Sustainable Development Is the Process

Sustainable Development is the process that responds to the needs of current population without destroy any of opportunities and needs for future population.

What Sustainable Development is about:

Environment and Sustainable Development

Over the past decade the idiom of sustainable development increasingly has come to frame international debates about environment and development policy-making. Catapulted to prominence by the report of the Brundtland Commission 1 in 1987, sustainable development was formally endorsed as a policy objective by world leaders at the Rio Earth Summit 2 five years later. It has been absorbed into the conceptual lexicon of international organizations such as the World Bank and the OECD; been accorded its own global secretariat in the form of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD); and achieved near-constitutional status in the European Union through its incorporation in the Maastricht and Amsterdam treaties. Around the globe political leaders and public administrators now routinely justify policies, projects, and initiatives in terms of the contribution they make to realizing sustainable development.

Yet, while the idea has come to assume a central place in contemporary discussions of environment and development issues, there has been little serious comparative research on the practical political ramifications of the 'turn' towards sustainable development. Among academics we have seen a great deal of discursive 'smoke' -- but little in the way of empirical 'fire'. But what has actually happened with the concept in terms of policy implementation? Where and how has it been taken seriously as a prioritized goal for change; and what differences can be detected in the ways the idea has been interpreted and applied in different national, regional, and cultural contexts?

Economic development and Sustainable Development

The first Task Force, the Innovative Local, State, and Regional Approaches Task Force explored ways communities and regions could engage in strategic planning in managing economic development, community growth, protection of ecosystems, preservation of fisheries, and in creating incentives for environmental stewardship. The Task Force supports the following efforts:

• The Joint Center for Sustainable Communities, established by the National Association of Counties and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, provides local elected officials with advice, technical assistance, information, and financial support for sustainable communities. The Center provides leadership training, peer exchange programs, information on policy tools, and an advertising and education campaign and conference workshops.

• The Metropolitan Approaches Working Group collects information on how cities, counties, business groups, citizens, and others can facilitate co-operative efforts that cross local government boundaries. The PCSD recommended that the group develop a pilot demonstration programs to facilitate metropolitan-scale sustainable development strategies, identify and seek to change policies that contribute to urban sprawl, and recommend legislative and administrative actions that would increase the flexibility of metropolitan areas to integrate economic, environmental, and equity concerns.

• The Pacific Northwest Regional Council, made up of twenty-eight regional leaders, promotes co-operation among regional non-profit and community groups, awareness of sustainable development concepts, and sharing of information about regional programs. The PCSD is working to establish similar councils in other regions.

The PCSD's support of local government initiatives is particularly important, because it is at this level of government that the idea of sustainable development is helping to shape public policies. Communities in the Pacific Northwest, for example, have been actively pursuing sustainable development policies. The region has undergone dramatic economic growth over the past few decades and its economic base has been transformed. Metropolitan areas have aggressively developed policies to control urban sprawl and develop mass transit. Timber and ranching businesses in the region have emphasized stewardship and responsibility for sustainable use of resources.

Other communities have also aggressively pursued sustainable development initiatives. The East-West/Gateway Co-coordinating Council in St. Louis has developed a twenty-year transportation plan that integrates transportation decisions with economic, environmental, and community goals such as supporting mobility for low income residents and ensuring that development along rail lines is based on sustainability principles. Some communities have formed sustainable development forums to bring community members together to discuss issues and formulate plans. Non-profit organizations throughout the nation formed the Sustainable Communities Network to share information on demonstration projects and conduct outreach programs.

Education Development

Like many other wealthy nations, the United States has fallen well short of that goal, contributing less than 0.2 per cent of its GDP to development assistance (Keating 1993: 52). There has been some shift in international assistance policy, however, that somewhat parallels the idea of sustainable development. Much of the spending for development during the past 40 years was driven by national security, Cold War concerns, rather than the needs of the recipient nations. Development programs often emphasized large-scale, politically visible projects that imposed Western technologies, caused environmental damage, and were not viable in the long-term.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and many other national and international development agencies have begun to embrace an alternative view of development that is rooted in environmental preservation and sustainability. The USAID, for example, regularly uses the term sustainable development in its reports on activities and projects. Its primary objectives are 'achieving both sustainable development and advancing U.S. foreign policy objectives' through six programs: economic growth and agricultural development; population, health, and nutrition; environment; democracy and governance; education and training; and humanitarian assistance.

The PCSD also established, in addition to the three broad Task Forces described above, three interagency working groups to ensure the implementation of sustainable development goals with the federal government: Education for Sustainability, Materials and Energy Flow, and Sustainable Development Indicators. The Education group is working on plans for regional and national business forums for sustainable development to help educate businesses and communities and develop new curricula in professional schools, and for a National Sustainable Development Extension Network that would build on existing federal extension services to assist communities, regions, and states in devising sustainable development programs. The Materials and Energy Flows group seeks to identify and disseminate information on successful efforts to improve efficiency, reduce emissions, and increase recycling. The Sustainable Development Indicators group plans to devise a framework for indicators of sustainable development that will include three elements: endowments or assets and capacities such as natural resources, factories and infrastructure, and educational and legal systems; processes such as driving forces that increase productivity or deplete resources faster than they are replenished and the decisions that are made in response to the indicators themselves; and the goods and services that are produced.

Population Control

The United States initially favored a global convention on biodiversity as a way to bring the various global accords under one umbrella and to make international law more consistent with its own approach to protecting endangered species. But as negotiations proceeded and the agenda was broadened to include access to and control over genetic resources, U.S. industries mobilized to challenge the idea of a global accord as a threat to American interests. The Framework Convention on Biodiversity, signed at the 1992 UNCED conference, engendered a great deal of controversy in the United States. The most controversial proposal dealt with the rights of states to control their own natural resources and their development by external powers. The United States has signed but the Senate has not ratified the treaty because of opposition by industry to the obligations it would impose on U.S. industries.

Land Use / Land Management

The United States has a long history of policies aimed at preserving some forms of biodiversity. Until 1900, wildlife conservation was a state responsibility. Then Congress passed the Lacey Act, which prohibited interstate commerce of wildlife products that had been banned by states. In 1966 Congress responded to concerns raised in the Interior Department that native invertebrates were in danger of extinction by enacting the first federal endangered species law. The law suffered from a number of shortcomings: it only included native vertebrates, species were to be preserved only when it was considered 'practicable and consistent' with the 'primary purposes of the federal agencies;' wildlife refuge areas were narrowly defined; and Congress provided inadequate funding. Congress amended the law in 1969 by requiring invertebrates to be protected, but still required the protected species to be 'threatened with world-wide extinction', and made other changes in 1973. The impact of national demographic trends and factors on the traditional livelihoods of indigenous groups and local communities, including changes in traditional land use because of internal population pressures, should be studied. Land-use and resource policies will both affect and be affected by changes in the atmosphere. Certain practices related to terrestrial and marine resources and land use can decrease greenhouse gas sinks and increase atmospheric emissions.

The purpose of the Endangered Species Act is to protect species of fish, wildlife, and plants that are of aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value; and to ensure the U.S. meets relevant international conservation commitments. Endangered species are defined as those in 'danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range'; threatened species are 'likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range'. Interior and Commerce Department agencies are to determine which species should be listed; individuals may petition the agencies to have species designated. The Fish and Wildlife Service, in the Interior Department, deals with land species; the National Marine Fisheries Service, located in the Commerce department, has jurisdiction over marine species. Any 'interested person' may petition the Interior Secretary to list a species as either endangered or threatened. The 1978 amendments to the ESA created a Cabinet-level committee to resolve conflicts between species protection and federal projects -- labeled the 'God Squad' or the 'Extinction Committee'.

The committee can authorize projects to proceed even if they jeopardize the continued existence of a species if five of seven members decide that protection interferes with 'human' needs. The specific criteria to be used in exempting actions from the act include: (1) there are no reasonable or prudent alternatives to the agency action; (2) the benefits of the agency action clearly outweigh the benefits of alternative courses of action which would preserve the critical habitat of the species; (3) the action is in the public interest and of regional or national significance; (4) neither the agency nor the exemption applicant has made irreversible or irretrievable commitments of resources; and (5) the agency establishes reasonable mitigation and enhancement measures, including habitat acquisition and improvement, to minimize the adverse effects of the action on the species' critical habitat.

In March 1993, Interior Department Secretary Bruce Babbitt launched the National Biological Survey, an attempt to map the animal and plant species in the country and 'produce a constantly evolving, computerized picture of the nation's biological diversity that adjusts to changes in land use, to ecological changes, and which must with the passage of time become more sophisticated and more detailed as knowledge of species and ecosystems grows'. When the Republicans gained control of Congress in the 1994 election, amending the Endangered Species Act was their top environmental policy goal.

House leaders established an Endangered Species Task Force which held hearings throughout May 1995, and led to a bill which sought to eliminate species recovery as the primary goal of the act, give more opportunities for states and landowners to be involved in decisions related to endangered species, create biodiversity reserves, give more leeway to landowners, and reimburse private property owners for loss in land value resulting from endangered species regulation (104th Congress). The House Resources Committee approved the bill in October, but the House leadership subsequently refused to bring the bill to the floor for a vote in light of public perception that Republicans were attacking the environment. Senate proponents of a new Endangered Species Act worked throughout 1997 and 1998 to try and craft a bipartisan bill that would give more protection to critical habitats, create incentives for private landowners to protect endangered species, and provide more certainty in the law for developers and land owners, but Congress adjourned in 1998 without reauthorizing or amending the law, and as of the summer of 2000, has still not done so.

Policy: Internationally and Nationally

The United States was a global leader in the early development of policies and regulatory programs to protect environmental quality. Until 1970, environmental law in the U.S. was largely a set of common law principles of nuisance, trespass, and negligence. A few states had passed environmental statutes but they were for the most part weak and non-binding. Nuisance law permitted property owners to seek damages through the courts against polluters who caused property damage. Trespass law could be used to remedy dumping of garbage onto the property owner's land. Negligence suits could be filed against parties that had a duty to not release dangerous substances, breached the duty, and caused harm to others.

In less than two decades, however, environmental law evolved from a local government responsibility into a complex system of national environmental regulation.

On 1 January 1970 President Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act, which required the federal government to assess the environmental consequences of every major action it undertook. Nixon's action initiated two decades of environmental activism. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created in the same year; subsequent years saw the passage of major environmental legislation including the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).

Many of these acts were strengthened throughout the 1980s, culminating in the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. These statutes include environmental standards, procedures for formulating rules and regulations, and deadlines for agency implementation and regulated industry compliance. Environmental regulation is built on a fragmented and complex statutory base of nearly a dozen major laws administered by the EPA, and dozens of additional statutes. An intricate infrastructure of agencies, legislation, regulations, and enforcement mechanisms are in place for protecting the environment. Federal, state, and local governments, regulated industry, the scientific community, and public interest groups all have invested significant resources in addressing the challenges of assessing environmental and health risks and enforcing laws and regulations.

US environmental law revolves around a complex system of shared authority and co-operative agreements between the federal government and the states, largely in response to the complexity of environmental programs, the tremendous numbers of sources of pollution to be regulated, the desire to permit some tailoring of regulation to local conditions, and the inherent authority of states to regulate environmental conditions. The federal government's primary function is to establish policy, to develop national standards, to ensure that states enforce the laws and regulations in a way consonant with national standards, and to provide some funding of compliance costs. Most federal environmental statutes authorize states to issue permits and to enforce regulations if their programs and standards are approved by the EPA. States have the primary responsibility to grant permits, to inspect facilities, and to initiate enforcement actions against violators.

Environmental laws affect industrial and commercial activity in at least six ways: (1) they require information about the release of certain toxic chemicals into the environment; (2) they establish a system of pre-manufacturing approval for certain chemicals; (3) they require the treatment of emissions to air and water and the monitoring of the disposal of hazardous wastes; (4) they mandate the use of certain control technologies; (5) they create a special fund to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites and provide standards to guide the remediation efforts; and (6) they prohibit some activities from taking place.

The Basic Dimensions of Sustainable Development

The political conflict over environmental law and regulation has been so divisive and time consuming that it has precluded the nation from moving towards the next generation of environmental laws that might incorporate the idea of sustainable development. The Clinton administration has given some attention and resources to sustainable development, primarily through the President's Commission on Sustainable Development, and both the President and particularly the Vice-President have been involved in its activities. Much of the story of sustainable development in the United States lies in the work of the commission and the efforts by the Clinton administration to pursue its agenda.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched numerous initiatives aimed at 'reinventing' government -- making regulation more efficient and effective, engaging regulated interests in regulatory policy making, and integrating diverse regulatory programs -- that are consistent with many of the ideas underlying sustainable development. The U.S. Agency for International Development has endorsed sustainable development as one of the guiding principles for foreign aid. Moreover, many state and local governments have initiated sustainable community efforts.

However, sustainable development, like any other major policy commitment, ultimately requires the support of Congress and strong, effective legislation and the greatest failure to engage with the idea of sustainable development has been here. The Republican leaders in Congress have virtually ignored the idea of sustainable development and the United States' commitments made at the Rio Earth Summit. For them sustainable development is simply a problem for other countries to worry about, particularly developing countries. The hostility many congressional leaders have to international commitments, along with their opposition to environmental regulation, combine to create a major barrier to pursuing the idea of sustainable development in the United States.

Congress continues to debate the question of whether there should be more or less environmental regulation. Rather than asking more fundamental questions about how to balance and integrate economic growth and ecological sustainability, policy-makers are mired in efforts to defend or attack the regulatory system that has been in place since the 1970s. As a result, there is no strong commitment to sustainable development, and the nation is far from having in place a comprehensive strategy that integrates sustainability into environmental, social, and economic activities.

How We Can Develop With Sustainability

While Congress has resisted moving the debate over environmental regulation toward sustainable development, the Clinton administration has regularly argued that economic growth and environmental quality can be pursued together. The President, Vice-President, EPA administrator, and others rarely miss the opportunity to remind the public and regulated industries that environmental goals can be achieved without challenging the expectation of continual economic expansion. The administration has argued that it has developed a new paradigm of environmental policy, one that 'emphasizes goal setting, economic incentives, pollution prevention, a more holistic approach to environmental problems, simplification of regulations, more flexible problem-solving, and a more interactive approach with stakeholders and the community at large'.

The Clinton administration has been quite engaged in discussing, writing about, reporting on, and urging sustainable development. It has been quite innovative in designing programs to encourage voluntary efforts on the part of businesses to become more sustainable. It has tried to facilitate local efforts to build more sustainable communities.

How Should the World Perceived and Practice

The conflict and uncertainty surrounding environmental law has weakened U.S. leadership in global environmental issues. That weakness in U.S. leadership is evident not just in climate change, as described above, but in the broader agenda of sustainable development. The U.S. has fallen behind other nations in implementing Agenda 21 and the other commitments made in the 1992 Earth Summit to make the transition to sustainable economies. There is a remarkable level of hostility in Congress to the idea of international organizations and to global commitments, as evidenced by continual criticism of the United Nations in Congress and its unwillingness to fund the United States' financial obligations.