THE FIVE AXIOMS AND A SOCIETY'S SUSTAINABILITY
These axioms are, of course, open to further refinement. I have attempted to anticipate criticisms likely to be leveled at them, which will probably be of the sort that says these axioms are not sufficient to define the concept of sustainability. The most obvious of these is worth mentioning and discussing here: Why is there no axiom relating to social equity (similar to the fourth condition of the Natural Step framework as noted above)?
BOX 2.1 Defining Social Sustainability
Jesse Dillard, Veronica Dujon, and Mary King
JESSE DILLARD, VERONICA DUJON, AND MARY KING are faculty members at Portland State University and co-editors of Understanding the Social Dimension of Sustainability (2009), one of the first books in the otherwise ecology-and economics-dominated sustainability literature to explore and define the key elements of social sustainability. Dillard is the Retzlaff Chair in Accounting and director of the Center for Professional Integrity and Accountability; Dujon is chair of the department of sociology; and King is a professor of economics.
Sustainability is often thought of as composed of three overlapping, mutually dependent goals:
a) to live in a way that is environmentally sustainable, or viable over the very long-term,
b) to live in a way that is economically sustainable, maintaining living standards over the long-term, and
c) to live in a way that is socially sustainable, now and in the future.
To date, concerns with environmental and economic sustainability have eclipsed efforts to understand the social aspects of sustainability. As noted by several of the authors of chapters in Understanding the Social Dimension of Sustainability, thinking on the social aspect of sustainability has been relatively neglected and is by far the least developed. Yet an increasing number of people are attempting to integrate social concerns into their work on sustainability, both theoretically and in practice. That anthology provides guidance for a developing field of thought from a variety of perspectives.
At present consensus does not exist even on a definition of social sustainability. Polese and Stren, writing up the findings of a UNESCO project on the “social sustainability of cities,” identify social sustainability as “policies and institutions that have the overall effect of integrating diverse groups and cultural practices in a just and equitable fashion.”
Many analysts have followed Robert Putnam in an exploration of “social capital,” asserted by the World Bank, among others, to consist of “the norms and networks that enable collective action.” Researchers working in this vein have understood social capital to result from participation in civic institutions. Presumably social sustainability would require that social capital be maintained at “sustainable” levels for future generations, perhaps requiring social support of effective civic institutions to this end.
Most business sustainability efforts appear to construe social sustainability as charity, performed as an act of public relations. These are “policies that encourage community involvement, volunteering, [and] development of local communities.” According to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of large U.S. businesses, three-quarters of the firms that responded to the survey were implementing some sustainable business practices, though relatively few are pursuing the social leg of the “triple bottom line”—corporate language for meeting financial, environmental, and social objectives as an organization. Where businesses are attending to the social aspect of sustainability, they are interpreting it as corporate philanthropy and sometimes as policies to help employees achieve “work/family balance” or to avoid burnout.
In urban planning circles, the tripartite understanding of sustainability is sometimes referred to as “the three ‘E's, environment, economy, and equity.” Social sustainability is conceived of as “equity,” without much thought as to what that might require or whether equity alone is sufficient for social sustainability.
A more thought-out and satisfactory definition of social sustainability is provided by Harris and Goodwin: “A socially sustainable system must achieve fairness in distribution and opportunity, adequate provision of social services, including health and education, gender equity, and political accountability and participation.” While more solid, this definition still misses the social process required to achieve economic and environmental sustainability that concerns many.
Environmental economists have focused substantial attention on the issue of property rights, with the idea that clear ownership facilitates better environmental management. However, social institutions conducive to better environmental outcomes may have adverse social consequences. Often these social considerations are overlooked, as in the case of ecologists pointing out the ecological advantages of collective management of group resources without noting that the group governance is not democratic, but empowers only a small portion of the community.
Consequently, several contributors to Understanding the Social Dimension of Sustainability use a working definition of the social aspect of sustainability developed over time in our workshops and graduate seminars:
The social dimension of sustainability should be understood as both
a) the processes that generate social health and well-being now and in the future, and
b) those social institutions that facilitate environmental and economic sustainability now and for the future.
The processes are both a means to, and an end of, social sustainability. Indeed, for the social aspect of sustainability in particular, processes may often be more important than outcomes. For instance, high rates of literacy achieved by a citizenry engaged in a democratic planning process, as in Kerala, India, may be far more socially sustainable than even higher rates of literacy accomplished in an authoritarian fashion. However, an adequate working definition of the social aspect of sustainability represents only the first step in developing an understanding of the concept.
The purpose of the axioms set forth here is not to describe conditions that would lead to a good or just society, merely to a society able to be maintained over time. It is not clear that perfect economic equality or a perfectly egalitarian system of decision-making is necessary to avert societal collapse. Certainly, extreme inequality seems to make societies vulnerable to internal social and political upheaval. On the other hand, it could be argued that a society's adherence to the five axioms as stated will tend to lead to relatively greater levels of economic and political equity, thus obviating the need for a separate axiom in this regard (see box 2.1 for further discussion on approaches to the social dimension of sustainability). In anthropological literature, modest rates of resource consumption and low population sizes relative to the available resource base are correlated with the use of egalitarian decision-making processes and with economic equity—though the correlation is skewed by other variables, such as means of sustenance (hunting-and-gathering societies tend to be highly equitable and egalitarian, whereas herding societies tend to be less so). If such correlations continue to hold, the reversion to lower rates of consumption of resources should lead to a more rather than less egalitarian society.