10 Propositions on Sustainable Development

Written 22 January, 2002, for a meeting in March.

1 SD is an oxymoron, but is it any use? Maybe, but it expresses a dilemma, and is not a prescription. It delineates the tension between those who put economics first and those who put ecology first. At its best, it reminds both parties that the other is legitimate.

2 We have no idea what is sustainable, since we do not know what resources will be available or needed in the future and we do not know what “headroom” there is for various sorts of “pollution”.

3 As applied to the Third World, SD has been co-opted by NGOs interested in the “sustainable” bit and less keen on the “development” bit. They like communal enterprise and disparage capitalistic enterprise. They prefer the picturesque to the effective..

4 The Third World may often become more tolerable if it quite often ignores sustainability. Should it use expensive sources of fuel and not cheap ones on the grounds of sustainability? Perhaps. But why expensively recycle rather than cheaply landfill?

5 We can usefully reverse most assumptions about what is sustainable: that is, we should prefer incineration over recycling; nuclear over solar (especially in the short-term); conventional over organic farming.

6 Development is the work of large scale enterprises and conventional economics, so sustainability tends to be to do with promoting alternatives, indeed “alternativism”. This risks blunting the vigour of enterprise with the moralising of romantics.

7 SD might be valuable if more NGOs devoted time to worrying about whether their vision of sustainability was compatible with development: but instead the moralising is all one way. SD always thinks of disciplining enterprise, not disciplining romantics.

8 SD should not be on the agenda for business. Business can and should risk predicting what demands it can satisfy, but it should not be trusted with working out what should be allowed. Satisfying demand is business’ business; moralising is politicians’.

9 Businesses can be ethical and not sustainable. A mine or an oil well is not sustainable: but they do good. Even if a product (say oil) were not sustainable (say because of global warming) it would be entirely ethical for a firm to sell it until told not to

10 Sometimes, SD is good business - but that does not mean that it is good for development or the planet. Firms should be bold in stressing that their interest in SD is either self-interested, or largely political