Literature summary Sustainability and Societal Transformations
Inhoudsopgave
Sustainability ............................................................................................................................................................ 2
1: Dobson, A. (1996), Environmental sustainabilities: an analysis and a typology, Environmental Politics,
1996, Vol. 5, nr. 3, pp. 401-428. ........................................................................................................................... 2
2: Robinson, J. (2004), Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development, Ecological
Economics, vol. 48, pp. 369-384........................................................................................................................... 5
3: Hopwood, B, Miller, M. and O’Brien, G. (2005), Sustainable development: mapping different approaches,
Sustainable Development, 13, pp. 38-52. DOI:10.1002/sd.244........................................................................... 6
4: Raworth, K. (2012), A safe and just space for humanity – can we live within the doughnut?, London,
OXFAM, 2012. ...................................................................................................................................................... 8
Societal Change ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
5: Díaz S. et al. 2015. The IPBES Conceptual Framework - connecting nature and people. Current Opinion in
Environmental Sustainability 14: 1-16. .............................................................................................................. 11
6: German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) (2011), The great transformation: a heuristic
concept?, in WBGU, World in transition - A Social Contract for Sustainability, Berlin, pp. 81-107. .................. 15
7: Geels, F.W. 2011. The multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions: Responses to seven criticisms.
Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions: 24-40. .............................................................................. 18
8: Schneider et al. 2010. Crisis or opportunity? Economic degrowth for social equity and ecological
sustainability. ..................................................................................................................................................... 20
9: Meadowcroft, J. (2009), What about the politics? Sustainable development, transition management and
long term energy transitions, Policy Sciences, vol. 42, pp. 323-340. ................................................................. 21
10: Visseren-Hamakers, I. J. et al. 2021. Transformative governance of biodiversity: insights for sustainable
development. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 53, 20-28. ..................................................... 22
11: Visseren-Hamakers, I.J. et al. 2022. How to save a million species? Transformative governance through
prioritization. In: Visseren-Hamakers, I.J. and Kok, M. (Eds.) 2022. Transforming Biodiversity Governance.
Cambridge University Press. .............................................................................................................................. 24
Policy Change ......................................................................................................................................................... 26
12: Zahariadis, N. (2014). Ambiguity and multiple streams. In: Sabatier, P. and Weible, C. Theories of the
policy process, 3, 25-59. ..................................................................................................................................... 26
13: Shove, E., Pantzar M. and Watson M. 2012. The dynamics of social practice – every day life and how it
changes, Sage, chapter 1, pp. 1-19. ................................................................................................................... 29
14: Wiering, M., Liefferink, D. and Crabbé, A. (2017), Stability and change in flood risk management: on path
dependencies and change agents, Journal of Flood Risk Management, ........................................................... 30
15: Boin, A., ‘t Hart, P. and McConnell, A. (2009), Crisis exploitation: political and policy impacts of framing
contests, Journal of European Public Policy, 16, 1, pp. 81-106. ......................................................................... 32
Environmental justice, decoloniality and resistance ............................................................................................ 35
16: Temper, L., Walter, M., Rodriguez, I. et al. (2018). A perspective on radical transformations to
sustainability: resistances, movements and alternatives. Sustain Sci 13, 747–764. ......................................... 35
,Sustainability
1: Dobson, A. (1996), Environmental sustainabilities: an analysis and a typology,
Environmental Politics, 1996, Vol. 5, nr. 3, pp. 401-428.
Most approaches to the business of considering environmental sustainability have taken either a
definitional or a discursive form. Both these approaches have their limitations. Better is an analytical
strategy revolving around the distillation from the literature of the questions to which any theory of
environmental sustainability would have to have an answer. This produces a framework for analysis
which can be transformed into a typology by grouping the answers to those questions into four
‘conceptions of sustainability’. Two ‘diagnostic packages’ may be proposed for determining the
causes of, and solutions to, unsustainability. These conceptions and packages are useful in
themselves for orientation purposes in the increasingly complex territory occupied by discussions of
environmental sustainability, but they also have potential for use as tools when considering the
normative implications of sustainability policies
Figure 1: Conceptions of environmental sustainability
- The questions to which all theories of environmental sustainability must have an answer
given down the left-hand side of the table.
• Column A: total capital is to be sustained, where total capital is a combination of human-
made and natural capital.
o Strong sustainability: a requirement to preserve intact the environment as we find it
today in all its forms
o Weak sustainability: this allows for some natural resources to be run down as long as
adequate compensation is provided by increases in other sources, like man-made
capital.
• Column B: overwhelming sense that arguments for the sustaining of natural capital
understood in terms of ecological processes turn on the instrumental value they have for
human beings. Here, instrumentality refers beyond material welfare towards some sense of
the aesthetic functions that the natural environment can have for humans.
• Column C: that wat should be sustained is natural capital whose loss would be irreversible. C
looks back on D and the privileging of human welfare over obligations to nature.
• Column D: Calling compensation into question through the introduction of the notion of
intrinsic value.
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,Figure 2
- Relates principally tot he causes of environmental unsustainability and their solutions
• Figure 2 is self-explanatory: it outlines the causes of and solutions to environmental
unsustainability, and shows in which domains these causes and solutions lie
Figure 3: sustainabilty spectrum
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, • Here, Dobson says that the best way to sum up the typology so far is to compare it with one
drawn up by Pearace (figure 3). Pearces approach is different: draws on the technocentric-
ecocentric definition
Figure 4
• The best we can do is to work with the diagnostic packages Dobson outlines in his paper, be
sensitive tot he fact that the borders between and within them are porous, and to the fact
that the causes and solutions that don’t ‘fit’ into them still require careful attention. This
gives us the following broad conclusions from figure 4.
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,Conclusion
SD amounts to a strategy for environmental sustainability because of the belief that a particular form
of development will provide the conditions within which environmental sustainability can be
guaranteed. But there are multiple understandings of environmental sustainability, so multiple
conceptions of SD.
Dobson’s suggestion is that the 2 wings provide the overall framework for these latter conceptions
are best viewed through lenses provided by the diagnostic package.
2: Robinson, J. (2004), Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable
development, Ecological Economics, vol. 48, pp. 369-384.
The paper reviews how the concept of sustainable development has played out in industrialized
countries since 1987. It examines the theory and practice of sustainable development in the context
of three criticisms:
1. it is vague
2. it attracts hypocrites
3. it fosters delusion
This argues for an approach to sustainability that is:
1. integrative
2. action-oriented
3. goes beyond technical fixes
4. incorporates a recognition of the social construction of sustainable development
5. engages local communities in new ways.
The paper concludes with a description of an approach to sustainability that attempts to incorporate
these characteristics.
Sustainability requires the simultaneous reconciliation of three imperatives:
1. The ecological imperative is to stay within the biophysical carrying capacity of the planet
2. the economic imperative is to provide an adequate material standard of living of all, and
3. the social imperative is to provide systems of governance that propagate the values that
people want to live by
This might be accomplished by a twin strategy of dematerialization (reducing matter/ energy
throughput per unit of economic activity) and what we call ‘‘resocialization’’ (increasing human well-
being per unit of economic activity).
An equally important dimension of sustainability is the procedural one. Here we can argue for the
view that sustainability can usefully be thought of as the emergent property of a conversation about
desired futures that is informed by some understanding of the ecological, social and economic
consequences of different courses of action. This view acknowledges the inherently normative and
political nature of sustain- ability, the need for integration of different perspectives, and the
recognition that sustainability is a process, not an end-state.
The writer argues that the equivalent development in the field of sustainability is the recognition
that multiple conflicting views of sustainability exist and cannot be reconciled in terms of each
other. In other words, no single approach will, or indeed should be, seen as the correct one.
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, Concluding remark
The power of the concept of sustainability lies precisely in the degree to which it brings to the
surface these contradictions and provides a kind of discursive playing field in which they can be
debated.
But it is to suggest that sustainability is necessarily a political act, not a scientific concept. Instead,
sustainability is itself the emergent property of a conversation about what kind of world we
collectively want to live in now and in the future.
“The problem of squaring the sustainability circle will not be resolved by new research, better
science, and teaching people to understand the true nature of the problems, desirable as these may
be. Instead, the way forward involves the development of new forms of partnership, and new tools
for creating political dialogue, that frame the problems as questions of political choice, given
uncertainty and constraints; that renounce the goal of precise and unambiguous definition and
knowledge; and that involve many more people in the conversation.”
3: Hopwood, B, Miller, M. and O’Brien, G. (2005), Sustainable development: mapping
different approaches, Sustainable Development, 13, pp. 38-52. DOI:10.1002/sd.244
Sustainable development is a widely used phrase and idea, but has different meanings and therefore
provokes different responses. Broadly, sustainable development is an attempt to combine growing
concerns about a range of environmental issues with socio-economic issues. Hopwood presents a
classification and mapping of different trends of thought on SD and their means of change. SD has
the potential to address fundamental changes for humanity, now and into the future.
Sustainable development: A challenging and contested concept
For the last couple of 100 years, the environment has been seen as external to humanity, to be used
and exploited. This view was linked with the development of capitalism, the industrial revolution and
modern science. The world was made for man, man not for the world.
Environmental concern à A key example was the ideas of Pinchot in the USA, which recognized that
humans do need natural resources and that these resources should be managed rather dan exploit to
ensure long-term use.
The concept of SD is the result of the growing awareness of the global links between mounting
environmental problems, socio-economic issues to do with poverty and inequality and concerns
about a healthy future for humanity.
Brundtland Report expressed the most used definition of SD in ‘Our common future’ as “the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”.
SD raises questions about the post-war claim, that international prosperity and human well-being
can be achieved through increased global trade and industry. It recognizes that past growth models
have failed to eradicate poverty globally or within countries. This pattern of growth has also
damaged the environment upon which we depend, with a ‘downward spiral of poverty and
environmental degradation’.
The looseness of the concept and its theoretical underpinnings have enabled the use of the phrases
‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainability’ become de rigeur for politicians and leaders.
Brundtlands ambiguity allows business and governments to be in favour of sustainability without any
fundamental challenge to their present course, using Bruntlands report for rapid growth to justify the
phrase ‘sustainable growth’. This allows capitalism to continue to put forward economic growth as its
‘morally bankrupt solution’ to poverty.
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