Abstract
This paper questions why, despite the sustainable development concept having been prominent at an international level for well over 20 years, there is little to show by way of a transition to a sustainable world. Instead, in many ways, the situation is deteriorating. The paper critiques the mainstream sustainable development approach as advocated by business, and as is prominent in the political sphere, to consider if this is itself a key problem. The paper concludes that it is. Rather than helping society achieve needed change, this approach can create a false sense of progress that acts as a barrier to the more decisive action that is necessary to address the underlying drivers of humanity's unsustainable behaviours. Further, the paper proposes that the very act of pursuing mainstream sustainable development makes a sustainable world harder to achieve. A way forward for the business sector is proposed by it embracing a more transformational sustainable world approach in both its internal activities and in its advocacy in the broader public and political space.
Highlights
The need for humanity to live sustainably, that is, for there to be a sustainable world, has roots that date back thousands of years in concerns expressed at the environmental damage humans cause [1].Contemporary sustainable world discourse is often dated from the 1880s and the response to environmental damage that paralleled the emergence of the industrial revolution, and subsequentSustainability 2012, 4 progression of environmental thought through to the advent of the modern day environmental movement in the 1960s [2,3,4]
The Reformist approach is far removed from the behaviour we would accept in how our own businesses are managed and, in addition, it is based on an economic growth premise that has been shown to fail to deliver the continued gains in human wellbeing that it otherwise professes to do
The critique presented in this paper, only covering only a few themes by which mainstream Reformist-based sustainable development can be assessed, suggests that despite its dominance, it is challenging to believe as a viable pathway forward for humanity
Summary
The need for humanity to live sustainably, that is, for there to be a sustainable world, has roots that date back thousands of years in concerns expressed at the environmental damage humans cause [1]. Absolute and persistent poverty continues to affect hundreds of millions of people [9,10], the resource-use gap between the rich and the poor is increasing [9,11], the Earth’s ecosystems continue to deteriorate [12,13], atmospheric greenhouse gas loads continue to rise driving increased global warming and ocean acidification [14,15], and humanity's use of the Earth’s renewable resource base continues to exceed its rate of regeneration, with this unsustainable rate of use accelerating [16,17]. The very act of pursuing the Reformist approach can make the sustainable world goal harder to achieve
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