Towards Environmental Sustainability?

A Comparative Study of Danish, Dutch and Swedish Transport Policies in a European Context

Emin Tengström

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429773853
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

First published in 1999, this study consists of an empirical analysis of current Danish, Dutch and Swedish national transport policies along with some policy options for the near future, intended to reduce the present unsustainable character of the national transport systems. The study deals only with passenger transport, primarily on land, rather than freight transport. There exists a distinct focus on environmental sustainability, along with the role of the automobile in transport systems.

1 Theoretical Points of Departure

1.1 Transport policies for environmental sustainability

A comparative, empirical study of national transport policies is a fairly uncommon kind of scientific research. An important exception is represented by a recent study of British and Dutch transport planning and policy (Haq, 1997). The background of the prevailing disinterest in empirical and comparative studies deserves some introductory remarks. The scientific interest in 'sustainable transport' is, on the other hand, increasing. However, the notion of 'sustainable', being today a much disputed concept, needs to be discussed before entering upon my own analysis. These comments will be followed by a survey of some recent studies of 'sustainable transport'. Some remarks on the character of the present inquiry will finish this section.

1.1.1 Transport policies as an object of empirical investigation

It is a remarkable fact that empirical studies of transport policies aure fairly rare. By tradition, transportation studies have been decionistic in the sense that they have been carried out on the assumption that better information to decision makers will result in better decisions. A brochure of the Swedish Transport and Communications Research Board (KFB), which is in present use, illustrates this by claiming: 'Politicians and other decision-makers sometimes need information based upon scientific results in order to be able to take the right decisions in due course' (my translation). Transportation studies have therefore been very much dominated by planners, technical and statistical expertise and by economists.

Empirical studies of past and present national transport policies (of the kind represented by chapters 3-6 of the present study) are, thus, not very many. Some publications dealing with Danish, Dutch and Swedish transport policies will be presented in connection with the analysis of current transport policies (in chapter 3).

Transport is often seen as a derived demand in the same way as the amount of passenger and freight traffic is seen as determined by structural factors (people have to move to reach their working places and to different services etc, products have to be moved to the neighbourhood of the consumers etc). It is quite obvious that there are factors beyond the control of transport policy makers which have an impact on the development of transport.

It is therefore possible to study transport policy both as an integrated part of a government's policy and as a sector policy. A reason for the first alternative would be that the objective of transport policy has traditionally been to assist economic growth and social development by reducing transport costs and by making transport more efficient, safe and equitable. Transport policy is therefore closely related to other policy fields such as economic, industrial, regional and social policy. In recent decades, it has also become closely associated with environment policy and energy policy.

Notwithstanding the importance of these facts, I have chosen the second alternative. The reason is, that it would be more difficult to identify changes in transport policies, if they are looked upon as a part of more comprehensive policy packages. And a comparison between transport policies of different countries would be made inoperable. In my analysis, I will, however, refer to environment policy in many cases, as my main focus is the environmental sustainability of transport systems.

Environmental policy has been defined by Lennart J. Lundqvist, a Swedish political scientist, as 'courses of action to regulate polluting activities, to regulate the occupation of space, and to regulate the extraction of raw materials, all with the purpose to prevent the deterioration of, to maintain, or to improve, the quality of the natural environment' (Lundqvist, 1996a, p 16).

Transport policy as a sector policy has been defined by another Swedish political scientist as 'an authoritative allocation of values in society influencing the structure of the transport system and the behaviour of the transport users' (Sannerstedt, 1979). I think that this definition should be modified somewhat to cover the content of transport policies in the 90s. I therefore suggest the following definition, an authoritative allocation of values (material as well as immaterial) in society influencing the technical standard of vehicles, the development of the transport infrastructure and the behaviour of the transport users.

Transport policy may be studied as formal policy (the political principles as they are expressed in basic political documents) and as Realpolitik (the actual outcome of the policy in terms of budget decisions and other specific decisions). I have chosen the first alternative, as I am looking particularly for significant changes in the perception of the problems of the transport sector, in the formulation of new goals in transport policy and in the views of how to reach these goals. However, I will not completely refrain from assessing the policies under study and I intend to do it by comparing the formal policies with the actual outcome. This assessment will be carried out in the last chapter but one.

As my mam interest in this study is the emergence of transport policy for sustainability, I have now to confront the problem of how to define the concept of 'sustainable' in a transport policy context.

1.1.2 The concept of 'sustainability'

It is well-known that the frequent use of the concept of 'sustainability' in political contexts was initiated by the publication of Our Common Future, the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), commonly known as the Brandtland Commission, in 1987. It is less well known that the term 'sustainable development' was already coined in 1980 by two NGO:s, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) together with the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP). In a World Conservation Strategy, three objectives for living resource conservation were outlined by these organizations:

• - the maintenance of essential ecological processes and life-support systems
• - the preservation of genetic diversity and
• - the sustainable utilisation of species and ecosystems (quoted from Hardoy et al. 1992, p 177).

The first use of the term 'sustainable development' was therefore based on the idea of environmental sustainability. The report of the WCED, entitled Our Common Future, enlarged the concept to include the idea of social and economic sustainability. Its definition of the concept of 'sustainable development' is often repeated: 'to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'. One may therefore distinguish between a broad definition ('socially, economically and environmentally sustainable development') and a narrow one ('environmentally sustainable development'). In political documents, there is a variation in the use of these definitions. The increased political interest in the term 'sustainable development' initiated an intensive scientific debate on how to operationalize the concept. Though many publications on the topic appeared, no clarification was reached by the beginning of the 90s (Léié, 1991). There is still no clarification in sight.

The scientific interest in the discussion about the definition of the concept now appears to be declining. Some scientists avoid the concept completely as being too vague.

The debate on the definition is complicated by several circumstances. First, if the narrow definition is chosen, then comparatively well-defined criteria or indicators can be formed (for instance, Holmberg et al. 1994). With a broader definition it is difficult to suggest well-defined criteria.

Secondly, some economists (Pierce et al. 1994) have introduced a distinction between 'weak sustainability' and 'strong sustainability' (see also Climatic Change 1995 - Economic and Social Dimensions of Climate Change, pp 40sq). Weak sustainability (advocated by some economists) means that any depletion of natural capital will be offset by other forms of natural capital or by various forms of man-made capital. Strong sustainability presupposes, on the other hand, that at least some natural capital cannot be replaced by other forms of capital, and that it must therefore be preserved. Pierce and his collaborators refer to 'the multiple services that natural capital provides', for instance, 'assimilation capacity for industrial wastes, supply of biological diversity, role in modulating climate and maintaining clean air and water, maintenance of fertile soil etc' (op.cit. pp 468sq). There are 'no real substitutes' for these services.

In the following discussion, a more detailed distinction has been suggested, namely between 'weak sustainability' and 'very weak sustainability', the latter term meaning that all natural resources can be replaced by human capital in the form of artefacts created from nature. The complementary distinction between 'strong sustainability' and 'very strong sustainability' refers, in the first case, to the necessity of applying the Precautionary Principle as a general rule and, in the second case, to the necessity of establishing a steady state economy in the long term (O'Riordan, 1996).

A third circumstance makes the discussion difficult. Most scientists associate the concept of 'sustainability' with important ethical dimensions. The idea behind this is that one has to consider both intergenerational equity and intragenerational equity in defining what 'sustainable development' really is. Concerning intergenerational equity, the question of time horizon is raised. Intragenerational equity is associated with the allocation of natural resources to the increasing world population (both in terms of energy and materials and in terms of sinks for emissions). This discussion leads to the introduction of the idea of a limited ecospace.

The political problems of what is called the 'sustainability transition' in democratic societies has recently initiated another scientific discussion. It is claimed that, as there is no single way to a sustainable society, it is reasonable to concentrate in politics on the question how to achieve 'a society that is less unsustainable' (O'Riordan, 1996, p 140). I do agree and I will, in the following, focus on how the present unsustainability of the transport sector can be reduced.

Since the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio in 1992, it has been emphasized in the political debate that each sector of society should develop in a sustainable way. This turn of the discussion has also increased the interest in discussing 'sustainable transport', as the transport sector is generally regarded as highly unsustainable in its present state. There are, however, some objections to this way of dividing the issue: it is obvious that no sector can be 'sustainable' in isolation. I completely agree, but in the discussion on how to reduce the unsustainability of the transport sector, it is assumed that any changes will take place within the framework of general transition to a 'sustainable society'.

The political interest in 'sustainable transportation' raises the same questions as the case of 'sustainable development'. There is again a choice between a narrow and a broad definition. A narrow definition is, for instance, suggested by Kågeson (1994) and a broad definition by Gudmundsson and Höjer (1996). The broad definition is also preferred by the World Bank (Sustainable Transport, 1996) and by the Canadian Centre for Sustainable Transportation (Definition and Vision of Sustainable Transportation, 1997).

The concept 'environmentally sustainable transport' (EST) is, however, often used. It has been defined by OECD as: 'Transportation that does not endanger public health or ecosystems and meets mobility needs consistent with (a) use of renewable resources at below their rates of regeneration and (b) use of non-renewable resources at below the rates of development of renewable substitutes' (Pollution Prevention and Control: Environmental Criteria for Sustainable Transport, 1996, p 54).

In the following, it is not my intention to contribute to the scientific clarification of the concept but primarily to study how the concept of 'sustainability' is used and defined in political texts. However, in order to investigate the significance of the concept in political texts, I have to present the significance of the concept in my own analytical language. The various reasons why one has to distinguish clearly between the political language and the analyst's own language will be presented below (1.2.3).

My first point is to claim that what is sustainable in transport is not certain artifacts (such as vehicles) but the transport system as a whole The reason is that the meaning of 'sustainable' refers to some ability of reproduction, a system may be sustainable if its components are replaced over time. An ecosystem such as a forest may be sustainable over long periods if its trees are harvested at the proper time and at appropriate intervals. The influx of solar energy is the driving force behind the sustainable character of the forest. A transport system which is sustainable in the long-term consists of components which can be replaced successively by human actors and is provided with some sustainable energy supply.

Secondly, I will choose the narrow definition of the concept of sustainability, i.e. I will deal only with environmental sustainability. For analytical purposes, there are some advantages in choosing such a narrow definition. Furthermore, to me it is a basic fact that environmental sustainability has to be seen as the very precondition for other forms of sustainability (such as economic, social and cultural sustainability). Accepting the notion of a 'limited ecospace', I also claim that both the question of intragenerational and the question of intergenerational equity has to be founded on the idea of environmental sustainability.

Thirdly, I will take the concept of 'environmental sustainability' in its strong sense. There are, in my view, very good arguments for claiming that there are natural resources that cannot be replaced by alternative natural resources nor by man-made resources. The function of certain important ecosystems and the function of the global climate are such resources. On the other hand, I will not use the concept in the sense of 'very strong sustainability', as I think that this is a question for to-morrow. Today it is, for practical reasons, more important to discuss how to reduce the present unsustainable character of all modern societies.

Finally, I claim that a sharp distinction should be observed between 'a sustainable transport system' and 'sustainable mobility' the concept introduced by the EU Commission in the new Common Transport Policy of the Union (of December 1992). The concepts 'sustainable transport' and 'sustainable mobility' are sometimes taken as synonyms (for instance by Kågeson, 1994). It is, in my view, something quite different to strive for 'sustainable mobility' instead of striving for 'a sustainable transport system', as long as the level of mobility is not defined. As I see it, the level of mobility of peole has to be adapted to the carrying capacity of an environmentally sustainable transport system.

Instead of elaborating a more precise definition of a 'strong environmentally sustainable transport system' I will, in the following chapter, illustrate what 'environmentally unsustainable' really means in connection with transport. I will do this by identifying a number of global environmental aspects that should be considered by national transport policies aiming, in the short term, at the reduction of present unsustainability of transport and, in the long term, at the creation of sustainable transport systems. These aspects are related to the limits of the environment, for instance the air quality, the function of terrestrial and maritime ecosystems, the availability of natural resources (for instance, of fossil energy) and, last but not least, the function of the climate.

There are also some problems associated with this way of arguing. Ecosystems and climate systems change naturally over time but are also influenced by human activities to a greater or lesser degree. Some human influence might reduce the sustainability of the system. One of the difficulties of applying the concept of environmental sustainability is therefore to distinguish between natural and man-made changes of different systems.

Another difficulty has to with the fact that sciences like ecology, climatology and physical resource theory cannot make precise predictions of what will happen when a certain system (for instance, a terrestrial ecosystem) is exposed to serious environmental stress for a long period. They are able to predict that some changes will occur but not when and in what direction. A special source of concern is the fact that the changes in a system may be linear or non-linear. In the second case, it might turn out to be very difficult for human beings to adapt to the new situation. If so, this could compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs. These facts create a fundamental uncertainty in assessing the environmental problems of transport.

1.1.3 Previous studies of transport policies for environmental sustainability

Studies on the theme of sustainable transport or sustainable mobility represent a new and rapidly expanding field of research, difficult to survey. Two comprehensive bibliographical surveys of such studies have been published by the Library Services of the Transport Research Laboratory in Crowthorne (Berk...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• 1.1 Transport policies for environmental sustainability
• 2 Global Environmental Aspects
• 3 The Changes of Danish, Dutch and Swedish Transport Policies
• 4 Differences Between Danish, Dutch and Swedish Transport Policies
• 5 The European Dimension
• 6 A Critical Evaluation: Success or Failure?
• 7 Policy Options for the Future
• Sources and Literature