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the sustainability journey
Mary Maher, Mary Maher & Associates
Lecture note prepared for the Sustainable Development in Practice course, University of
Queensland, March 2011.
While it is heartening to note the large volume of writing about
ecologically sustainable development emerging since the Brundtland
Commission’s report Our Common Future first proposed the concept
in 1987, some challenges have emerged. The most recognised
challenge is the confused terminology for the concept of ecologically
sustainable development, notably acronyms like ESD or SD, and terms
like sustainability, green growth, corporate social responsibility and
many others. Sustainability is a vague and loose term. One reference I
saw recently talked about ‘sustainable style’, making the most of a
fashionable term yet the product had no obvious links to
sustainability. This ‘elasticity’ of sustainability terminology is a mixed
blessing.
A second challenge is the way that the information base for sustainability has grown in the last 20
years. An analogy for this growth is perhaps the way the Internet has grown ‐ like a spider web
continuously expanding and in many directions. Sustainability information has done much the same
thing. It’s a mega‐concept or framework for many areas of knowledge and disciplinary approaches.
So how do we make sense of ‘sustainability’ as a knowledge area and why would we do that?
This paper proposes a Knowledge Framework for Sustainability KFS) as a contribution to improving
our information management in the ‘crowded space’ of sustainability literature. The ultimate
purpose of an effective knowledge framework for sustainability is to improve our analysis of
sustainability challenges, our problem identification, thereby aiding our selection and design of
effective interventions, our problem‐solving.
In terms of problems facing humanity, sustainability challenges are what has been termed ‘wicked
problems’, those problems without a clear single cause, which are apparent at many different scales
from local to global, which challenge people’s assumptions about the future and have no agreed
solution from the stakeholders.
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Sustainability frameworks
Figure 1, Sustainability circles
The conventional knowledge framework for sustainability is the
illustration of the three overlapping circles, Figure 1. In its day it
represented a breakthrough because it challenged the divided
(economy Versus environment) thinking which had a strong hold
on thinking in the 1960s as environmental science emerged,
together with social movements around environmentalism.
This simple yet powerful image of sustainability did progress our
thinking about the essential goals of human society, putting the
living system back into the picture alongside society and
economy. The combination of Economy, Society and Environment
lies at the core of sustainability, reflecting its origins in heightened
concern about humans ‘outgrowing our natural systems’ and the resulting deterioration of our
natural environment from local through to global scales. As our understanding of global systems
grew in the latter half of the twentieth century with advances in technology and natural sciences, so
did our concern for the health of our natural system and for the inequalities apparent in global
society. This simple model for sustainability represented a big leap forward in our approach to our
common future. The model also highlighted the complexity of sustainable development – economic
activity that drives environmental degradation is also a mechanism for alleviating global poverty. Yet
poor people are highly dependent on environmental services and pay a considerable price for
environmental degradation e.g. impacts of changes to climate on water supplies and food
production in developing countries.
This model’s joined‐up thinking about the basic components of sustainability has stimulated
numerous modifications of the original concept. Some have applied systems analysis to draw out
the dynamics of the interactions between the three components – the environmental, social and
economic interactions. Other frameworks have stressed missing components such as Culture or
Social justice. Still other frameworks have focused more on the question of how we implement
change in relations to these three components. One resulting framework has Governance added to
form a fourth circle. These additions and modifications to the core Sustainability concept underline
its flexibility and our strong interest in its usefulness as a tool for analysis and decision‐making.
Design of the knowledge framework for Sustainability
The following framework is another attempt to structure our thinking about sustainability in a
certain way. Design criteria for this proposed knowledge framework for sustainability (KFS) include
the ideas of:
• Sustainability end‐point. Is there such an endpoint? Sustainability as an outcome does seem
to suggest that a worst‐case scenario has been averted. Though it is difficult to describe an
endpoint, Sustainability can be seen to be a journey of decreasing the impacts of our human
system and increasing social equality globally and locally. The rate and degree of decrease in
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these impacts is the choice, the sustainability journey is about these choice points. There is
no set destination, no one approach, no real finish point to creating a more sustainable
future. It’s about environmental integrity, equity and human prosperity.
• Stressed natural system: While the three components of environment, economy and society
are central to the framework, the KFS takes as its starting point the threats to our living
system from human activities and, as a consequence, the threats to our human society from
a constrained and impacted natural system. Humans create society and economy, but the
natural environment is not a human construct. The key question then for this relationship is:
are the nature and scale of human systems placing our natural support system at risk?
• Comparing and contrasting: The KFS enables the existing processes creating unsustainable
outcomes to be compared and contrasted with processes that propose to deliver more
sustainable outcomes. For example the drivers of unsustainability can be compared and
contrasted with the drivers of a transition to a more sustainable society to deepen the
analysis of the most effective way to transition from where we are now.
• Scale, time and Context: The KFS is applicable to any scale, local to global, and to any time‐
frame. It can be applied to any social or political context for example different national
contexts, and it can be tailored to a specific sector for example transport or agriculture. As
with most analyses the user of the KFS needs to draw their boundary around the issue or
environmental question you are addressing. The framework enables you to broaden your
perspective or to drill down into a particular aspect. This is a constant challenge when you
use the KFS.
• Conceptual and / or evidence‐based knowledge: The KFS can be data‐rich with information
from a range of sources and disciplines, or it can be used more conceptually. It works well
with a number of tools including modelling, systems thinking, scenario testing and others.
• Problem and solutions examined: The KFS encourages effective problem identification as the
first step in design of an effective solution. Solutions are similarly unpacked to determine
which are the more robust and enduring solutions.
Knowledge Framework for Sustainability in brief
In the diagram of the framework (Figure 2, Knowledge Framework for Sustainability) there are three
sections – left, middle and right. In the core or middle section is the scaffolding for the whole
framework. This central scaffolding comprises three levels – the natural system, the human system
and thirdly the drivers of the exchange between human and natural systems (See Figure 2).
The left‐hand side of the KFS is the business‐as‐usual unsustainable development analysis. The right‐
hand side is the sustainable development analysis.
The three part core of the KFS
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1. The Natural System comprises five large sub‐systems:
• Atmosphere – solar energy, atmospheric layers, weather and climate
• Hydrosphere ‐ rivers and lakes, bays, estuaries, oceans and reefs
• Lithosphere – rocks and soil
• Biosphere – flora and fauna
• Cryosphere ‐ polar and glacial ecosystems
The biosphere is a dynamic collection of interdependent working parts, receiving inputs of energy
from the sun and water and other materials from the physical environment. It maintains a level of
internal stability by recycling on a massive scale – recycling water, carbon dioxide, soil, plants and
more. These internal stability processes are captured in the Gaia thesis of James Lovelock.
2. The Human System includes but is not limited to the following large sub‐systems
• Population, demographics
• Health
• Housing & Settlements
• Manufacturing & consumption
• Agriculture, Transport, & Mining
• Finance & Investment
• Trade & Aid
• Power & Energy
• Cultures & societies
• Defence, security & conflict
The human system is made up of multiple sub‐systems serving human needs for food, shelter, water,
sanitation and stimulation. Culture, economy and societal influences have shaped these systems as
humans have ‘evolved and specialised’.
Sustainability thinking asserts that the human system is a sub‐set of the natural system, reliant on
natural resources and processes (ecosystem services) to support it. Some resources are relatively
renewable where our consumption of them does not outstrip the production of them by the natural
system. Soils, forests and fisheries have been regarded as renewable resources. Other resources can
be considered non‐renewable, where their production by the natural system is in smaller amounts
and/ or over millions of years.
3. Drivers and Mechanisms Shaping the Current situation and the Future (EPISTLE)*:
• E: Economics, finance, market forces and failures, fiscal measures such as taxes and subsidies,
business case for decisions
• P: Politics, policies, pressures (lobbying, social movements)
• I: Institutions & governance for example government structures (local, State, Commonwealth)
community sector, business and industry structures
• S: Society, socio‐economic characteristics, community, behaviours and social change processes
• T: Technology in all sectors e.g. communication, health, housing
• L: Legislation, regulation, command and control or incentives‐based legislation, self‐regulation,
standards and codes
• E: Ethics about the environment, social justice, equality, rights and responsibilities
*E‐P‐I‐S‐T‐L‐E is a useful acronym for a checklist of drivers and mechanisms shaping the current
situation and having the potential to drive change about that situation. These drivers are the source
of the interventions selected to drive change from unsustainable to more sustainable outcomes
from human systems. The dynamics between these drivers is complex, making the task of designing
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sustainability solutions challenging e.g. we need to eradicate poverty if we are seriously about
environmental protection.
Left side of the KFS: Current Unsustainable condition
The left‐hand side of the KFS focuses on our current mostly unsustainable condition, where human
system dynamics such as those of urban growth, fuel supply, food production and so on are linked to
or causing extensive impacts on the natural system. Unsustainable development assumes business‐
as‐usual (BAU) in how human systems operate, with a corresponding continuation of environmental
impacts.
The drivers of those human system dynamics are a combination of economic, political, institutional
and other drivers.
Natural system under stress
Several concepts that are relevant to the question of the natural system under pressure include
cumulative impacts, positive feedback loops, exponential rates
of change (J‐curves), irreversibility, system thresholds and The Millennium Ecosystem
extinction. These pressures are creating supersize changes to Assessment, an international
our natural system, changes which exceed natural rates of synthesis by over 1000 of the world's
change and can be explained only when human activity is leading biological scientists measures
factored into the analysis. (insert Al gore slide) 24 ecosystem services concluding
that only four have shown
The science underpinning our understanding of the natural
improvement over the last 50 years,
system works at the atomic level through to the global scale,
15 are in serious decline, and five are
across many disciplines and geological time scales.
in a precarious condition (UNEP .
Technologies such as satellite imagery and cloud computing
enable us to interpret changes in the natural system more readily and the internet is facilitating
public access to large amounts of scientific data about our natural system.
The planet’s deteriorating environmental condition is well documented for this era and for the
future population of 9 billion in 2050. Tyler Miller has written some of the most comprehensive
environmental textbooks on ecological science and human impacts while the United Nations
Environment Program with its Millennium Ecological Assessment and thought leaders such as Lester
Brown have comprehensively documented the changing state of the our natural systems at global
scale.
Conventional Economic Growth is working
'Growth' here refers to the growth model displayed by most Western countries in the twentieth
century. This growth can be seen to be 'coupled' with environmental degradation. Negative features
of this 'conventional' economic growth include the promotion of high levels of consumerism, high
resource inputs of both renewable and non‐renewable resources, with outputs that have high levels
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of waste of all forms. Conventional economic growth is founded on escalating demands for
environmental workings and services which is not sustainable.
The unsustainable behaviour of our human system is well documented. Current population growth
and predicted population numbers coupled with expanding ecological footprints of developed and
developing countries, the widening gap between rich and poor, global warming, soil loss, peak fish
and peak oil ‐ these mega‐trends are the indicators of the pace and direction of unsustainable
development. The impacts of our conventional economic activity are not costed within our pricing of
workings and services. Instead, these costs are ‘externalities’ to the economy or the economic
enterprise. Externalities from the mainstream conventional economy generally become the costs
borne by the environment and the marginalised in society.
Several iconic environmental concepts are relevant to the analysis of unsustainable development,
concepts including the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth, Garret Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons,
Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, the Ecological Footprint, the peaking of resources for example oil, fish,
phosphorus, tipping point and State of the Environment reporting. Unsustainable development is a
wicked problem and each of these classic environmental concepts offers an explanation of some
aspect of our sustainability challenge, its origins and ways to fix it.
Drivers of current unsustainable development
The drivers or contributing factors of our current Unsustainable condition are various and
interrelated for example population policies promote population growth and advertising promotes
consumption by that increased population. Cheap oil promotes importation of workings and
subsidies promote higher production or consumption levels. Our existing economic and financial
assessments do not include externalities such as carbon emissions or waste volumes to landfill or
increased hardship for lower socio‐economic groups without compensatory measures. Our decision‐
making tools are focused on financial returns primarily.
Our pace of development, globally and by country, and its accompanying impacts are challenging our
ability to understand change in the natural system. At a time when sustainability is a highly
recognised concept, the human ability to transform the planetary life‐support system has reached a
grand scale.
Right‐hand side of the KFS: More sustainable development
Sustainability is about managing the risks arising from our actions creating ‘supersize changes’ to the
natural system. While we can measure many aspects of that risk, our risk management has high
levels of uncertainty e.g. temperatures and sea level rise in the next century., risk under conditions
of uncertainty. Investing in sustainability is a risk management decision and it involves a move to
living with environmental and social limits.
Restoring the ecological balance
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Key natural system concepts here include environmental conservation, protection & management,
climate stabilisation, the environment’s assimilative capacity, rehabilitation and restoration of
ecological processes, ecosystem services, Spaceship Earth, State of Environment (Responses).
Concepts abound for what we are trying to achieve for the natural system.
Transition to Sustainability
What are the sustainability scenarios in human system terms? The key concept is transition, where
we make orderly progress towards sustainable development, moving away from business as usual
means of production and consumption, transforming our sense of progress to ensure ecological
systems are protected and social equity are realized along with prosperity.
Examples of transition in human systems are widespread and business as usual development is being
challenged about its green credentials. Urban development is ‘greening’, agriculture is becoming
more eco‐efficient, mining is embracing environmental management requirements and community
development strategies while manufacturing is seeking Eco and Fair Trade badging. Conventional
systems of production and consumption are changing though very few have set targets for real
sustainability, where actual impacts are reduced or eliminated. This is the different between hard
and soft sustainability, where hard sustainability seeks ‘deep cuts’ to current practices to match the
scale of the sustainability challenge.
Some key concepts here include Natural Capital, the Natural Step, Factor Four / Factor 10 both of
which focus on improving the efficiency of our use of resources and reducing our use of toxins and
waste production. Others involve new frameworks in particular sectors e.g. Cool Communities as a
means of addressing carbon emissions in the community sector or ‘Fairshare’ Footprint which argues
for global equality in resource access.
Drivers of Transition
How do we move towards a more sustainable future? How do we move the germs of change, these
examples of transitioning to sustainability, into the mainstream? There are many perspectives on
how we do this – applying sustainability tools to encourage technological innovation, educating
consumers, product labelling, employing market‐based mechanisms such as pollution trading,
regulating for change to unsustainable practices, enacting international agreements into national
legislation for example to limit CFC emissions, to protect global biodiversity. The toolbox is large and
diverse and there is no simple fix.
Views differ about the best drivers and there is no single quick fix to the challenge of sustainability.
Some emphasise social change. Change processes in society are complex and are the result of
multiple factors such as scarcity / pricing, rules and regulation, copy‐cat behaviour or competition,
knowledge and values. Change may occur rapidly or it may occur in waves, over time. Making the
transition to more sustainable development means working with social change processes in all
spheres of human enterprise.
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Some key drivers for implementing sustainability are a mix of controls and incentives across the
spectrum of economics, politics, institutions, society, technology, legislation and ethics – the EPISTLE
checklist. Examples of key initiatives here include international and national policy frameworks, the
New Green Economy, building a Conserver Society and educating the discerning consumer, tools
such as Environmental Management Systems and Life‐Cycle Analysis, industry codes and green
labelling, and eliminating externalities for example by ensuring that the true cost is paid for
environmental workings and services.
Measuring economic, social and environmental change, setting targets for particular sustainability
outcomes (carbon emissions, hectares of protected areas, tonnes recycled) and reporting on
progress are essential components of the sustainability journey.
A simple worked example of KFS: Bottled water: ~billion bottles of water
produced per day
Current Unsustainable Situation
The stresses on the natural system relate to the ever increasing volumes of oil required as the raw
material for the plastic bottles, the volume of waste plastic transported to landfill and carbon
emissions from drilling, distribution and retailing of cold water in plastic bottles.
Bottled water production has economic and social benefits including jobs and revenue from the
mining / manufacturing / retailing sectors. (In developing countries where municipal water supplies
are generally not drinkable, a major benefit is human health and convenience where previously
water had to be boiled). In developed countries, bottled water is a success story as a recent entrant
into the marketplace and growth in consumption has outstripped industry expectations.
The drivers of this growth are numerous and include access to cheap oil for plastic production, cheap
landfill disposal costs, the strong role played by advertising and creating a demand for bottled water
over tap water.
Sustainability and bottled water
Carbon emissions and fossil fuel use are high impact by‐products of the bottled water enterprise.
Restoring the balance would comprise restricting or eliminating the use of high value, non‐
renewable resources for once‐only, low value uses such as cheap plastic packaging and the disposal
of waste plastic to landfill.
Scenarios for a sustainable ‘bottled water future’ are based on a couple of choices:
• Doing away with bottled water in favour of assurances about our drinkable public
water supply
• Placing more value on the resources in the water bottle either through a higher
price of the plastic or through higher landfill costs and incentives to re‐use of the
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plastic for example in energy recovery. The result here would be decreased demand
through price increases.
• Substituting the plastic in the water bottle, bioplastics
• Off‐setting the carbon emissions component of bottled water, from cradle to grave,
through forest plantings.
The first choice is a strong sustainability choice, where the product cannot make the transition to
sustainability particularly the carbon emissions associated with the product at all stages. This option
supports the phasing out of bottled water with resulting impacts on jobs and revenue.
Drivers of this choice may be a spike in oil prices which sees oil prices at a consistently high level
over a period of time leading to a phasing out of bottled water. Alternatively a ‘courageous’ (bi‐
partisan?) government may ban the plastic bottle as a major initiative to improve the performance
of packaging on sustainability criteria.
This first choice is not a transition but is more like a ‘step change’ to our conventional consumerism.
It would require a level of cross‐sectoral cohesion, where sectors such as community and
government consider the step‐change is warranted.
A second choice is a weaker sustainability option in the face of social and economic impacts.
Industry may see this as their best approach if they wish to remain self‐regulating. Its focus is on
product improvement in resource use and waste terms. Carbon emissions would continue, though
energy efficiency will reduce these to some extent. Drivers of this choice will involve consumer
education about drinking water quality of most Australia water supplies combined with the
resources and waste of bottled water. Education combined with a national policy on packaging and
recycling.
A third choice, which is harder to define as weak or strong sustainability, is more about seeing the
opportunities in having to move from plastic bottles – by investing in research and development of
bioplastics and other eco‐packaging materials. Life‐cycle analysis would be needed to ensure that
the innovative solution delivered the ecological results sought (carbon reduction, minimising oil
consumption).
There is also the option of offsetting carbon emissions through plantation plantings. Addressing one
aspect of the environmental impact of a product is an approach which we often see in the
marketplace. There are good reasons for why this occurs – but the question remains about whether
it is a satisfactory sustainability solution. Perhaps it is a suitable first step.
Education may be industry‐based aimed at product differentiation rather than elimination e.g.
product labelling. Alternatively education may be government driven and aimed overall reduction in
demand.
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A bigger challenge is the role of pricing – how does a price include environmental effects or address
the market failure to price oil according to its scarcity as a product of time and geology. What would
a packaging tax or levy on bottled water achieve – would it lead to a decreased demand and what
effects would there be on social and economic impacts. Is it a direct cause‐effect link or do the jobs
move to where there is a higher value placed on oil‐based products.
Lessons from the KFS example
Some lessons emerge from this worked example. Firstly it is difficult to remain focused on the bigger
picture of environmental trends that are high risk, sometimes with uncertainty in critical aspects,
global and long‐term when you are evaluating choices about unsustainable development at a micro‐
level for example bottled water.
The incorporation of an evidence‐based approach through the addition of data would assist the
analysis of bottled water for example data about volumes of oil and carbon, percentage of world
emissions or world oil supplies and trends into the future of these resources and waste disposal.
Economic and social data is vital to present revenue and employment information, and trends over
time under different scenarios of oil and carbon prices.
It is relatively easy to describe alternatives to the current situation (strong and weak sustainability
options). One question is when do people become interested in these scenarios – when there is a
crisis or when there is a profit and we have the potential to invest in a more sustainable future?
EPISTLE is a handy checklist for identifying drivers – of business‐as‐usual and of more sustainable
development scenarios. The challenge lies in the design of the drivers that will effectively underpin
these options particularly given the strength and interconnectedness of the drivers of business‐as‐
usual. What are the most levers or interventions that will drive real change in our consumer
behaviours and what are the full set of impacts – economic, social and ecological?
What is the role of staging of the change – is it best to take a long‐term view or to act quickly?
Lastly, implementation will require leadership, champions of the desired sustainability scenario.
What role do new alliances play, and who has to take the lead for example with bottled water, is it
industry or government or the consumer who leads, or a combination of them all?
Other schools of thought and the KFS
The KFS is based on several assumptions and a degree of simplification. In its application there is
room in the KFS to consider contrary assumptions and challenges to conventional sustainability
thinking.
Knowledge Framework for Sustainability
Mary Maher, UQ Sustainable Development in Practice
our natural system as ‘precious’ and we will avoid damaging it. We won’t be able to afford to waste
energy or water. The economic system will right itself.
Others believe that we must continue conventional economic growth to be able to pay for investing
in environmental protection. The economy, it is argued, offers us the ability to set up the equivalent
of a ‘future fund’ which can be invested in future sustainability.
Others deny the science of global trends indicating the natural system is under stress. They question
the models, the majority view of scientists and the evidence of limits to resources and of short and
long term changes to our natural system.
Some argue that our major resource is human ingenuity. Inventions and innovation will remedy the
stresses, in time and at the scale needed. We have unlimited ingenuity to address limits to growth.
These challenges, these other sets of assumptions, can be factored into analysis using the KFS if
these play a critical role in hindering or assisting the sustainability agenda. The KFS can be used to
draw out the assumptions and evidence on all sides.
The next generation of the KFS
The next generation of knowledge frameworks will progress the KFS through some key
developments. Increments to the framework may include:
• Systems thinking
• Combining more humanitarian issues with environmental issues
• Greater emphasis on sustainability as a realm of opportunity, not collapse and catastrophe
No one approach, no one map of the best way forward, rather a network of sustainable initiatives,
employing the energy and effort of business, community as well as government
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References
Adams, W (2006), The Future of Sustainability – IUCN Congress of Renowned Thinkers,
http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_future_of_sustanability.pdf
Computing for Sustainability http://computingforsustainability.wordpress.com/
Brown, Lester R (2009), Plan B 4.0 ‐ Mobilising the Save Civilisation, http://www.earth‐
policy.org/index.php?/books/pb4/pb4_table_of_contents
Lovelock, James (2006). The Revenge of Gaia. Reprinted Penguin, 2007. ISBN 978‐0‐141‐02990‐0
United Nations Environment Program, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, www.MAweb.org
Tyler Miller, G, Spoolman S, (2007) Environmental Science: Problems, Concepts and Solutions,
Thomson Brooke, USA
Note:
Wikipedia website ‐ Search for the following titles for an inventory of the top sustainability
publications, with links provided in most instances:
Sustainable development
Sustainability science
Sustainability indicators
Environmental science
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Figure 3
Knowledge Framework for Sustainability – a pathway of
questions, an analytical tool
Systems What does fixing the
& Drivers stressed natural
system look like?
What is the
Natural Natural
ecological problem? Restoring
Systems Systems
Natural
Under
Systems
Stress
Sustainable
Unsustainable What are the options or
Transition to a scenarios of greater
What are the human Growth* is Human
Sustainability sustainability?
systems contributing Working Systems
to the problem?
Knowledge Framework for Sustainability
Mary Maher, UQ Sustainable Development in Practice