In everyday life we hear about the words 'sustainable' and 'sustainability' almost in everything. These words are commonly used as sustainable livelihoods, sustainable transport, sustainable energy, sustainable agriculture, sustainable economy, sustainable society, biological sustainability and various types of sustainability indexes and the list can go on. We have seen this growing trend since late 80’s when the United Nation’s Bruntland Report; also known as ‘Our Common Future’ was published with a key statement on ‘Sustainable Development’ as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’ Since then, the society has been in the midst of continual transformation towards a sustainable future that is expected to preserve wellbeing of the present and future generations to thrive on a habitable planet.
To me ‘Sustainability’ is an enormous word encapsulates almost everything that is practically happening around us. It’s the human capacity to endure in economic, environmental and social aspects – a widely accepted vision, which is probably here to stay with us for very long time. While tightly-knotted with the three pillars (e.g. economic, environmental & social aspects), sustainability can be difficult to be understood, even more difficult to foresee whether absolute, complete or even near sustainability is somehow achievable.
Undoubtedly, sustainability is good and it’s the very best thing on our plate at this moment in time. It took long time for our society to understand that human development and progress goes hand in hand with the health and wellbeing of our planet. If you turn the clock back for only 50 years then you will find that no one actually talked about carrying capacity of natural systems, green development, ecological modernisation or even responsible planning and management of resources. Now the world must consider these underpinning ideas for its own survival.
However, Putting sustainability perspective into practice is increasingly harder when the ‘sustainability divide’ between rich and poor countries are so large; given the fact that it’s almost dream comes true for those poorest countries to reach at least a near sustainability point. One person’s sustainability measure in richer countries can be other person’s (extreme) luxury in the poorer countries. In many fronts, ‘sustainability divide’ between rich and poor countries are very uneven and once we start talking about the divide, it would definitely touch the very core of many burning issues in recent time namely population growth, poverty, food & fresh water scarcity, global inequality of consumption, economic insecurity, environmental pollution and climate change etc.
Some claim with justification that pursuing a social-economic-environmental (triple bottom line) relationship is easy to be implemented. But I think it’s not as easy as it seems. A few very simple examples can be mentioned here (there are of course many more) to illustrate the complex relationship in bridging the great divide between rich and poor countries, such as using energy efficiency devices in homes, waste recycling, deterioration of public health due to increased level of pollution, discrimination in respect of employment and occupation and economic insecurity of low income families etc. These are multidisciplinary areas yet interconnected challenges within sustainability aspirations. All these challenges can be pinned down one big umbrella of ‘poverty elimination’ issues, which fits within the sustainable livelihoods approach.
In the poorer countries, in general, using energy efficiency devices in homes is a luxury. In fact millions of families in those countries do not have any devices at all because they cannot afford it. And, those people who have the devices don’t know how they are going to dispose it at the end of the product life-cycle as there are no organised waste management and recycling centres. As a result, these used products will end up in wrong hands; thus increases the risk of air, water and soil contamination. This is a very simple example illustrates that lack of appropriate and well-maintained waste management and recycling centres, the aspirations (of a very tiny portion) of sustainability issues cannot be fulfilled.
Another classic example is environmental degradation in urban areas. The root causes of environmental degradation in urban areas are the unplanned and hardly coordinated inter-play of socio-economic, institutional and technical activities. The rapid and unplanned expansion of the cities has resulted in the degradation of urban environment and the city dwellers are the victims who are taking its toll on their health. Coping with these impacts depend on a society's technical, institutional, economic, and social ability. Near sustainability may be possible when a country has got these abilities to cope with the impacts, however reaching to that point for many countries around the world is still a very long way to go.
Numerous examples can be drawn to show the disparities but fact of the matter is near sustainability cannot be achieved if we do not tackle poverty, and those interrelated elements that inflict and increase the poverty rates. We must appreciate that society have found sustainability silver bullet - at least having a perspective and focusing to preserve the wellbeing for the present and future generations but let’s not be lulled into utopian dream that sustainability will be achieved very soon. It’s a process that I think will take very long time – it’s not time yet to think about beyond sustainability issues as society is still in a premature stage in responding the present global sustainability promises.
