Intragenerational Equity Research Articles

Global freshwater resources for sustainable development

The notion of sustainable development exploits the concept of inter-generational and intra-generational equity. Availability of freshwater resources in adequate quantity and quality is an indispensable element of the life support system, essential to attain the sustainable development and the particular Millennium Development Goals. In many regions, increasing pressures, such as population growth with consequences for settlements and production of food and fiber, and human aspirations to better living standards and consumptive life style, are likely to render the road to sustainable development even more difficult. The water shortage problems are likely to grow in a number of areas, unveiling the need for curbing water demands and for improving efficiency of water use. Sustainable development should have a mechanism of resilience against floods and droughts and an appropriate preparedness system. In order to solve increasingly complex needs a holistic and integrated approach is needed, benefiting of synergies with other disciplines.

Towards a Common Understanding of the Precautionary Principle

SAA2-O-08 Over the past decades, the Precautionary Principle (PP) has become an underlying rationale for a large and increasing number of international treaties and declarations in the fields of sustainable development, environmental protection, health, trade, and food safety. In its most basic form, the PP is a strategy to cope with scientific uncertainties in the assessment and management of risks. It is about the wisdom of action under uncertainty. Precaution means taking action to protect human health and the environment against possible danger of severe damage. However, in the international arena, different views exist of what precaution is and the PP has different interpretations. The work to be presented has been carried out by an international expert group and aims to reduce the gaps in the understanding of the principle and to clarify the PP for decision-makers and scientists in order to achieve a more informed debate of the principle and to serve as reference for possible further implementations of the PP. It sketches the history of the PP, reviews concepts and definitions of the PP, and identifies common elements in the various definitions. On that basis, a new working definition of the PP is presented, formulating the PP on the basis of positive criteria, including the demand that the possible harm referred to, despite being uncertain, needs to have some scientific backing. Furthermore, it allows for a wide range of precautionary actions, provided they appear effective in order to either avoid or diminish the possible harm. This answers the criticism that the PP is too narrow a tool for innovation policy as long as it only provides the go or no-go options. The ethical basis of the PP and the questions of responsibility, inter- and intra-generational equity and deliberative democracy are explored and legal issues discussed. Special focus is put on the characteristics of complex systems and the concepts of robustness and resilience as well as the multiple dimensions of uncertainty in scientific assessment. These uncertainties are at the heart of the PP. The concept of risk is dealt with and associated decision-making problems for which the PP can be helpful. The paper further addresses a range of application issues of the PP: implications of the PP for science, implications for policy and governance, implications for industry and trade, and social and cultural implications of the PP.

Global environmental sustainability: Intragenerational equity and conceptions of justice in multilateral environmental regimes

With specific focus on two environmental regimes (the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and the Climate Change Convention), this paper seeks to indicate the prospects and limitations of the aspirations for distributive justice by the political South within the context of sustainability in general, and the institutions for global environmental governance in particular. It is argued that while these aspirations have produced important normative shifts in the rule-structure of global environmental management, they have not proved momentous enough to generate policies outside of what the prevailing neoliberal socio-economic regime might permit. Hence, although the texts of global environmental agreements accommodate concepts that express egalitarian notions of justice, core policies remain firmly rooted in market-based neoliberal interpretations of justice, which mainly serve to sustain the status quo.

Équité territoriale : quelles lectures par les théories du développement durable ?

Résumé La problématique du développement durable (DD) est principalement axée sur les questions d’équité intergénérationnelle. L’étude de l’équité intragénérationnelle est moins fréquente. Dans cet article, nous nous intéressons à une forme particulière d’équité intragénérationnelle, l’équité territoriale. Au-delà d’une dénonciation des diverses inégalités territoriales, la littérature sur le DD appréhende l’équité territoriale au travers de possibles transferts territoriaux de durabilité. La réalité de ces transferts et leur mesure sont, cependant, très directement dépendantes des conceptions générales du DD. Le texte examine les analyses qui se déduisent de ces différentes conceptions. Il tente d’en révéler les limites respectives ; des limites qui vont même jusqu’à interroger la pertinence de la dimension territoriale au regard des enjeux globaux. Nous concluons sur de possibles voies d’actions en faveur d’une meilleure équité territoriale.

Just waste? municipal waste management and the politics of environmental justice

Municipal waste management in the UK has undergone rapid transformation in recent years in pursuit of greater sustainability. In this paper we explore the environmental justice issues and tensions involved in this shift. After a brief overview of environmental justice debates and how they have been related to issues of waste management, we describe how the policies and processes underlying the transformation from an overwhelming dependence on landfill disposal towards more sustainable methods of management has been driven by European legislation embodying principles premised on fundamental environmental concerns of inter- and intra-generational equity. We analyse the key means through which these principles have been translated to restructure local authority practices and the environmental justice issues arising from the implementation of international policy in regional and local context. Finally, we reflect on the implications of this case study for implementation of policies intended to advance both sustainability and environmental justice.

SOCIAL SECURITY AND THE INTRAGENERATIONAL REDISTRIBUTION OF LIFETIME INCOME IN JAPAN*

We investigate how social security redistributes lifetime income within the same generation in Japan, based on data from the micro data. The progressivity of Japan's state pension programme appears to be much more limited on a lifetime basis than on an annual basis. Given an ageing population, replacing the current Pay As You Go system with a simple one that consists of a flat benefit and a wage-proportional premium, and has no maximum contribution, can be desirable in terms of both efficiency and intragenerational equity. The redistributive effects of income tax and consumption tax to finance the benefit are also examined.

Methodological basis of forecasting of sustainable development of economic system

Since the adoption of the Rio-Declaration in 1992 the concept of sustainable development is raising more and more awareness in public perception. The concept requires the integration of economic, environment and social considerations into all decision-making, fostering intra-generational equity through the alleviation of poverty by concentrating the benefits of development in lesser developed areas and considering the needs of future generations to ensure that inter-generated equity exists. The implementation of sustainable development concept requires certain means. One major instrument is forecasting of development by using sustainable development indicators. In this article the problems of methodological basis of forecasting of sustainable development of economic system are considered. The authors investigate these problems on an example of Republic of Kazakhstan.

Sustainable Tourism Development: A Critique

Sustainable tourism has become an increasingly popular field of research since the late 1980s. However, the sustainable tourism debate is patchy, disjointed and often flawed with false assumptions and arguments. This paper is a brief critique of some of the weaknesses in the sustainable tourism literature. In particular, it explores six issues that are often overlooked but must be addressed in research: the role of tourism demand, the nature of tourism resources, the imperative of intra-generational equity, the role of tourism in promoting sociocultural progress, the measurement of sustainability, and forms of sustainable development. Finally, it is argued that in order to transform research on sustainable tourism to a more scientific level, a systems perspective and an interdisciplinary approach are indispensable.

Metrics for supply chain sustainability

Most interpretations of sustainable development recognise that there are constraints on long-term human activities imposed by material and energy availability and by the capacity of the planet to accommodate wastes and emissions; inter- and intra-generational equity within these constraints is then an ethical principle underlying sustainability. This leads to identifying three dimensions of sustainable development: techno-economic, ecological and social. This paper reviews the development of indicators to reflect these three dimensions, applicable to industrial sectors, companies and broad groups of products or services. Indicators of environmental and economic performance are relatively well established. They can be combined to indicate the sustainability of products, services and supply chains. Indicators of social performance are more problematic, particularly indicators to describe the social value of products and services. Cases from the process, petroleum and petrochemicals, electronics and fast moving consumer goods sectors are reviewed, showing that social indicators must be developed through public participation.

Distributional Effects of Fiscal Consolidation

If public goods and transfers are relatively more valuable to the poor, the elderly poor stand to lose from public debt reduction achieved through spending cuts. When long–term surpluses produced by debt reduction are recycled into higher provision of public goods and transfers, future generations of poor could gain. If future surpluses are recycled through lower labour taxes, working households in the future would be positively affected. The impact of debt reduction on vertical equity is ambiguous, yet inter– rather than intragenerational equity is likely to pose the greatest obstacle to fiscal consolidation. Based on majority voting by self–interested households, debt reduction is unlikely to occur. JEL classification: D91; E62; H23; H63

Descriptive, prescriptive and second-best approaches to the control of global greenhouse gas emissions

A prescriptive, second-best approach is developed for determining the control of greenhouse gas emissions in an inter-temporal multi-region model of the world. Concerns about inter and intra-generational equity are reflected in the rate of time preference and regional weights of a social welfare function. Choices are narrowed down by the ethical principle of anonymity. A third dimension of equity, inequality aversion, is subject to greater variation. The aggressiveness of recommended abatement can be made to bracket results for a common descriptive model by the choice of inequality aversion. In this manner, the perception of a sharp dichotomy between descriptive and prescriptive approaches is moderated.

Sustainable urban water - analysis of the opportunities

This paper describes a major program of research by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) into urban water, wastewater and stormwater services. The intent of the program has been to identify opportunities for achieving more sustainable urban water services. The term “sustainable” has been interpreted to mean improvements in environmental and economic performance of systems which maintain inter- and intragenerational equity. It is evident from the conclusions of the feasibility stage of the Urban Water Program that such opportunities exist, particularly with regard to the design and configuration of water and wastewater systems. The structure of the UWP is described and examples of critical outcomes given.

An Introduction to Spatial Discounting

Research on the valuation of environmental externalities shows that decision makers tend to discount not only over time but across space. Just as time discounting has implications for intergenerational equity, geographical or spatial discounting has implications for intragenerational equity. Similarly, just as positive time discount rates are warranted by positive net rates of growth of the capital stock, positive spatial discount rates may be warranted by the fact that enviironmental (or other external effects of economic activity are diffused at positive rates. This paper introduces the notion of spatial discounting and explores its welfare implications through a simple diffusion model.

The Politics of Pension Reform Under Ageing

In this paper we address the question whether in case of population ageing a transition from an unfunded to a more funded pension scheme is politically feasible in a representative democracy. We consider two parties: a right-wing party which is willing to trade off intragenerational equity against efficiency gains in intergenerational redistribution, and a left-wing party which does not want to adjust the level of intragenerational distribution. We show that, in an economy with an exogenously given interest rate, only a thus defined right-wing government will propose a social-security reform. Moreover, we demonstrate that such a policy proposal may lead to electoral success if it entails an appropriate mix of distributional efficiency and equity.

Climate change, poverty, and intragenerational equity: the national level

This paper discusses seven propositions: climate change and poverty are linked by the issue of vulnerability; the hardest equity issues arise because of qualitative differences in the nature of climate change and policy impacts on the poor and those who are better off; poverty cannot be understood in terms of lack of goods or income, or even basic needs, but must rather be understood in terms of people's ability to participate in the social discourse that shapes their lives; emerging multi-dimensional measures of poverty are much better than those based on income or needs, but may continue to underestimate sociocultural factors; eliminating poverty and developing societal resilience require building social diversity; climate change and policy impacts on the poor do not conform very well to analytic dichotomies of national and international, or intragenerational and intergenerational; in the final analysis climate protection and poverty elimination may be most effectively achieved through local-level actors and their global networks.

Enhancing Emancipatory Systems Methodologies for Sustainable Development

Our interest lies in applying the principles of critical systems thinking to human activity systems in developing countries in situations where issues of natural resource sustainability constrain the feasible set of long-term strategies. The concept of sustainable development provides an expanded domain for critical systems thinking. The fundamental values underpinning sustainable development are that both intragenerational and intergenerational equity are important. As a consequence, key stakeholders are often excluded from power-sharing within current social systems. Addressing these issues requires renewed focus on emancipatory commitment and methodologies. To date, Ulrich's critical systems heuristics is the only critical systems methodology that offers practicable tools for emancipation. A case study analysis in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, provides insights in relation to the application of critical system heuristics to issues of sustainable development and highlights the need to extend the use of critical systems heuristics beyond the design and monitoring of structured interventions.

Duties to future generations, proxy consent, intra- and intergenerational equity: the case of nuclear waste.

How does one deal with problems of risk transfer if it is the case that increasing risks to future generations decreases the risks to present generations, and increasing the risks to present generations decreases the risks to future generations? In the case of high-level nuclear waste and spent fuel, for example, should billions of dollars be spent to secure the wastes and protect future generations, or should the same monies be spent on present-day needs, under the assumption that future generations will be better able to deal with the waste than we are at present? Although these questions may appear insoluble, they become less so when one recognizes several common ethical and logical errors that beset many discussions of technological risk and duties to future generations. After briefly explaining the grounds for inter- and intragenerational equity, this analysis argues for three propositions about many treatments of inter- and intragenerational ethics: (1) these discussions often err because they frame policy arguments in terms that ignore rights and focus on maximizing welfare or utility, (2) they err because they frequently frame policy arguments in ways that set inter- and intragenerational welfare at odds, when they are not, because they ignore ameliorating practices and the conditions for proxy consent, and (3) they also err because they engage in risk practices that do not match their risk rhetoric.

Intra-generational equity and sustainable welfare: a time series analysis for the UK and Sweden

This paper discusses the importance of intra-generational equity to sustainable development. It outlines a number of methodologies for measuring income inequality in the economy, and presents several possible ways of incorporating the impact of distributional effects into measures of welfare in the economy. The authors highlight in particular an index developed by Atkinson (Atkinson, A.B., 1970. Distributive politics and economic growth. Q. J. Econ., May, 465–490.) based on the social welfare model. This method possesses two main advantages over other methods. Firstly, it is expressed directly in terms of social well-being. Secondly, value judgements incorporated into the measure are made explicit through the parameter ε which expresses society’s degree of aversion to income inequality. The paper calculates the value of the Atkinson index for two case study countries (Sweden and the UK) between 1950 and 1996 for a central estimate of ε=0.8. The results show that the welfare loss due to inequalities in the distribution of income varied between 5 and 10% for Sweden, and between 6 and 14% for the UK, with the higher values coming towards the end of the period. The paper explores the sensitivity of these results to changes in the value of ε for the case of the UK, and discusses the relevance of the work to the measurement of sustainable welfare.

Voluntary environmental initiatives and sustainable industry

Voluntary environmental initiatives are private or public efforts to improve corporate environmental performance beyond existing legal requirements. Voluntary initiatives have become an important element in the mix of public policies and corporate strategies for managing industrial impacts on the environment, but considerable uncertainty exists concerning the effectiveness, efficiency and fairness of voluntary programs relative to other policy instruments. This paper considers the potential role for voluntary initiatives in the transition toward more sustainable industrial systems, in light of these criteria. Several pervasive problems have hindered evaluation of their environmental effectiveness so far including poorly specified objectives, inadequate data on results and poorly specified baselines for comparison. Economic models indicate that in different circumstances, voluntary approaches may increase or decrease economic efficiency. However, these conditions remain poorly understood. Little if any analysis so far has focused on the intergenerational and intragenerational equity of voluntary approaches. Evaluations of negotiated agreements indicate that they often reduce the ability of outside parties to observe both the process and the outcomes of a policy relative to regulations. These considerations suggest that while voluntary initiatives can help us move toward more sustainable industrial systems, considerable advances in the design and analysis of voluntary initiatives will be required to harness their full potential. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment

On Intergenerational Equity and Its Clash with Intragenerational Equity and on the Need for Policies to Guide the Regulation of Disposal of Wastes and Other Activities Posing Very Long‐Term Risks

This article begins with some history of the derivation of 40 CFR Part 191, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard that governs the geologic disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high‐level and transuranic radioactive wastes. This is followed by criticisms of the standard that were made by a Sub‐committee of the EPA Science Advisory Board, by the staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and by a panel of the National Academies of Science and Engineering. The large disparity in the EPA approaches to regulation of disposal of radioactive wastes and disposal of hazardous, long‐lived, nonradioactive chemical waste is illustrated. An examination of the intertwined matters of intergenerational equity and the discounting of future health effects follows, together with a discussion of the conflict between intergenerational equity and intragenerational equity. Finally, issues related to assumptions in the regulations concerning the future state of society and the biosphere are treated, as is the absence of any national philosophy or guiding policy for how to deal with societal activities that pose very long‐term risks.