1. Definitions of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
Let’s zero in on sustainability.
What does it mean? Where does it come from? How is it applied?
What makes it a contestable concept?
What’s the difference between sustainability and sustainable development?
How are conflicts over sustainability proposals driven by ideological differences?

2. Definitions of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
What is your working definition of sustainability?
Write it down

3. Definitions of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
On your own:
Review the various definitions of sustainability and sustainable development
Circle the definitions that you favor most
Consider what they have in common…
Take 10 minutes

4. Definitions of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
Working as a group:
Discuss your favorites definitions
Identify the elements of the definitions that you collectively support the most
Try to come to consensus on a favored definition, either one on the handout or one of your own making
Take note of your disagreements, particularly if you are having difficulty in coming to consensus
Be prepared to share your group definition and what you like about it, as well as why you think you have disagreements

5. Definitions of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
Have a representative of your group write your definition on the whiteboard
How did your group come to your definition?
What are the important shared elements among the various definitions?
Where and why did you have any difficulty or disagreements?

6. Definitions of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
Shared elements among the various definitions:
Summarize from the whiteboard and discussion

7. Definitions of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
Most definitions of sustainability and sustainable development tend to…
Be anthropocentric
Assume limitations on environmental resource availability and the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effects of human activities
Speak of an ideal process or state.
What do we mean by ideal?

8. Brundtland Commission definition of Sustainable Development:
The Most Common Definition…
Brundtland Commission definition of Sustainable Development:
Development that
meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs

9. Brundtland Commission definition of Sustainable Development:
Development that
meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs
What are the uncertainties associated with this definition?
Why might it be difficult or problematic to fulfill?

10. Brundtland Commission definition of Sustainable Development
Some issues with their definition:
How determine needs?
How far into the future are we talking about?
How encompassing is the word “generations?”

11. What is Sustainability?
What is it that we are ultimately wanting to sustain?
What are the big objectives of sustainability?

12. What is Sustainability Anyway. Prough and Assadourian, 2003
What is Sustainability Anyway? Prough and Assadourian, World Watch Magazine, 16(5).
Four Dimensions of Sustainability
Human Survival

13. Human Survival Is human survival threatened?
Is human survival the peak of our ambitions?

14. What is Sustainability Anyway? Prough and Assadourian
Four Dimensions of Sustainability
Biodiversity
Human Survival

15. Biodiversity What is it? Why does it matter?
Is the loss of biodiversity threatening the carrying capacity of the planet for people?

16. Economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
Biodiversity
“Our policy toward natural resources in relation to future generations must seek to minimize regrets.”
Economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
Does that sound reasonable?
Expresses the Precautionary Principle
What are the challenges and costs of following that principle?

17. What is Sustainability Anyway? Prough and Assadourian
Four Dimensions of Sustainability
Equity
Biodiversity
Human Survival

18. Equity
What is equity?
Can you relate some examples of inequities? How about environmental inequities or injustice?
How important is equity in the pursuit of sustainability?
What kind of equity are we talking about?

19. Equity
“Even the narrow notion of physical sustainability implies a concern for social equity between generations, a concern that must logically be extended to equity within each generation.”1
Do you agree with this? What are the ramifications?
Does sustainability require an elimination of poverty?  Just how much social equity is needed?
1. Dresner, S (2002). Introduction, in Principles of Sustainability.

20. What is Sustainability Anyway? Prough and Assadourian
Four Dimensions of Sustainability
Life Quality
Equity
Biodiversity
Human Survival

21. Life Quality
What constitutes high life quality?
What promotes it?

22. Life Quality
Do you think we are experiencing an increase or decline in societal well-being in the USA?
What about globally? What are the prospects?

23. Life Quality
Are human well-being, connection and contentment “achievable without consumerism, mass advertising, planned obsolescence, heedless and destructive waste, or the endless pursuit of profits”?
Prough and Assadourian, World Watch Magazine, 16(5).
How dependent is Life Quality on wealth?

24. How well correlated is GDP per capita (a measure of wealth per person) to subjective reports of happiness?
Roser, M (2016). Happiness and Life Satisfaction. Our World in Data.
Leiserowitz, A, Kates, R, and Parris, T (2005). Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors Support Sustainable Development? Environment, 47(9):

25. How well correlated is GDP per capita (a measure of wealth per person) to subjective reports of happiness?
Roser, M (2016). Happiness and Life Satisfaction. Our World in Data.
Leiserowitz, A, Kates, R, and Parris, T (2005). Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors Support Sustainable Development? Environment, 47(9):

26. How well correlated is GDP per capita (a measure of wealth per person) to subjective reports of happiness?
Roser, M (2016). Happiness and Life Satisfaction. Our World in Data.
What impact does GDP have over $30,000 per capita?
Compare United States to Costa Rica
Leiserowitz, A, Kates, R, and Parris, T (2005). Do Global Attitudes and Behaviors Support Sustainable Development? Environment, 47(9):

27. What is the Genuine Progress Indicator?
Talberth, J (2012). Sustainable Development and the Genuine Progress Indicator, in Contribution to Beyond GDP Virtual Indicator Expo. European Commission.

28. Genuine Progress Indicator
Individual components, that increase (+) and decrease (–) the value of GPI:
+ Personal consumption weighted by income distribution index + Value of household work and parenting + Value of higher education + Value of volunteer work + Services of consumer durables + Services of highways and streets - Cost of crime - Loss of leisure time - Cost of unemployment - Cost of consumer durables - Cost of commuting - Cost of household pollution abatement
- Cost of automobile accidents - Cost of water pollution - Cost of air pollution - Cost of noise pollution - Loss of wetlands - Loss of farmland -/+ Loss of forest area and damage from logging roads - Depletion of nonrenewable energy resources - Carbon dioxide emissions damage - Cost of ozone depletion +/- Net capital investment +/- Net foreign borrowing
Source: (Wikipedia (2016).

29. What Makes Sustainability Contestable?
There are many different groups pursuing different goals animated by different ideologies

30. Sustainability as a Controversial Movement
How Dresner frames the apparent sustainability “debate”
Economic growth vs. environmental protection
Debate between whom?
Environmentalists vs. Economists
Where are the disagreements?

31. Sustainability as a Controversial Movement
Where are the disagreements?
Faith in mastery over nature. Dominion vs. ambivalence over modernity.
Precautionary principle vs. invisible hand of the market
How do we deal with indeterminate risks?

32. Sustainability as a Controversial Movement
Environmentalists vs. Economists
What is missing in this categorization?
Are they by necessity at odds? Is there a middle ground?
What underlies this tension?
Differences in values or ethical priorities, which in turn lead to different political ideologies.

33. What Do We Mean by Political Ideology?
A set of beliefs about the proper order of society and how it can be achieved.
Ideologies are the shared framework of mental models that groups of individuals possess that provide both an interpretation of the environment and a prescription as to how that environment should be structured.
From Jost, J, Federico, C and Napier, J (2009). Political Ideology: Its Structure, Functions and Elective Affinities. Annual Review of Psychology. Vol. 60:

34. Sustainability as a Movement
“Sustainability is an idea with a certain amount in common with socialism.”1 Ack!!
How so and why the “Ack!!” response?
What ideology embraces the principles and objectives of sustainability?
Not all ideologies do.
1. Dresner, S (2002). Introduction, in Principles of Sustainability.

35. Critiquing Models of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
Class discussion…
What do you think are the big differences between sustainability and sustainable development?
Why do many people consider “sustainable development” to be an oxymoron? Who would those people be?

36. Reflect
How has this activity expanded your understanding of sustainability?
What is still murky to you?

37. Applying Sustainability to Water Resource Management
Gleick, P (1998). Water in Crisis: Paths to Sustainability. Ecological Applications, 8(3):
Peter Gleick

38. Peter Gleick’s Take on Water Sustainability
Gleick, P (1998). Water in Crisis: Paths to Sustainability. Ecological Applications, 8(3):

39. Peter Gleick’s Take on Water Sustainability
Do you agree with all of these criteria?
How do they reflect your understanding of sustainability?
Anything missing?