Introduction
The recent proposal in the ongoing COP 29, held on 11-22 November, 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, to pledge multi-trillion dollar annual finance to poorer economies to decarbonize and adapt to the rising temperatures highlights the importance of SDG’s for the countries. These SDG’s have been adopted as a response to the rising threat to the earth’s Environment.
Lost in the euphoria of development and economic progress, human activities have severely damaged the ecological health of the world. Studies have depicted a rise in earth’s average global surface temperatures by 1.1ºC since the start of Industrial Revolution, also since the beginning of 18th Century, Carbon Dioxide concentration have risen by over 40%. Although sustainable development has been introduced as a model to counter the environmental damage due to economic developments, the discourse surrounding the same has not attained a final normative form (not pragmatically). What hinders this is the idea of ‘development’ evolved over the years with a euro-centric hue. In light of this, we will discuss whether sustainable development is really sustainable.
Sustainable development advocates for the prevention of degradation of the environment while ensuring socio-economic development. However, the sustainability model, as it stands, is human centric which advocates for the conservation and preservation of other non-human elements solely for benefiting humans.
As would be evident from the discussion in the blog, the devised theoretical model of sustainable development does not align with the actual practice of decisions taken by governments across the world. In pursuit of discussing this issue, we, firstly, discuss the evolution of the very idea of sustainable development, secondly, discuss the misalignment of the theoretical model and actual implementation model of sustainable development, and thirdly, discuss some possible solutions to recalibrate this misalignment.
The Evolution of Sustainable Development
The word ‘sustainable’, as well as the contemporary context of it, is as old as we can go back, albeit not conjointly. However, the main idea behind the modern-day practice of sustainability starts from the time when the human race began to realise a devastating impact on their surrounding environment due to industrialisation. It is not to state, however, that the pre-industrialisation era was completely aligned with the current idea of what really is sustainable. There were always some disturbances in nature due to the human race, although minimal and unnoticeable.
The contemporary practice of sustainability tracks its origin from the definition given in the Brundtland conference. Subsequently, the discourse continued through the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (“UNCED”), also known as Earth Summit, organised in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 to draw up an action plan for sustainable development. In 2002, the World Summit on Sustainable Development was organised in Johannesburg to reaffirm Agenda 21 of UNCED, which stipulated a plan of action to be implemented globally, nationally and locally. All the member countries, in 2012 at Rio+20, reaffirmed their commitment to Agenda 21 and resolved to establish a high level political forum to streamline the issue of sustainable development along with the development of a suite for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
A definition similar to the Brundtland Conference was further adopted by other countries and international organisations, though with some variations. For instance, the Council of European Union also added ‘the earth’s capacity to support life in all its diversity’ as an objective of sustainable development. However, the same was coupled with the human centric idea of development i.e., according to the needs of the future generations. The mere existence of these indicators affects the norms upon which the governments around the globe base (or appear to be basing) their ecological policy decisions. However, as the next section discusses, a normative theoretical structure does not, necessarily, lead to actual effective realisation of the goal to attain sustainable development.
The Apparent Dichotomy of Sustainability
The stated objective of ‘sustainable development’, from the very first time in Brundtland pronunciation till today, has not changed, although rephrased again and again. However, the stated objectives remain human centric. Even the goal of promoting ecological welfare is furthered with a stated goal of providing the future generations a ‘better future’. Similarly, the proponents of the conservation of biodiversity and climate propagate the idea with a human-centric approach. For the same reason, Dryzek describes the concept of sustainable development as ‘the dominant global discourse of ecological concern’. This becomes visible in the concern of various scholars, who contend that ‘sustainable development’ may ultimately become a facade of a mere socio-economic development. Even while the formulation of SDG, environmental protection was a factor, the recent practice of governments depicts an inclination towards socio-economics factors.
Apart from the discourse regarding one sided approach of sustainable development, an analysis of the very concept of it reveals contrasting objectives weaved together. This may not appear problematic since a holistic approach ensuring the development of the human race while protecting the environment is bound to have conflicting objectives. However, we find problems in the implementation of these objectives such that one is neglected completely while trying to achieve the other objective. Take for example the environmental clearances given by the Indian government after doing environmental impact assessments. Of the total 3100 projects submitted between July 2015 and August 2020, only 3 percent were ‘not’ recommended.
This also has to do with the way we measure progress towards achieving sustainable development. The SDG Index which quantifies a country’s efforts is generally referred to while judging its performance. However, as has been observed by many scholars, this indexing presents an apparent flaw hidden behind a logical system of computing performances of countries. Out of the 17 SDG Goals, goals from 12 to 15 focus on ecological preservation. Others majorly focus on development. The top performing countries in the SDG Index actually have a devastating record in ecological development. For instance, Finland, ranked 1, has a carbon footprint of 13 metric tonnes as compared to less than 2 metric tonnes of that of India which is ranked 109 on the Index. This infers that the SDGs are highly inclined towards socio-economic development, providing impetus to directional decision making by the countries, especially developing countries. It buttresses and promotes a dangerous proposition that SDGs, being goals that are ‘sustainable’, include socio-economic measures and a country may appear on top of the chart even if apparent consequences of its ‘development’ is harming the ecology. This is problematic.
Therefore, the socio-economic tendencies of this movement needs to be separated from the idea of sustainability, something which forms part of the discussion of the next section.
Reimagining Sustainability
It is imperative to note that the current normative tendency of countries, especially developing countries, are deeply biased towards promoting unsustainable development. This tendency is guided by the urge to focus specifically on socio-economic development and is restrained by a faulty understanding of the idea of ‘development’. The very idea of sustainability is to decouple ‘development’ from environmental harm. It requires policy changes at both production level and consumption level. However, such changes will only be realised if the countries have clarity on the alignment of these ecological goals with their (original) socio-political goals. This diversion in goals, simply, does not exist.
Moreso, the Brundtland definition of ‘sustainability’ requires fulfilling the needs of future generations, which is inherently related to the idea of ‘well-being’. However, the governance model in the contemporary world is largely influenced by a faulty understanding of ‘well-being’, construed from a viewpoint of wealth. Consequently, influenced by this understanding, the governance metrics as well as their policy decisions fail to reconcile the ecological goal with their idea of socio-political development. The steering mechanism behind policy decisions are also influenced (and affected) by global practices, particularly related to western consumerism and the capitalistic idea of sustainability. Some scholars, therefore, argue for a paradigm shift – from an anthropocentric, human centric, construction to a more eco-centric definition of sustainable development – thus, advocating to replace humans with the ecosphere as a focal point of consideration. The eco-centric approach upholds intrinsic value of the ecology regardless of their relation with humans. The idea was to drift away from the human centric approach of development, wherein even the preservation was for the ‘benefit’ of humans and to consider the environment as a separate entity.
We, however, suggest a holocentric approach. The self-evident name- holocentric- suggests a holistic approach encompassing diverse dimensions of sustainability, namely, socio-economic as well as ecological development. It places all the elements of sustainability on the same pedestal and combines the eco-centric and anthropo-centric approaches. It is pertinent to recognise the inherent value of each without prioritising any single element to actually realise the holisticity of sustainability. In a way, we suggest balancing of approaches by combining and streamlining their end goals. It can be realised through an integrated framework which acknowledges and takes into account the interdependencies among ecological, economic, and social factors. This holocentric approach aims to bridge gaps between development priorities and environmental concerns, ensuring that neither is compromised in favour of the other.
However, none of this will be realised without an overarching political commitment. Without the same, it will be difficult to develop the institutional norms required to steer integration of the idea of sustainability with that of development. A pluralistic multidisciplinary approach becomes necessary to streamline various ideas of development into an all-encompassing (and truly sustainable) sustainable development. Therefore, a conscious calibration in the existing paradigm to incorporate holistic sustainability is the need of the hour.
Conclusion
Climate change is an impending reality, the effect of which will be drastic for the future generations. The discourse surrounding sustainability needs to ‘actually’ acknowledge this reality and adjust its course to fully achieve its objective. This will require collaborative efforts i.e., efforts from all the stakeholders including policy makers, governments, citizens as well as the international community. To make sustainability really sustainable, the underlying beneficiaries will have to be changed from just the future generations to future Earth- Our Ecosphere.
This blog is written by Suryansh Pandey and Deepankar Shastri, 4th year student of B.A. LL.B. (Hons.), Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur.