The main dimensions of sustainability

Sustainable development is often defined through various dimensions. A first set of dimensions include the three substantive aspects or pillars: economic, social, environmental. A second set of dimensions includes transversal issues including e.g. long term effects, needs, and governance. Both sets of dimensions are clearly not comparable, not on the same level: If the long term and the needs could be used to specify the first set of dimensions, the institutional dimension (governance) is rather a framework for managing the other dimensions.

2.2.1.1. The three constituent elements

It is generally recognised that the field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken down into three constituent elements: economic, social and environmental. These elements are often termed the three ‘pillars’ of sustainability, and any form of sustainable development must balance economic, social and environmental objectives. The interactions between the three pillars are somewhat open to interpretation, a shown in section 2.2.3. The graphical presentations of the pillars differ a lot on their relationships, as shown Figure 4, where the 5^th version represents the hierarchy of economic, social and environmental spheres according to Passet (1979).

Figure 4. Five different versions of the three constituent element model, and their meaning in terms of relationships,

adapted from Gudmundsson (2007)

1: trade-offs 2: solidarity or dependence

3: independence 4: limited dependence 5: hierarchy

Definitions of sustainability increasingly include a broader range of issues, and these often relate to sub-divisions of the three pillars. Some examples of sustainability issues are provided in Table 6 (more are listed in Table 49 and Table 50 in Annex 3 on page 295). The economic element is often quite well defined (added value, income) as the taking into account of the long term. The social aspect is rarely stated explicitly and can be a source of confusion: It sometimes includes all societal aspects, including quality of life or health impacts, but does not include always equity between humans. Sometimes it concerns only governance. The environmental pillar is not always well defined as noted in section 2.3.1.

Table 6. Sustainability issues (Victoria Transport Policy Institute, 2007)

Economic Social Environmental

Affordability Resource efficiency Cost internalisation Trade and business activity

Employment Productivity Tax burden

Equity Human health

Education Community Quality of life Public participation

Pollution prevention Climate protection

Biodiversity Precautionary action Avoidance of irreversibility

Habitat preservation Aesthetics

Mauerhofer (2008) and Lélé (1991) reported that despite the wide consensus of the three main ingredients of sustainability, different opinions are expressed about their interrelationship and lack of consistency in its interpretation. Occurring insufficiencies are mainly misinterpretation of embeddings, misjudgement of equity between the three sustainabilities, a lack of expression of limitations, and a lack of adequate decision support. Ahlheim (2009) noticed that during the process of development, economic aspects typically dominate the thinking of politicians and of citizens in the first phase while social and environmental aspects follow with a certain time lag.

2.2.1.2. The three additional issues

The concept of sustainable development is often presented with three other issues, which are transversal compared to the three pillars: the needs, in particular the essential needs, the taking into account of the long term (future generations), and the institutional aspects (governance).

No definition of the concept of needs is well established. Nobody can tell us the limits of the needs even among the most essential, except maybe food, although defining the needs by the solvable demand, i.e. the income determining the amount of the needs (Rist, 2002). It is for instance impossible to define transport or mobility needs that are valid for everyone. Max-Neef et al.

(1991) and then Rauschmayer et al. (2008) define fundamental human needs as the most fundamental dimensions of human flourishing, i.e. the reasons for action that need no further justification: Subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation etc. Beside these individual needs, one could also consider that some collective needs should be added as equity and solidarity, which often lead the debates on sustainable development.

The second additional dimension, the long term, corresponds to the future generations, in contrast with the present ones. It means often some decades, but could also mean some centuries or some millennia. It raises the issue of the time perspective of the decision making, which is first important from an ethical point of view, with that necessity to take into account the forthcoming generations (Bruntland, 1987). But it is also very accurate for the scientific and technical approach, with the problem of taking time into consideration in an indicator: this is for example the question of the global warming power of different gases to measure the greenhouse effect (see section 5.6), or the problem of the discount rate for the economists (see section 6.2.5.3).

Concerning the third additional dimension, the meaning of the term governance is and stays very variable, not well clarified, insubstantial in many cases, but also sometimes very well designed (Hermet et al., 2005; Joumard, 2009). A first meaning, basic, is the way of governing, the tools for governing, and the government: It adds nothing to these expressions.

Robinson and Tinker (1997) raised the need for social imperative to provide systems of governance that propagate the values that people want to live by.

Haque (1999) stated that the cooperative global environmental governance regime envisioned at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio is still in an institutional incubator while neoliberal economic globalization has become fully operational.

Table 7. Major elements of three approaches to sustainable development (Sneddon, 2006)

Ecological economics Political ecology Development as freedom Critique of neoclassical

Meadowcroft (2005) considers sustainable development to be a major governance challenge of the 21st century. If societal development trajectories are to be realigned on to more sustainable pathways major changes will be required to existing processes and practices of governance. Sneddon et al.

(2006) summarized Table 7 the contributions of the three approaches to a pluralistic, transdisciplinary strategy for confronting sustainability. Among all cited elements, governance seems to be of importance to be considered for the achievement of any objective under sustainable development.

But the term has an already long history, which gives him a more precise meaning, and which is always more or less present behind its use. The 'governance' or 'involvement' principle is a term that frequently appears in the declaration and the texts of the 1992 Rio Summit. The final declaration claims for instance that "Environmental issues are best handled with participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level. [...] States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making information widely available" (UNCED, 1992, 10^th principle). The participation of the women, the youth, and indigenous or local communities is claimed to be essential to achieve sustainable development (principles 20, 21 and 22).

Another aspect of the governance often discussed in the sustainable development debates is the involvement of the society in the decision making, through its multiple stakeholders, by participating to working groups, consultation groups etc. It is supposed to answer an increased complexity of the

society running (Innes, 1995), but such complexity is few demonstrated or illustrated. Warren (2008, p. 5) for instance lists issues where the political choice can be only thematic and made by those who are directly interested and impacted by the subject: "Protests over airport expansion, medical coverage, poverty issues, changes in GMO regulations, forest management, struggles over neighbourhood development, energy pricing". These issues seem rather to raise society issues than local ones. The focus on the complexity of the contemporary societies could justify the role of the experts, as the citizens and the political organisations seem no more competent enough to analyze and, at the end, to decide (Crozier et al., 1975). On the other hand, Guibert and Harribey (2005) or Fourniau and Tafere (2007) take the example of the consensus conferences and citizen seminars to lead some technical choices.

To go further, some models of decision making are presented in chapter 3, and especially the communicative planning model built on similar principles than governance (see section 3.2.5).

2.2.2. Environmental sustainability, environmentally