WEB-ресурс научно-практических конференций

Oganesyan G.

Ukraine

TRADITIONAL DEVELOPMENT VS. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Today’s globalization processes and accompanying it, threats to global development, such as global warming, decrease of global energy security, the spread of diseases and growing inequality among people just to name a few, have shifted the attention of world decision makers and critical thinkers alike from the traditional development paradigm to a more sustainable one.

Historically, the most industrialized and developed nations have pursued the goals of increasing output and achieving extreme rates of economic growth without really considering the environmental and social aspects of development. However, starting from the early 1960s, the lack of “trickle-down” benefits to the growing numbers of poor in developing countries has resulted in greater efforts to improve income distribution directly. Consequently, the development paradigm shifted towards equitable growth, where social objectives, especially poverty alleviation, were recognized to be as important as economic efficiency. By the early 1980s, a large body of evidence had clearly showed that environmental degradation was a major barrier to development, and as a result, new proactive safeguards were introduced, such as the environmental assessments. Thus, the traditional development paradigm was challenged by the emergence of aforementioned problems, and a new concept of development had to be designed in order to address them. This concept would have to encompass not only the economic, but also environmental and social aspects of global development [1]. This kind of concept was developed, and it came to be known as “Sustainable Development.”

Sustainable development has become an accepted concept worldwide, following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro , and the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg . Now, world decision makers are looking at this approach to address many critical policy issues.

The World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 defined sustainable development as “development, which meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Among many subsequent definitions, the sustainable development triangle in Fig. 1 shows one widely accepted concept [2]. It encompasses three major perspectives, economic, social, and environmental.

Fig. 1. Sustainable development triangle

This concept requires balanced and integrated analysis from three main perspectives: social, economic, and environmental (Fig.1). Each viewpoint, represented by a vertex, corresponds to a domain and system that has its own distinct driving forces and objectives.

The economic domain is geared towards improving human welfare, primarily through increases in the consumption of goods and services. The environmental domain focuses on protection of the integrity and resilience of ecological systems. The social domain emphasizes the enrichment of human relationships and achievement of individual and group aspirations. The interactions among domains represented by the side-lines are also important in ensuring balanced assessment of trade-offs and synergies that might exist among the three dimensions. Issues, such as poverty, may be placed in the center of the triangle to re-emphasize that they are linked to all three dimensions.

In other words, sustainable development is a process for improving the range of opportunities that will enable individual human beings and communities to achieve their aspirations and full potential over a sustained period of time, while maintaining the resilience of economic, social and environmental systems [3].

For a better understanding of the sustainable development concept one has to analyze and compare the aspects of ecological, social and economic sustainability.

Economics is the study of how societies use resources. Although the traditional emphasis has been on how resources are allocated, attention is increasingly paid to the equity of the distribution of resources and the overall scale of economic activity [4]. This has been driven, in large part, by concerns about the environmental and social impacts of economic decisions. Conversely, our choices in the environmental and social spheres have economic impacts. The challenge of sustainable development is to better understand and anticipate how decisions affect all three aspects.

Finances and money has become the additional, artificial pseudo-resource, which are needed for the economy to maintain the exchange of goods, services and natural resources. Based on this definition, the finances and financial stability are included into the concept of sustainable economy and sustainable development [5].

Environmental sustainability focuses on overall viability and normal functioning of natural systems. For ecological systems, sustainability is defined by a comprehensive, multi-scale, dynamic, hierarchical measure of resilience, vigor and organization.

Social sustainability parallels environmental sustainability. Reducing vulnerability and maintaining the ability of socio-cultural systems to withstand shocks is very important. Enhancing human capital through education and strengthening social values, institutions, and governance are key elements of the policy.

For all three ecological, social and economic systems, the emphasis is on improving its dynamic ability to adapt to change across a range of spatial and temporal scales, rather than the conservation of some “ideal” static state.

Economic, social and environmental aspects of the concept could be integrated into holistic and balanced sustainable development framework based on the approaches of optimality and durability.

The practical implementation of sustainability concept requires the identification of specific economic, social and environmental indicators that are relevant at different levels of aggregation, ranging from the global/macro to local/micro. It is important that these measures of sustainable development be comprehensive in scope, multi-dimensional in nature, and account for spatial differences.

Currently, there are no universally accepted aggregate measures of sustainable development and financial stability to rival economic indicators of welfare like GDP. While many alternative indicators have been suggested by individual researchers, indicators proposed by United Nations organizations, OECD, World Bank and IMF are more widely known [6].

Overall, the concept of sustainable development has successfully succeeded the traditional development paradigm, and focused the need for the rational and efficient use of limited resources that Earth has to offer. However, the goal of reaching an ideal state of sustainable development remains elusive, and perhaps unreachable. Therefore, a less ambitious strategy that merely seeks to make development more sustainable does offer greater promise. The step-by-step approach of “making development more sustainable” becomes the prime objective, while sustainable development is defined as a process rather than an end point. This method is more practical and permits to address urgent priorities without delay, because many unsustainable activities are easier to recognize and eliminate. Although step-by-step approach is incremental, it does not imply any limitation in scope, restricted time horizon or geographic area. Finally, the approach of “making development more sustainable” encourages researchers and policy-makers to keep future options open, and seek robust strategies, which meet multiple contingencies and increase resilience.

References

1. Zgurovsky , M.Z. Sustainable development global simulation: Opportunities and threats to the planet. / M.Z . Zgurovsky // Russian Journal of Earth Sciences. – 2007. – Vol.9, ES2003, doi : 10.2205/2007ES000273.

2. Munasinghe , M. Environmental Economics and Sustainable Development. // Proceedings of the UN Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro , 1992, pp.1086-1097.

3. Gunderson, L., and Holling , C.S. Panarchy : understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Island Press, New York , NY - 2001.

4. Munasinghe M. Sustainomics and sustainable development. // Encyclopedia of Earth: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment. – 2007. – Acess link: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Sustainomics_and_sustainable_development

5. Schinasi , G.J. Safeguarding Financial Stability: Theory and Practice. International Monetary Fund, Washington – 2006.

6. World Development Indicators and Global Development Finance Statistics [Electron. resource] / World Bank Online Databases. – Access link: http://databank.worldbank.org/ddp/home.do