In October 1987, the goal of sustainable development was endorsed by the governments
of 100 nations in the UN General Assembly. The UN endorsement followed the completion
of a report by the World Commission on Environment and Development, published
as "Our Common Future", which defined sustainable development as "development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs."
The concept of sustainable development has succeeded in gaining widespread
support amongst the world's decision makers and power brokers because it aims
to protect the environment without the need for radical change. It sets out
to make necessary modifications that will enable normal economic activities
to be sustainable into the future. At the same time it recognises that serious
and irreversible environmental degradation should be prevented because it could
diminish the ability of the planet to sustain such activities.
Sustainable development represents a significant shift from the early environmentalists'
idea of sustainability, which precluded unlimited growth on a finite planet,
to a sustainability that is more compatible with growth. Industry groups and
business associations have produced numerous documents and policy statements
on sustainable development outlining how the environment can be protected in
a context of economic growth, freed-up markets and industrial self-regulation.
The support of environmentalists for the concept of sustainable development
has been less universal. Whilst some welcome the newfound attention being paid
to environmental protection and the opportunity to negotiate with governments
and developers on these issues, others are more wary because of the minimalist
approach that seems to be inherent in the sustainable development approach.
They argue that more fundamental institutional and social changes need to take
place, including a shift towards steady-state economies.
Sustainable development seeks to change the nature of economic growth rather
than limit it. In its introduction to the Australian edition of the Brundtland
report the Commission For the Future pointed out that "Rather than growth or
no-growth, as the debate about environment and development has sometimes been
cast, the central issue is what kind of growth. The challenge of sustainable
development is to find new products, processes, and technologies which are environmentally
friendly while they deliver the things we want."
At the heart of the debate over the potential effectiveness of sustainable
development is the question of whether technological change can reduce the impact
of economic development sufficiently to ensure other types of change will not
be necessary. Changes in population growth and consumption levels seem to be
off the agenda since nations were unable to come to any agreement on these issues
at the recent Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. If environmental
impact is a function of numbers of people (population), resource use per person
(consumption) and environmental impact per unit of resource used (technology),
this leaves technology as the remaining variable available for manipulation.
Can technology give us environmental protection and economic development?
Can it ensure equity between and within generations so that everyone, now and
in the future, our far neighbours and our great-grandchildren, can enjoy the
standard of living we do? Such an accomplishment would require more than just
a few adjustments to existing technological systems. It would require a radically
different technology. Yet if technology is socially shaped, as modern scholars
of technology studies argue, can we achieve radical technological change without
equally radical social change taking place?
Attempts to invent and design different types of technology that were more
environmentally sound are not new. The appropriate technology movement which
blossomed in the 1970s attempted to do just this. The appropriate technology
movement has been going for more than twenty years in many countries, and today
involves an extensive network of groups, an identifiable literature of its own,
as well as numerous demonstrated technological innovations. Despite this, it
has failed to influence the pattern of technology choice exercised by mainstream
society. Kelvin Willoughby, a US scholar who has studied this movement, points
out that while it has "achieved a modestly impressive track record of successful
projects" and despite the "appeal and commonsense nature of the movement's core
ideas, the movement has largely failed to evoke the transformation of industrial
and technological practice in most countries in accordance with the principles
of Appropriate Technology. In other words, while becoming a significant international
movement Appropriate Technology has remained a minority theme within technology
policy and practice." (1990, p. 12)
Langdon Winner (1986) has argued that most people in the appropriate technology
movement ignored the question of how they would get those who were committed
to traditional technologies to accept the new appropriate technologies. They
believed that if their technologies were seen to be better, not only in terms
of their environmental benefits but also in terms of sound engineering, thrift
and profitability, they would be accepted.
Many of the advocates of appropriate technologies made no attempt to understand
how modern technologies had been developed and why they had been accepted or
why alternatives had been discarded. Winner claims that "by and large most of
those active in the field were willing to proceed as if history and existing
institutional technical realities simply did not matter" (1986, p. 80).
It is important not to put too much emphasis on technological factors without
considering the social, political and economic factors that can be crucial in
the shaping and implementation of technologies. It seems that those pinning
their hopes on technology to deliver to us a sustainable future may well be
doing the same thing as the Appropriate Technology Movement before them. Having
the technological means to reduce pollution and to protect the environment does
not mean that it will automatically be used.
According to Patrick McCully, writing in The Ecologist, "The reason
that the USA is the most polluting nation in the world has little to do with
a lack of energy efficient technologies or renewable methods of producing electricity:
it has a lot to do with the size of the country's oil, coal and automobile industries
and the influence they have on the political establishment. In the UK, the public
transport system is expensive, unreliable and infrequent, not because the government
cannot afford to improve it or does not know how, but because the vested interests
behind public transport have negligible power compared to the influential road
and car lobbies. (1991, p. 250)
Given that there are many environmentally beneficial technologies are already
designed and available for implementation, there is a need to look beyond the
designer of technology to other people in society who affect decisions about
technological choice including businesses, governments and consumers.
Business and Industry
At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the governments of 170 nations
signed Agenda 21, the action plan for sustainable development which said that
"Through more efficient production processes, preventive strategies, cleaner
production technologies and procedures throughout the product life cycle, hence
minimising or avoiding wastes, the policies and operations of business and industry,
including transnational corporations, can play a major role in reducing impacts
on resource use and the environment. Technological innovations, development,
applications, transfer and the more comprehensive aspects of partnership and
cooperation are to a very large extent within the province of business and industry."
Yet although the burden of technological change seems to lie with business
and industry, many firms are not implementing environmentally beneficial technologies,
despite their availability. The ESD Working Group on Manufacturing found that
firms did not "appear to have made full use of available technology and management
with respect to energy efficiency" and that "in many industries, a range of
technologies for green products and cleaner production are already available
but have not been generally adopted."
Moreover, efforts to clean up the environment have tended to concentrate on
technologies that are added to existing production processes to control and
reduce pollution (end-of-pipe technologies and control devices) rather than
changes to the production processes themselves. The alternative to end-of-pipe
technologies is to adopt new `clean' technologies that alter production processes,
inputs to the process and products themselves so that they are more environmentally
benign. It is suggested by Cramer and Zegveld (1991, pp. 461-2) that process
technologies should be used that require less water (for example, by alternative
drying techniques), energy and raw materials, and that reduce waste discharges
(for example by developing detection and separation machinery and process-integrated
flue-gas cleaning and filter systems). Also, raw material inputs and processes
can be changed so that, for instance, solvent-free inks and paints, and heavy
metal-free pigments are used. The end products can be redesigned to reduce environmental
damage during both manufacture and use, and waste flows can be reused within
the production process rather than dumped.
Clean technologies are preferable to end-of-pipe technologies because they
avoid the need to extract and concentrate toxic material from the waste stream
and deal with it. The ESD working group on manufacturing has categorised waste
management strategies according to a hierarchy of desirability, ranging from
clean technologies to disposal methods--the latter being the least desirable.
The OECD found that, in 1987, most investment in pollution control was being
used for end-of-pipe technologies, with only 20 per cent being used for cleaner
production. Cleaner technologies are not always available and, even when they
are, companies tend not to replace their old technologies until they have run
their useful life. Also, companies prefer to keep to a minimum the organisational
changes that need to be made; they like to play it safe when it comes to investment
in pollution management. The ESD Working Group commented that, "it is apparent
that in many cases end-of-pipe technologies are readily available, easier to
adopt and more evident as anti-pollution measures than clean production processes".
According to the working group, "The rate of uptake of new cleaner technologies
by industry will depend on each firm's assessment of a complex array of long
and short-term costs and benefits from this action. The age and residual life
of current plant and equipment, and the investment climate, will be critical
to new capital expenditure decisions. The prospect of gaining consumer goodwill
and a competitive edge from cleaner production, or the prospect of increased
costs for pollution and waste disposal, would also be expected to be important
determinants ... Adverse publicity or its likelihood may act as a powerful incentive
to lagging firms to clean up their act. (pp. 62-3)"
Consumers
A series of media reports and books, such as The Green Consumer
Guide (Elkington & Hailes 1989), have given many people the impression
that the environment can be saved if individuals are responsible in their shopping
habits and buy only environmentally sound products. The idea is that firms wanting
to take advantage of this new demand for green products will change their production
processes and redesign their products to meet the demand. Environmentally sound
goods will become profitable. This view has been reinforced by David Pearce,
former advisor to Margaret Thatcher, and his colleagues who stated that "Sustainable
Development means a change in consumption patterns towards environmentally
more benign products, and a change in investment patterns towards augmenting
environmental capital. (Pearce, Markandya & Barbier 1989, p. xiv)
The tendency for consumers to prefer environmentally sound products has already
become evident. Surveys show that a significant proportion of consumers in Australia
and other high-income countries, although by no means the majority, make an
effort to buy green products such as pump packs, unbleached papers and items
made of recycled paper. About 28 per cent would pay more for safe aerosols and
biodegradable plastic products, and 35 per cent for natural foods that were
not produced using pesticides.
Firms of suppliers and users can also influence firms through their purchasing
or product stewardship policies. Some firms are already introducing systematic
environmental purchasing policies, and some are making specific demands on their
suppliers for products such as plastics without PVC or plastics that can be
recycled more easily.
Marketing managers who recognise the opportunities that might be opened up
by the growth of green consumerism can encourage their firms to invest in `clean'
technology and then market their products on that basis. They can also convey
to their firms the potential for environmentally damaging activities or discharges
to receive adverse publicity. (Schot 1992, pp. 48-50) Such ideas have already
prompted a surge of advertisements and labels claiming environmental benefits.
Green imagery is used to sell products. Caring for the environment has become
a marketing strategy.
However, the power of consumers to influence technologies is limited. Often
their information is confined to advertising claims that may well be misleading.
The claims may have very little substance. Greenpeace campaigners Dadd and Carothers
(1990, p. 10) claim that Chevron, a multinational oil company, spends about
five times as much publicising its environmental actions as it does on the actions
themselves. The choices that a consumer faces are not clear cut either. Green
consumers tend to prefer natural fibres rather than synthetics, but the cotton
industry and large-scale sheep grazing also result in significant environmental
problems. The debates over whether plastic packaging is better or worse than
paper packaging for the environment, or whether milk bottles are better than
cartons, are sure to confuse consumers.
The ESD working group on manufacturing points out that any judgement about
whether a product is ecologically sustainable is extremely complex, requiring
long-term assessment from manufacture to disposal, and taking consideration
of how long the product will last, whether it can be reused or recycled, whether
it is biodegradable, how much energy it consumes and how efficiently it uses
resources. Other matters that need to be considered include the way the product
will be used, transported, distributed, marketed and packaged.
Dadd and Carothers point out that the products available to consumers do not
necessarily reflect consumer demand. If it is cheaper for a company not to recycle
bottles, then it will not. They say that car companies push "big cars with high
compression, high-pollution engines on the American public" because they get
the biggest profit from them, not because the public demands them. Another example
is given by US scholar Patricia Hynes (1991, p. 474). She argues that in the
USA organic food products make up only 4 per cent of the market, although demand
would easily be 5 to 10 per cent. She argues that government policies prevent
farmers from giving up methods of farming that are highly dependent on agricultural
chemicals.
Whilst consumers may influence packaging and some ingredients of products,
they are usually unable to influence more hidden aspects of a product such as
whether a retailer or manufacturer uses rail or road transport to transport
their goods. They are unlikely to to affect more fundamental production decisions
that might lead to clean technology rather than end-of-pipe technologies.
Governments
Governments are in a much better position than consumers to influence
such decision through a variety of mechanisms. They can reinforce the role of
the consumer through provision of information about the health and environmental
impacts of products and production methods used in their manufacture and by
preventing false advertising. They can also encourage the development of new
technologies by funding or subsidising research and development.
Governments tend not to be very good at translating government financed inventions
into commercial successes. Policies to subsidise firms to change their innovation
processes for environmental protection purposes have not been very successful,
either. Experience in the Netherlands between 1975 and 1990 showed that subsidies
were not usually spent on clean technologies, and that they usually went to
larger firms that would have made the required investments anyway. Moreover,
subsidies have tended to lead to development of end-of-pipe technologies rather
than changing the direction of the technologies being developed.
Governments can also encourage the development and implementation of clean
technologies through the use laws and regulations which cannot be met without
technological change or through the use of economic instruments which are meant
to provide a financial incentive for technological change.
A number of studies have shown that environmental legislation can be a key
factor in many industry innovations. A study of 164 innovations in Europe and
Japan found that regulations (mainly environmental and safety) not only promoted
innovation but were a factor in the success of these innovations, particularly
in the chemical and automobile industries (Royston 1982, p. 15). This was because
the technology for meeting the regulations was often readily available; it had
not been implemented because company engineers had other priorities. Government
regulations had forced a reordering of priorities, allowing technological changes
to take place fairly quickly, and environmental and safety improvements to follow.
However, regulation seldom leads to the development of radically different
technologies; rather, to technologies closely related to those already being
used. Laws and regulations tend to lead to end-of-pipe technologies because
they are usually too weak and are aimed at quick remedies to severe environmental
problems. In order for them to affect the original design and shape of a technology,
they need to be very stringent--so stringent that existing technology will not
suffice. They also need to be introduced progressively so that a firm can anticipate
what will be required and have time to develop innovations.
In some cases in the USA, standards have been set on the basis of environmental
or health requirements rather than on available technologies. This has resulted
in new technologies being developed and implemented. Lawsuits, regulations and
the threatened ban on PCBs forced PCB users to develop product alternatives.
Most of these substitutes were cheaper than the PCBs they replaced. Bans on
CFCs in aerosols resulted in two innovations: a non-fluorocarbon propellant
was developed using carbon dioxide, and a new pumping system was introduced
that did not depend on propellants and was actually cheaper.
Wastewater pre-treatment standards proposed for effluent from the electroplating
industry were predicted to force a closure of 20 per cent of electroplating
workshops. A research and development project following this announcement produced
a new rinsing method--the `providence method'--which reduced water consumption
by one-third and cut hazardous waste production by 50 to 70 per cent (Caldart
& Ryan 1985, p. 315).
All of these cases show that constraints on industries are not necessarily
detrimental to their viability. Charles Caldart, of the Centre for Technology
and Industrial Development, MIT, and William Ryan of the Massachusetts Public
Interest Research Group, have expressed the conviction that regulatory approaches
"must not be bound by existing technologies and existing economic conditions.
Rather, public policy must encourage the type of innovation that can spur technological
breakthroughs and alter economic circumstances. In short, we believe it is possible
to change production technologies." (1985, p. 310)
Economic instruments also seek to encourage technological change by providing
a financial incentive to encourage firms to direct their research and development
towards environmentally sound technology. However, like legislative instruments,
economic instruments have tended to be too weak to achieve any real technological
change. The OECD (1989) has found that in most cases charges are too low to
provide such an incentive and merely act to redistribute money from the polluter
to the government. Similarly, tradeable pollution rights have been found to
save money for industry but not to have improved environmental quality significantly.
Because of the reluctance of governments to act against business interests,
legislation and economic instruments are seldom tough enough to foster technological
change of the type required for ecological sustainability. Although such regulation
would probably strengthen business in the long run, business people see strong
government intervention as an infringement on their autonomy. Barry Commoner,
a well-known US environmentalist, argues that business people are supported
in this because there remains a strong public conviction "that the decisions
that determine what is produced and by what technological means ought to remain
in private, corporate hands." (1990, p. 153)
Sustainable development relies on technological change to achieve its aims
but will governments take the tough steps that are required to force radical
technological innovation rather than the technological fixes that have been
evident to date? Such measures would require a long-term view and a preparedness
to bear short-term economic costs while industry readjusts. It is hard to see
governments being willing to do this in today's socio-economic climate in Australia.
David Dickson, a well-known writer on technology and former editor of New
Scientist, has pointed out that an alternative technology can "only be successfully
applied on a large scale once an alternative form of society" has been created.
Even if cleaner technology can be implemented will the reductions in pollution
be enough? Dutch Professors Cramer and Zegveld argue that they will not, if
production continues to grow. Giving the example of their own country, where
the purchasing power of the average person is expected to increase by 70 per
cent by the year 2010, they argue that "an incredible reduction in discharge
levels and waste flows per product unit would have to be realised to achieve
the aim of a sustainable society" (1991, p. 464). They believe this is not realistic.
On top of this, production would need to increase ten times if everyone in the
world were to live at the same standard of living as those who live in affluent
countries such as Australia. They claim that the growth of both production and
freely disposable income would have to be restricted if pollution levels are
to be reduced.
It would appear that so long as sustainable development is restricted to minimal
low-cost adjustments that do not require value changes, institutional changes
or any sort of radical cultural adjustment, the environment will continue to
be degraded. The ESD Working Group chairs, in their Intersectoral Issues
Report, pointed out that, unless substantial change occurs, the present
generation may not be able to pass on an equivalent stock of environmental goods
to the next generation. "Firstly, the rates of loss of animal and plant species,
arable land, water quality, tropical forests and cultural heritage are especially
serious. Secondly, and perhaps more widely recognised, is the fact that we will
not pass on to future generations the ozone layer or global climate system that
the current generation inherited. A third factor that contributes overwhelmingly
to the anxieties about the first two is the prospective impact of continuing
population growth and the environmental consequences if rising standards of
material income around the world produce the same sorts of consumption patterns
that are characteristic of the currently industrialised countries." (ESD Working
Group Chairs 1992, p. 10)
Environmental degradation is not precluded by a minimalist approach to sustainable
development however. The goal of sustainable development is viewed by some economists
and business groups as being merely to preserve the environment to the extent
that it is necessary for the maintenance of the economic system. For them future
generations can be compensated for the loss of environmental resources by increased
wealth and human capital with which to meet their needs.
Such a scenario would see Australians living in an increasingly artificial
world with areas of unspoilt wilderness increasingly distant, crowded and less
diverse. They would be spending more of their money and time obtaining those
things that are often taken for granted today - clean air, clean water, clean
food, places to walk, play, swim. Not everyone would be able to afford these
things and certainly not every nation would be able to enjoy the living standards
of Australians.
But of course this scenario presupposes that our policy-makers will be able
to make the finely balanced decisions that ensure those functions of ecosystems
that are necessary for human survival and economic activities are preserved;
that our societies are knowledgable enough to know just how much carbon dioxide
the atmosphere can take, how much pollution the air and water around us can
take without triggering a sudden and irreversible collapse. Any scientist will
tell you we don't know these things.
Even if Australians put their faith in the ability of human ingenuity in the
form of technology to be able to preserve their lifestyles and ensure an ever
increasing level of consumption for everyone, they cannot ignore the necessity
to redesign our technological systems rather than continue to apply technological
fixes that are seldom satisfactory in the long term. Technological optimism
does not escape the need for fundamental social change and a shift in priorities.
Environmentally sound technologies are unlikely to emerge from a sustainable
development approach that seeks to incorporate the environment as part of the
economic system and therefore to subordinate it to economic needs. There is
a real need to value the environment apart from and above its input to our economic
well-being, to see that environmental quality is irreplaceable. Only then will
the short-term financial costs of the move towards sustainability be willingly
borne by all parties.
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