Sustainability

If It's Everything, Is It Nothing?

Heather M. Farley, Zachary A. Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351124904
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Sustainability in Architecture

In this second edition, the authors present new developments in the sustainability discussion and argue that a new understanding of sustainability is needed if we are to truly serve future generations ecologically, economically, and equitably.

Despite the great flurry of activity around sustainability, the concept itself remains highly contested. This book argues that a new conceptualization of sustainability is needed if we are to achieve a healthful and sustainable environment for the long term. The authors examine the uses, misuses, and abuses of sustainability, and provide case studies of faux sustainability in practice. Seeking to redefine and clarify the concept and its application, they offer a new definition of sustainability – what they call neo-sustainability – to help guide policies and practices that respect the primacy of the environment, the natural limits of the environment, and the relationship between environmental, social, and economic systems.

Offering a comprehensive view of sustainability, this text is essential reading for all students and scholars in the field. It will also be of interest to environmental professionals and activists.

1 A brief history

The early debates that shaped sustainability

Most definitions of sustainability are rooted in the debates and events that shaped the environmental movement. Key historical events, international agreements, and intellectual arguments have contributed a variety of ideas that we now associate with the concept. As this and the next chapter will establish, however, these ideas contribute to the problem of sustainability meaning everything to everyone. The questions that are sorted through in the environmental literature are not necessarily solved by, but are ongoing in, the sustainability dialogue.

This chapter begins by outlining two of the core debates that have influenced the way we understand sustainability today. The preservation/conservation management philosophies and the limits to growth debate demonstrate the perspectives that inform common interpretations of sustainability. These debates serve as a starting point in discussing what to sustain and how to sustain. The inclusion or exclusion of limits, preservation, or conservation in current definitions of sustainability can be indicative of the type of definition being used. That is, conservation-oriented definitions of sustainability tend to focus on “wise use” and the utility of nature for humans, while limits-oriented definitions indicate recognition of the fundamental character of the environment. The way these foundational concepts are utilized can be a useful analytical tool in understanding interpretations of sustainability.

Preservation or conservation?

One of the earliest debates in environmental studies is how to administer the earth’s natural resources appropriately. While humans have always had an impact on their surrounding environment through their methods of survival (fishing, hunting, gathering, agriculture), it was not until the sixteenth century that human populations began to generate significant impacts on ecological systems due to the economic exploitation of the earth’s natural resources (Weddell, 2002). Influenced by the Judeo-Christian idea that humans hold dominion over nature, Western societies felt morally justified in their development of the environment, which led to irresponsible exploitation of its resources. As historian William Cronon (1983) explains, when the Western European concept of land ownership arrived in North America, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia during sixteenth- and seventeenth-century colonization, the environment became both a means of survival and a commodity source. Yet, as colonization and settlement of new lands expanded, so did natural resource depletion, which became a requirement to keep up with growing populations, agriculture needs, and industrial development. When expansion ceased to be an option, owing to ecological and/or geographical limits, the intentional management of natural resources became necessary.

Over the course of nearly three centuries, particularly among rapidly developing nations such as the United States and Western European countries and colonies, three basic approaches emerged within natural resource management. First, the “free-for-all” or “manifest destiny” approach, already explained, allowed resources to be exploited without concern for the resources’ future productivity. Resources were viewed as endless in abundance. When common pool resources are neither regulated nor privatized, exploitation of this type can lead to ecological collapse, as described by Garrett Hardin (1968).¹ In contrast, resources can be used in a way that does not immediately deplete the resource but finds a utilitarian purpose for the resource, as in the conservation approach. Or, the resource may not be used at all, thereby keeping it intact in its current form and state. Beginning sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, there was an increase in awareness regarding ecosystem processes and functions, which influenced the two core ideological perspectives on natural resource management. Susan Cutter and William Renwick (2004) argue that these two core ideological camps include the conservation and preservation approaches that have come to dominate the natural resource management discourse.

Conservation denotes the use of natural resources, though it also considers the biological limits of a resource. One term that has become closely tied to the conservation approach and helps to illustrate the utilitarian characterization of conservation is sustainable yield. In forest management, maximum sustainable yield refers to the rate of extraction possible that does not exceed the rate of growth. In other words, a sustainable yield of a tree stand refers to “fellings which are not more than growth of timber during the accounting period (i.e. net growth is positive or zero)” (OECD, 2005, p. 767). Exploitation would simply allow for the entire stand to be clear-cut and decimated, whereas conservation includes both a consumptive aspect and a protective quality. Another example can be found in fishery conservation restrictions such as those set by the Fishery Stock Agreement of 1995. Under this UN agreement, “detailed minimum international standards for the conservation and management of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks” are established and measures are utilized to allow regional authorities to effectively enforce these conservation standards (United Nations Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, 2001, Overview section). As in the example of timber, this allows for the consumptive use of migratory fish populations without permanently compromising the population’s survival. Therefore, conservation is concerned with how much of a resource may be used for human consumption without eliminating the resource. As an ideological position, conservation is anthropocentric and utilitarian; concern for the environment is based on its utility to the human species.

Preservation, on the other hand, is focused not on the use of a resource, but rather on setting aside the resource. Phil McManus (2000) describes preservation as either the non-use or the non-consumptive use of a resource. In a park, for instance, recreational, educational, or scientific activities may be permitted (non-consumptive use) but the park is otherwise left alone in terms of consumption of its resources. The early years of the national park system in the United States, and shortly thereafter park systems in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and Russia, all embodied the basic non-consumptive preservationist approach to resource management (Allin, 1990). “Non-consumptive” does not, however, always imply a lack of impact. While human impact to the environment may be greatly reduced under a non-consumptive preservationist approach, impact is not necessarily eliminated. Roads, boats, species control, fish stocking, pest extermination, and the building of tourist-related structures all impact the ecology of parks even under a preservation ethos (Sellars, 1997). As Richard West Sellars (1997) explains, this kind of preservation, or what he refers to as façade management, focuses primarily on the scenery or façade of the resource, with scant attention being given to scientific knowledge or the biological consequences associated with the management. In the early history of the US national parks, this meant developing the land to be comfortable and accessible for guests even at the detriment of the ecosystem. The fundamental concept of the parks, however, was to protect natural landscapes and leave them unhindered for use and enjoyment as described in the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916.

A wilderness area set aside as a non-use preserve, in contrast, does not allow human intervention but rather is designed to be a pristine landscape untouched by humans, as defined in the 1964 US Wilderness Act. Non-use preservation guided the designation of wilderness spaces, which were defined as areas “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain” (US Wilderness Act, 1964). Both methods of preservation emphasize the potential inherent value of the resource; that is, preservation sets aside certain resources for aesthetic and/or biodiversity reasons that go beyond the consumptive value of the resource. Bertie Josephson Weddell (2002) notes that while American resource managers tend to be lumped into either the preservation or the conservation category, these classifications are extremes on a continuum of views held by most US managers.

In the United States, preservation and conservation became the primary approaches to natural resource management during the early twentieth century amid the historic Hetch Hetchy dam debate. The controversy dealt largely with whether it was better to leave the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park alone, thereby preserving its aesthetic value, or to dam the valley to produce hydroelectric power and water for the growing city of San Francisco. Gifford Pinchot’s perspective saw the optimal use of nature as that which utilizes its resources most efficiently, while John Muir saw value in the natural environment in and of itself without the need to define a human use for resources. The appropriate administration of National Park land was argued from both a utilitarian and an inherent value position, and was played out in books and articles between Pinchot and Muir, who later became the symbols of the conservation and preservation ideologies respectively (see, for example, Pinchot, 1910; Muir, 1901).

The now famous debate between these iconic individuals demonstrates how the conservation and preservation approaches to resource management have also shaped debates surrounding sustainability. John Muir was a naturalist whose association with the Sierra Club and National Park Service in the United States was an extension of his passion for the North American wilderness. Muir traveled through much of North America on foot, which instilled in him a very intimate connection to the natural environment, a connection that at times he described as akin to a spiritual or religious one. This view of nature as something sacred meant that Muir saw the wilderness as a place where humans were meant to appreciate the outdoors for what it was, not what it could become through commodification. In other words, human interference with the wilderness was not only undesirable, but also unacceptable. Preservation, as shaped by Muir, became the “hands-off” approach to management; nature is best served when we do not intervene and wild places are able to thrive untouched.

Pinchot, a forester trained in the European tradition of utilitarian management and the first head of the US Forest Service, was convinced that development and conservation were ultimately compatible. Pinchot recognized that managing natural resources only to achieve short-term human gains (through exploitation, for example) did not support development but challenged it, and therefore advocated the “wise use” of resources for long-term development purposes (Moseley, 2009). Adopting Jeremy Bentham’s adage “the greatest good for the greatest number,” Pinchot saw tremendous opportunity in the Hetch Hetchy dam project to serve a large population over a long time horizon using the natural resources available in the park without permanently destroying them.

In the context of current efforts to define sustainability, these perspectives have persisted and been repurposed within the sustainable development debate. Those who adhere to the most basic definition of sustainability, for example, turn to the root word sustain as a point of departure in defining the concept. According to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary (2012), sustain means “to keep up, prolong.” Thus, sustainability in its simplest form means keeping something going. The debate begins to form, however, when we attempt to define what we want to perpetuate and how we wish to go about sustaining it. Is the objective to keep the environment exactly as it is through minimal interference? Are we seeking to improve the natural environment? Or, are we attempting to intervene but keep current conditions intact in spite of our intervention?

What Muir and the preservation approach suggest is that the most efficient method of sustaining what we have now is to respect nature by leaving it alone to thrive without human intervention. It is similar to the deep ecologist philosophy of environmental stewardship. Among deep ecologists, a strict adherence to preservationist tenets can be identified; deep ecology calls for a shift from anthropocentric, or human-centered, thinking toward ecocentric, or nature-focused, thinking. Integrating a respect for all species rather than just the human species in decision-making is central to deep ecology, and therefore deep ecologists do not accept that sustainable development offers a path toward sustainability because ultimately it requires that we continue to interfere with the earth’s potential to thrive and develop without the constant impact of human intervention. Like preservation, deep ecology requires that sustainability include an element of impact reduction through a hands-off attitude toward nature and its resources. As Arne Næss (1983) explains, all life has value and should, therefore, be allowed to live and develop without human involvement.

The “wise use” language that Pinchot used to advocate for the damming of the Hetch Hetchy is more familiar within the sustainable development discussion that has developed since the late 1980s. In this line of reasoning, development is made possible by and bolstered through the wise use of natural resources over time. Robert Paehlke (2006), for example, sees sustainability in its broadest sense as the “capacity of nature to support human well-being over the long term” (p. 57). He suggests that nature serves as the source of human welfare, and therefore sustainability refers to the task of utilizing nature as efficiently as possible so that nature is impacted as little as possible while the needs of humans are satisfied. Similarly, organizations such as the World Wide Fund for Nature, the World Conservation Union, and the United Nations Environment Programme define sustainability as “improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting eco-systems” (IUCN, 1991, p. 10). In these definitions, and in the definitions established within the international agreements to be discussed in the next chapter, wise use is the central focus. The Brundtland Report’s themes of utilitarianism and the connection between the natural environment and human prosperity are echoed across political and non-governmental landscapes alike. The Brundtland Report itself calls for a “new era of growth” for developing nations and an increased effort among industrialized nations to improve material and energy efficiencies in order to reduce human pressure on the natural environment, though certainly not to remove it. A central idea behind many of the current understan...