What is Sustainability? What Would a Sustainable Campus Look Like?

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What is Sustainability? What Would a Sustainable
Campus Look Like?

• Roger Petry
• Luther College
• Sustainable Campus Seminar Series
• Session 1
• October 1, 2003

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What is sustainability?

• Sustain to support, bear the weight of to keep
  going to keep alive
• Sustainability the ability to maintain a
  desired condition over time (Toakley and Aroni,
  1998) when something can be maintained
  profitably and indefinitely, without degrading
  the systems on which it depends (Newton, 2003)
• Implies formulating some criteria for success, a
  desired set of outcomes to be sustained

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Definitions of Sustainable Development

• the management of human use of the biosphere so
  that it may yield the greatest sustainable
  benefit to present generations while maintaining
  its potential to meet the needs and aspirations
  of future generations (the World Conservation
  Strategy of the United Nations Environmental
  Program (UNEP), 1980)
• development that meets the needs of the present
  without compromising the ability of future
  generations to meet their own needs (Our Common
  Future, The World Commission on Environment and
  Development, 1987)
• a situation in which development understood as a
  vector of desirable social objectives (e.g.
  increases in real income per capita
  improvements in health and nutritional status
  educational achievement access to resources a
  'fairer' distribution of income increases in
  basic freedoms) increases monotonically over
  time(Pearce, Markandaya, and Barbier 1989)
• development that promotes the capabilities of
  people in the present without compromising the
  capabilities of future generations (Sen 2001)

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Implications for What is to be Sustained
Sustainability Outcomes

• Sustaining natural capital human beings living
  within the carrying capacity of supporting
  ecosystems (i.e. resources not used more rapidly
  than natures capacity to replenish them)
• Sustaining ecosystems and biodiversity
• Sustaining the human population meeting the
  essential needs for all, particularly the world's
  poor
• Sustaining improvements in quality of life
• Sustaining people's capacity to develop and
  exercise autonomy

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Key Factors Impacting Sustainability Outcomes

• Population growth
• Urbanization
• Availability of natural resources
• Pollution
• Geopolitical problems particularly as they arise
  from income inequality
• (Toakley and Aroni 1998)

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Approaches to SD The Neo-liberal Approach

• Sustainable development understood as sustainable
  economic growth the ability to continue
  economic growth as measured by the consumption of
  goods and services traded in the market (Ayres
  1998)
• Accumulation of primarily man-made capital
  supposed to ensure future generations have the
  same chance at the good life as the current
  generation

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Problems with the Neo-Liberal Approach

• Fails to focus on SD outcomes economic growth
  at best a means to an end development vs. growth
• Adverse impacts of current economic growth model
  on sustainability outcomes
• Economic growth vs. quality of life (GDP vs.
  Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI))
• Increasing consumption and population growth,
  urbanization
• Growth in inequality

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Non Neo-liberal Approaches to SD

• Take ecological constraints on human activity as
  fundamental (e.g. use thresholds for natural
  capital)
• Weak sustainability the maintenance of the
  overall capital base needed for a certain level
  of income but that allows substitutions of
  man-made capital for natural capital
• Focus on technological solutions to minimize
  impacts and produce substitutable alternatives
• Problems with lack of substitutability for
  multifunctional resources uncertainty and
  irreversibility of some harms ecosystem
  integrity needed to support life and absorb
  wastes
• Lack of attention to underlying social and
  economic factors

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Strong Sustainability

• Strong sustainability assumes categories of
  capital are non-substitutable
• Assumes overall stock of natural capital should
  be maintained over time
• Each generation inherits an adequate per capita
  stock of natural capital assets no less than the
  stock of such assets inherited by the previous
  generation
• Need to account for depreciation of natural
  capital
• Need for integrated (vs. intensive) management of
  natural resources appropriate technology, local
  knowledge and local adaptation

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Declarations for Sustainability in Higher
Education

• The Stockholm Declaration on the human
  environment (1972)
• Tbilisi declaration (1977)
• Talloires declaration University Presidents for
  a sustainable future (1990)
• The Halifax declaration (1991)
• U.N. Conference on Environment and Development
  (Chapter 36, Promoting education, public
  awareness, and training 1992)
• The Kyoto Declaration Ninth International
  Association of Universities Round Table (1993)
• The Swansea Declaration Association of
  Commonwealth Universities' Fifteenth Quinquennial
  Conference (1993)
• CRE-Copernicus charter (1994)
• Declaration of Thessaloniki International
  Conference on Environment and Society (1997)

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Reasons for the University as a Key Contributor
to SD

• Breadth of knowledge, particularly of human and
  ecological systems
• Capacity to integrate knowledge regarding
  ecological, economic, and social issues,
  including local knowledge
• Capacity for global and local sharing of
  knowledge
• Knowledge of poor and marginalized groups
• Capacity for longterm research
• Academic freedom and institutional autonomy
• Public accountabilities

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Common Principles of Sustainability in
Declarations

• sustainable physical operations
• sustainable academic research
• public outreach
• inter-university co-operation
• partnerships with government, NGOs, and industry
• development of interdisciplinary curriculum
• ecological literacy
• moral obligation to promote sustainability
• (Wright 2002)