One motive for corporate social responsibility is the large amount of power exercised by customers. For most companies this is not so much about attempts at advertising themselves or creating a good image, and there are even companies that do not publicise their social projects out of a fear that consumers think they are only doing it for their image. Conversely, there is also a risk that companies who shun corporate social responsibility will develop a poor reputation, as a negative image can prove disastrous.

There are also other reasons why companies engage, to a lesser or greater degree, in sustainable business practices, as can be seen in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Many companies believe that sustainable development is important because they understand that if society is not sustainable, neither is their company. A number of companies consider CSR to be an added element to their business management, while others consider it to be part of their core activities, some of which have been set up with sustainable development as their mission.

Corporate governance not only concerns bearing responsibility but also covers being held publically accountable – transparency – in order to show what a company does.

When it comes to sustainable product development, a great deal of knowledge and experience has been acquired. A significant and fundamental insight is that, as a manufacturer, one does not in reality create a product, but rather a product life cycle. There are few manufacturers that control the entire lifecycle of their products, and almost every company works with suppliers, intermediaries and shops.
When the principles of such life cycles become globally dominant, this leads to a circular economy, in which cyclical behaviour has become an intrinsic aspect of the economic and industrial system.
There are other disciplines that deal with a type of integral chain management, not focussing on the manufacture of tangible products but instead on supplying services. These include healthcare, education and public administration, performed by public servants and others.

Another aspect of sustainable entrepreneurship is to be future-oriented. Changes in society offer excellent opportunities for innovative companies – both for their growth and for sustainable development. These opportunities are generally available to those companies that anticipate changes and prepare for the future by – where necessary – redefining their corporate mission in good time. Companies that do not regularly ask themselves what their long-term stakeholder value is run the risk of having little to offer to society, making them untenable.

Sustainable business practices not only deal with the vision and conduct of the companies, they also pertain to the individual employees of those companies. Society can expect of these employees that they personally bear responsibility and are held accountable. This requires specific professional competences on the part of those employees. The sustainably competent professional possesses a range of qualities that are detailed in the RESFIA+D model, which can be used in educational institutions for defining the final qualifications of graduating students. Requirements have been drawn from this model which students’ internship and practical projects must satisfy. In concluding a higher education course, graduates could take a sustainability oath.

It seems as if the 21st century will be a unique period in world history. After the population explosion of the previous century, which is still continuing today, we are now in the middle of a technological explosion that is still accelerating, thanks primarily to IT. This has created opportunities, and also risks. We have a real opportunity to build a worldwide society in which many of us can thrive. We have one chance and one chance only.