Five Approaches to Social Sustainability and an Integrated Way Forward

Robert Boyer,Nicole Peterson,Kevin Caldwell,Poonam Arora

doi:10.3390/su8090878

Robert Boyer, Nicole Peterson + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su8090878

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Abstract

Sustainability is often conceived of as an attempt to balance competing economic, environmental and social priorities. Over the course of three decades of scholarship, however, the meaning and appropriate application of the ‘social pillar’ continues to inspire confusion. In this paper, we posit that the inherent challenge of understanding social sustainability is its many legitimate meanings plus a lack of interdisciplinary scholarship. We draw from literature in multiple disciplines to illustrate five different ways that the concept of social sustainability has been applied in scholarship and professional practice, and highlighting the importance of applications that acknowledge placed-based, process-oriented perspectives that understand social, economic, and environmental imperatives as integrated concepts. Ironically, this framing forecloses on social sustainability as an entity distinct from environmental and economic sustainability. We believe that organizing the conversation around these five applications can help advocates of sustainability use the concept of social sustainability in clear and powerful ways while avoiding applications that relegate the social dimensions of sustainability to an afterthought.

Highlights

Sustainability and its policy corollary, sustainable development, have inspired intense scholarly and public debate since their international coming-of-age in the 1987 Brundtland Commission Report [1,2]
We draw from literature in multiple disciplines to illustrate five different ways that the concept of social sustainability has been applied in scholarship and professional practice, and highlighting the importance of applications that acknowledge placed-based, process-oriented perspectives that understand social, economic, and environmental imperatives as integrated concepts
We believe that organizing the conversation around these five applications can help advocates of sustainability use the concept of social sustainability in clear and powerful ways while avoiding applications that relegate the social dimensions of sustainability to an afterthought

Summary

Introduction

Sustainability and its policy corollary, sustainable development, have inspired intense scholarly and public debate since their international coming-of-age in the 1987 Brundtland Commission Report [1,2]. Consistent across contemporary interpretations and applications of sustainability is a focus upon—often, striking some balance among—economic, environmental, and social priorities This simple three-pillar heuristic, referred to in different contexts as ‘the three-legged stool,’ ‘the triple bottom line’, the 3 E’s (economy, ecology, equity), or the 3 P’s (prosperity, planet, people), implies that solving some of the world’s most complex dilemmas entails shifts in familiar concepts rather than uprooting and rebuilding society from scratch. Rather we draw from literature in urban planning, geography, anthropology, and business management to articulate the strengths and weakness of using the social dimension of sustainability in different ways. To arrive at our conclusion about the importance of an integrated, place-based and process-oriented approach to sustainability, we draw on a wide range of studies and examples from the disciplines of urban planning, geography, anthropology, and business management literature. The following section reviews existing literature on the challenges of applying the social dimension of sustainability, and Section 3 discusses methodology before descending into the five approaches for applying social sustainability

Why Is Social Sustainability on the Margins of Sustainability Scholarship?

Findings

Methodology