Transcript www.bcca.org

THE CHALLENGE OF
SUSTAINABILITY
Arthur Lyon Dahl Ph.D.
International Environment Forum (IEF)
http://www.bcca.org/ief
and
European Bahá'í Business Forum (EBBF)
http://www.ebbf.org
(Prepared for AIESEC conferences 2006)
PREVALENT PESSIMISM
UNCERTAINTY ABOUT FUTURE
• Globalization is stressing economic/social
systems, cultures, institutions, value systems
• Persistent poverty, inequality in the world
• Inability to create adequate employment
• Increasing insecurity, social breakdown
• Environmental degradation, climate change
• Growing risks to health, epidemics
• Information revolution makes us more aware
(and less tolerant) of these problems
• Your prospects less good than your parents
Present unsustainability
• Population will grow to 9 billion by 2050
• 20% of population uses 80% of
resources
• Fossil fuels running out
• Planetary resources degraded
• Climate change - impacts poor most
• Extremes of wealth and poverty
widening
Ecological footprint
• Surface needed to supply the needs and absorb the
wastes of an individual, community, or country
• Global average 2.3 ha/person
• Italy 3.26 ha/person (lowest in western Europe)
• France 5.74 ha/person, Switzerland 5.26 ha/p.
• Resources available 1.9 ha/person
• We overshot the earth's capacity in 1975
http://redefiningprogress.org/programs/sustainabilityindicators/ef/
http://www.myfootprint.org
http://www.globalfootprint.org/
Scenarios
• Business as usual
• Fortress world
• Transition to sustainability
Scenarios from World 3
(Meadows et al. (1992) Beyond the Limits)
Business as usual
Transition 1995
Transition 2015
Business as usual
will lead to
(Aral Sea, from UNEP, GEO 3)
• Natural, economic, and social
disasters
• Threats to Western material
civilization
• Rolling up of old world order
Certainties
We are in the middle of a major transformation in society
The past is not a good predictor of the future
Change is inevitable, and the rate of change is
accelerating, requiring adaptive management
Globalization cannot be stopped, but it can be
transformed
Institution building for international governance will
continue
We can consciously work for change, or wait for
catastrophe to force us to change
There will be new forms of wealth creation and business
Creativity and innovation will be increasingly necessary
for success
Values and ethics will be fundamental to social
New
directions
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
“Development that meets the needs of
the present generation without
compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their needs”
UN Commission on Environment and Development 1987
The private sector has been too competitive to
create a joint vision of development and
sustainability
Sustainability – an ethical concept
- we are trustees or stewards of the planet's resources
and biodiversity
- ensure sustainability and equity of resource use into
distant future
- consider the environmental consequences of
development activities
- temper our actions with moderation and humility
- value nature in more than economic terms
- understand the natural world and its role in humanity's
collective development both material and spiritual
Sustainable environmental management must come to
be seen not as a discretionary commitment mankind can
weigh against other competing interests, but rather as a
fundamental responsibility that must be shouldered, a
pre-requisite for spiritual development as well as the
individual's physical survival.
The importance of values
• Values are what determine how humans
relate to each other
• They are the social equivalent of DNA,
encoding the information through which
society is structured
• For society to evolve, its values must
also progress
• What values will help us to address the
challenges of the 21st century?
Values for a sustainable society
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Justice
Solidarity
Altruism
Respect
Trust
Moderation
Service
Rethinking the Economy
- The present economic system is not meeting
human needs
- 50 years of economic development, despite
some progress, has failed to meet is objectives
- There is no global governance for a global
economic system
Questions
• Is eating your only purpose in life?
• Should profit be the only purpose of
business?
• Should you try to keep growing forever?
• Should growth be the main goal of
businesses and economies?
Economics for people
- Economics has ignored the broader context of
humanity's social and spiritual existence, resulting in:
- Corrosive materialism in the world's more economically
advantaged regions
- Persistent conditions of deprivation among the masses
of the world's peoples
- Economics should serve people's needs; societies
should not be expected to reformulate themselves to fit
economic models.
- The ultimate function of economic systems should be to
equip the peoples and institutions of the world with the
means to achieve the real purpose of development: that is,
the cultivation of the limitless potentialities latent in
human consciousness.
(adapted from Bahá'í International Community, Valuing Spirituality in Development, 1998)
New economic models
- further a dynamic, just and thriving
social order
- strongly altruistic and cooperative in
nature
- provide meaningful employment
- help to eradicate poverty in the world
Challenge to economic thinking
from the environmental crisis
- we can no longer believe that there is no limit to
nature's capacity to fulfil any demand made on it
by human beings
- giving absolute value to expansion, to acquisition,
and to the satisfaction of people's wants is not a
realistic guide to policy
- economic decision-making tools cannot deal with
the fact that most of the major challenges are
global
Is bigger always better?
What are the most appropriate scales for
economic activities?
Are there limits to increasing productivity?
Should short term always win over long
term?
Challenge to business
- How can economic efficiency, profit and
wealth creation combine with corporate
social responsibility and respecting
environmental limits?
- How do we raise productivity and create
employment?
For social sustainability
In increasingly diverse communities, how
do we go from prejudice and withdrawal to
open integration and unity?
Cooperation and Reciprocity
Cooperation and reciprocity are
essential properties of all natural
and human systems, increasing in
more highly evolved and complex
systems
Community
How do we create unity in diversity?
What is the best size for a
community?
What does the information revolution
mean for community life and
organization?
JUSTICE AND EQUITY
- It is unjust to sacrifice the well-being of most
people -- and even of the planet itself -- to the
advantages which technological breakthroughs can
make available to privileged minorities
- Only development programmes that are
perceived by the masses of humanity as
meeting their needs and as being just and
equitable in objective can hope to engage their
commitment, upon which implementation depends
(based on Baha'i International Community, Prosperity of Humankind)
Solidarity
We should consider every human being a
trust of the whole.
The goal of wealth creation should be to
make everyone wealthy.
Voluntary giving is more meaningful and
effective than forced redistribution.
HOW DO WE MAINTAIN THE
ECOLOGICAL BALANCE
OF THE PLANET?
Preserving the Ecological Balance
Agriculture and the preservation of the
ecological balance of the world are fundamental
to the sustainable economic and social
development of all countries
Living within environmental
limits
To maintain the ecological balance, we must:
- understand the operation of complex ecological systems;
- create observation and management mechanisms at the
scale of the systems;
- reduce human impacts to a level appropriate to the
vulnerability and resilience of the systems;
- restore damaged systems to the level necessary to maintain
natural and human ecosystem services;
- replace exploitation of wild systems with cultivated products
as far as possible;
- allow development only to the extent that system
improvements extend the carrying capacity of the ecosystem
in question.
Renewable Resources
To be sustainable long into the future, the economy
must be based on renewable resources (agriculture,
forests, fisheries, bio-industries), closed materials
cycles and integrated product lifecycles
The goal:
an organically
united world
IS THERE ANY
HOPE?
The need today is for visionary leaders to
relate practical realities to a new framework
of values
The years ahead will be difficult,
but you are the reason for hope
Thank you
The planet will thank you too