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On the Use and Misuse of the Concept of Sustainability: Including Population and Resource Macro-Balancing in the Sustainability Dialog. A paper for the 8th International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic, and Social Sustainability

Mr. Ed Barry – The Population Institute, Washington D.C., USA Dr. William Rees – University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada

I. Resource overshoot - today’s global reality:

A. The current scale of human economic activity on Earth is already excessive; the human enterprise is in a state of unsustainable ‘overshoot.’ By this we mean that the consumption and dissipation of energy and material resources exceed the regenerative and assimilative capacity of supportive ecosystems. Many critical stocks of ‘natural capital’ are in decline and global waste sinks are filled to overflowing. Business as usual for today’s global human enterprise is clearly unsustainable. Any society that is living by depleting its capital assets is unsustainable by definition. Resource overshoot can be demonstrated empirically in at least four ways: 1. Direct observation of the degradation of resource ecosystems (e.g., marine fisheries and tropical rain forests) and the depletion of non-renewable resources (e.g., conventional petroleum and various industrial minerals and metals); 2. Direct observation of the gross pollution of major ecosystems and the global commons (e.g., expanding ocean anoxic zones and the accumulation of atmospheric green-house gases [carbon dioxide is the largest waste product of industrial economies]); 3. Macro-economic analysis that compares traditional GDP with indicators that incorporate physical assessments and appropriate valuation of natural capital stocks and pollution damage costs (e.g., the ‘Genuine Progress Indicator’ or the ‘Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare’); 4. Ecological footprint analysis, a quantitative method that compares human demand for bio- capacity (ecosystem services) with sustainably available supply. The aggregate human eco- footprint is already approximately 50% larger than the available bio-capacity. Moreover, demand is increasing and supply is in decline. How is this possible? Remember, at present, the growth of the human enterprise is being unsustainably funded by permanently depleting critical natural capital stocks.

B. Climate change, fresh water shortfalls, biodiversity loss, food shortages (and price increases), and global oil supply ‘peaking’ along with increasing energy costs are all additional symptoms of ecological overshoot.

C. Achieving a positive balance between production in nature and consumption by humans is not merely one of many ‘options,’ it is an obligatory requirement for sustainability. We must eliminate overshoot as a prerequisite to preserving social justice, creating intergenerational equity and securing a future for global civilization. Otherwise we will continue to undermine the Earth’s natural resource assets, which will cause hardships and suffering for future generations of life on the planet.

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D. All nations are responsible for integrating physical assessments of their natural capital assets (renewable, replenishable and non-renewable ‘resources’) into their systems of national accounts for policy and management purposes. Overcoming overshoot and adherence to the strong sustainability criterion requires that we maintain sufficient supplies of natural capital per capita to ensure an adequate flow of ‘natural income’ (consumption) and life-support services indefinitely into the future. Note that if populations are increasing, either natural capital stocks must also increase or average quality of life will decline. Bio-physical resource sustainability must be evaluated in an integrated manner, and periodic national resource ‘balance sheet’ evaluations should be used to inform policy decision making. Resource Sustainability Evaluation and Reporting (SER) must be adopted by national governments and supported by international institutions, as an appropriate response to today’s fundamental reality of global resource overshoot.

E. Technological optimism and techno-fixes do not provide viable solutions to the challenge of global resource overshoot. On the contrary, historical data show that technological gains stimulate economic growth and enable further exploitation of resources rather than induce conservation.

F. Any sustainability assessment and corrective policies must include consideration of all factors contributing to overshoot, including population numbers and growth, our socially-constructed consumer life-styles, and gross social inequity. For example, empowering women and expanding access to family planning services, being essential to preventing unwanted pregnancies and achieving sustainability, must be part of the global sustainable development dialogs and solution.

II. SUSTAINABILITY - Conceptual ambiguities:

“Sustainable economic growth” is an oxymoron. Historically, rising incomes have invariably been accompanied by rising material consumption despite (or because of) technological advances. Clearly, since the world is already in ‘overshoot’ further increases in energy and material throughput will only exacerbate the situation. Can we realistically expect to continue growing the material economy without compromising both our own future prospects and those of future generations?

“Sustainable development” is not necessarily an oxymoron as long as development is not equated with growth. ‘Development’ means qualitative improvement or ‘getting better’ whereas growth means quantitative accretion or ‘getting bigger’. Development can obviously proceed without growth but it is possible to have growth without development. Indicators of development include improving opportunities for personal development, falling unemployment rates, decreasing poverty, greater income security, a narrowing income gap (greater social equity), falling rates of alcohol and drug addiction, improving mental health indicators, etc. By such measures as these, the considerable GDP growth of the past few decades in the US, Canada and other rich countries has been accompanied by regressive de-development.

“Sustainable city;” what does this wide-spread phrase mean? We assert that it is, in fact, meaningless as currently employed. In an integrated globalizing world, no sub-system—no 3

individual, no city no country—can achieve sustainability on its own. Even a city with minimal auto use, exemplary public transit, renewable energy supplies and life-styles that require only an equitable share of global bio-capacity will not be unscathed if the rest of the world maintains its unsustainable tack. Despite its best efforts, this exemplary city will eventually succumb to climate change, rising prices, resource scarcity, civil unrest and geopolitical instability. This reality underscores that (un)sustainability is a collective problem demanding collective solutions and therefore an unprecedented level of international cooperation in the implementation of difficult policy choices for sustainability. In short, we have entered an era in which the future of global civilization can be assured only through “mutual coercion mutually agreed upon” (to use Garrett Hardin’s classic phrasing).

“Sustainable growth in businesses, jobs, and the economy;” this politically correct mantra continues to ignore the reality that resource goods and services are required for all human societal and economic activity, and that the Earth’s capacity to supply these resources is finite. The political response to this criticism is technology advancement and the “decoupling” of our economic activity from resource demands. But technology optimism is, in itself, a conceptual ambiguity.

“Technology advancement” is the means that humanity can deploy to continue economic growth, and thus improve overall global prosperity. Yet the historical record does not bear this out (see above).

“There is no conflict between economic growth and environmental quality” or “there is no conflict between a growing economy and nature.” This is an obligatory mantra uttered by almost all politicians in their efforts to reconcile the irreconcilable; it is patently untrue. As previously noted, economic growth (rising disposable income) has historically stimulated increased personal consumption. This results in increased energy and material throughput and consequent ecological damage. The reason is simple: the human enterprise is a growing sub- system of a non-growing finite ecosphere. Any diversion of energy and material resources to maintain and grow more humans and their ‘furniture’ is irreversibly unavailable to non-human species (what we get, they don’t). Biodiversity declines as humans displace other species from their habitats and appropriate ‘primary production’ (nature’s goods and services) that would otherwise support other species. Meanwhile, the increased production/consumption for humans adds to the pollution load on natural ecosystems. As noted, these trends can actually be accelerated by technological improvements that increase access to resources or improve efficiency (both of which tend to lower costs and prices).

“Shifting to a knowledge-based or service-based economy will reduce environmental impacts.” This is a common illusion voiced to support structural economic change and continued economic growth; it is patently untrue. The reasons are simple. By ‘knowledge-based economy’ people generally mean an economy driven by high-end services such as engineering, information technology, financial services, etc. These activities are often seen as having less direct ecological impact than primary and secondary sector activities such as logging, mining and manufacturing. Herein lies the illusion. High-end service jobs pay much higher incomes than employment in the low-end material economy. Participants in the knowledge-based economy therefore have bigger houses, cars, flat-screen TVs and generally consume more than primary 4 and secondary sector employees (see previous point). They therefore have much larger per capita ecological footprints than workers in the basic economy; those countries with the largest high-end service sectors have the largest national eco-footprints. There is another dimension to the illusion. The structural shift to a knowledge/service-based economy is invariably accompanied by the migration of manufacturing to low-wage developing countries that generally have lower environmental standards (or good standards that are not enforced). These countries (e.g., China) then sell much of their manufacturing output to wealthier consumer societies. Hence, the ecological impact per unit consumption in knowledge- based economies may increase with the total volume of consumption.

III. SUSTAINABILITY - A more complete definition:

Background:

The underlying construct that differentiates sustainability from sustainable development is appropriate scale. If the total resource demands created by the scale of human economies and societies become greater than the finite capacity of one planet, we draw down planetary resources and destroy opportunities for future planetary life. Under this scenario, development is never sustainable.

The scale of human activity, and global resource overshoot that currently results from this activity, is something that the world must address. Although global warming, climate change, fishery decline, or some other environmental problem may appear to be the world’s most critical issue to deal with, the reality is that all of these problems are caused by the more fundamental problem of resource overshoot. The human enterprise, as it is currently operated, is simply out of balance with what the Earth’s finite resource systems can sustain.

The UN World Commission on Environment and Development, otherwise known as the Brundtland Commission, launched in late 1984, conducted hearings during the years 1985-86, and at the conclusion of its work in 1987 issued a report on the subject of global sustainability. The final report entitled; “Our Common Future” highlighted many important issues and offered the world valuable insights including, but not limited to, the following: 1. The scale of human interventions in nature is (at that time in the late 80s) increasing and approaching many of the natural resource limits of our finite planet. “The scale and complexity of our requirements for natural resources have increased greatly with the rising levels of population and production. Nature is bountiful but also fragile and finely balanced. There are thresholds that cannot be crossed without endangering the basic integrity of the system. Today we are close to many of these thresholds; we must be ever mindful of the risk of endangering the survival of life on Earth.”

2. Development and environmental preservation are inexorably linked. “….economics and ecology must be completely integrated in decision making and lawmaking processes not just to protect the environment, but also to protect and promote development.”

3. The world must pursue human development in a manner that fully considers and protects the needs of future generations of planetary life. “Sustainable development is [a progressive transformation of economy and society] that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” 5

4. Development activities, while meeting human needs, must also address the human resource footprint by doing such things as improving energy use efficiency, preserving and renewing damaged ecosystems, and protecting biodiversity.

The Brundtland Commission report was far-reaching, insightful, and in many respects a seminal work in the field of sustainability. Its contribution to the global sustainability dialogue cannot be understated. Yet the recommendations of the report fell short, especially in terms of needed policy measures for ensuring bio-physical ecosystem preservation and intergenerational equity of opportunity. The report addressed individual resources, resource systems, and human demands on resources, in a series of single topical expositions (e.g. population, food security, energy, the international economy). Although there were many qualitative references to the interrelationships between these single issue ‘silos’, the Commission apparently did not address these important interactions with any kind of an integrated systems analysis.

All living resource systems operate in an integrated symbiotic fashion. With respect to human activity, many resource demands constitute mutually exclusive appropriations of the Earth’s productive capacity. The individual resource or ‘silo’ approach, therefore, does not give a comprehensive view of total global sustainability. This general structural flaw is embodied in the entire following list of more specific shortcomings:

A. The report did not adequately consider the total demands that human activities place on planetary resources. Although references were made to the necessary balance between population sizes and available resources, no attempt was made to quantify this balance between total human demands and the capacity of the planet to meet those demands.

B. While the report contained many references to anthropogenic over-conscription of terrestrial and marine resources, and recognized that human ‘business as usual’ was causing degradation of planetary ecosystems, it failed to undertake an integrated resource demand/supply analysis. As a result, the gravity and urgency of global resource overshoot was understated.

C. The report failed to offer a concrete operating methodology by which the world could determine whether it was compromising the needs of future generations (i.e. ensuring global resource sustainability). While it suggested that a ‘voice’ should be present to speak on behalf of future generations, it failed to articulate how that voice would be heard.

What is needed in national and international environmental governance (IEG) is an evaluation and scenario planning process that assesses total human resource demands and compares these demands with the capacity of natural systems to supply resource goods and services. This comparative process is called resource macro-balancing. Scientifically based accounting methodologies are available to evaluate resource macro-balances in biological and geophysical terms. These evaluations can be used to demonstrate unsustainable behavior before such behavior causes severe and potentially irreparable damage to planetary resources. It is the ultimate early warning system. 6

The first, and most critical, step to reducing global resource overshoot is to incorporate resource macro-balancing into governance. Each nation must individually embrace the broad concept of sustainability (living within our means) and commit to a program of action that results in continuous macro-balance improvement. These programs will require the implementation of evaluation processes, periodic reporting, and a commitment to adopting national policies that promote self-sufficiency within the natural resource limits of each respective sovereign territory1.

International environmental governance should be designed to encourage and support national sustainability commitments. The design of IEG must include technical evaluation support and global standardization of evaluation methodologies. IEG must also perform other needed functions such as international resource allocations, monitoring, planning, and global resource goal setting2.

With the above background in mind we propose the following operational definitions of sustainable development and sustainability:

Sustainable development (SD) is positive socio-economic change that enhances the socio- political institutions necessary for continued good governance and effective participatory citizenship; grows its essential natural capital assets; maintains the integrity of supportive ecosystems and ensures the flow of essential life-support services. Sustainability conceptually describes an economy and full set of societal human endeavors, the demands of which are in equilibrium with basic ecological and resource support systems. Proper resource demand vs. supply (capacity) macro-balances must be evaluated and maintained to ensure environmental preservation and inter-generational equity.

1 This statement does not suggest that we should curtail international commerce. 2 For more information please refer to the policy white paper; “Designing Environmental Governance to Achieve True Sustainability and Long Term Global Prosperity,” or its executive summary, which can be found at www.globalsustainabilitynow.com or contact [email protected].