Getting the Goods: 2005

Enabling sustainable
production - consumption systems

Louis Lebel , Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University, Thailand

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Most say they agree with the ideals of sustainable development, but few are committed.   Individuals, firms and governments still produce and consume as if the continued flow of ecosystem goods and services upon which their lifestyles, profits and economies are based are assured. They behave as if demand can expand indefinitely and that alone will produce prosperity for most.   This is wishful thinking at best, and at worst an expression of the selfishness of wealthy nations and sectors of society as they seek to protect their interests at the expense of the environment and poor. The conventional, slightly more sophisticated, response is that we need improvements in efficiency and a bit more cooperation and we will be able solve problems of over-use without really having to give up expanding wants. [1]

Timely transitions to sustainability of societies at various scales ultimately depends on reducing aggregate use, degradation and conversion of many of the earth's critical ecosystem goods and services to levels below those which they can self-organize and be renewed. Gains in efficiency that are wiped out by re-investments that accelerate extent and rates of expansions do not count. Technological and institutional innovations cannot find timely substitutes for all services nature provides. For sustainable development to be socially just this means large areas of the developing world will need expanded access to resources and services for development, whereas the much smaller populations in the wealthy industrialized nations will, to compensate, have to cut-back the environmental services upon which their lifestyles are based. The sustainable consumption agenda is, at first glance, a threat to corporate profitability and the “way of life” of their elites.   It is a radical agenda.

On the other hand, a closer look at things that matter for well-being suggests there is much to be gained for both poor and wealthier sectors and nations from a global pursuit of sustainable production-consumption systems.  

Folk wisdom and scientific research are clear that increasing wealth does not invariably lead to corresponding increases in happiness in wealthy societies.    Indeed there is much counter-evidence to suggest that the “growth fetish” is leading to reduced well-being in advanced industrial societies [2] .Competition in pursuit of other goals apart from aggregate growth may spawn creative innovations and still yield profits to creative entrepreneurs that serve society.

For the poor there are prospects that unsustainable “mining” of ecosystems in which they live or otherwise depend for their livelihoods will be replaced by investments and activities that provide proportionately greater local benefits and opportunities for value-adding and social development. Changes in the quality of consumption by the wealthy will increase income flows to poor because those environmental burdens which cannot be avoided are reflected in prices and institutional mechanisms of compensation and ecosystem recovery.

The issue, however, is not just one of reducing aggregate household consumption in wealthy societies, but also of improving the way various goods and services are produced, provided, and in some cases, disposed.   Alternative industrial processes can vary hugely with respect to their impacts on the environment. Technology matters: the gains from better processes may even exceed those that can be obtained by altering consumer demand.   There are gains to be made both at level of technologies used at individual plants but also increasingly in the linking of waste and material flows across industrial processes.   Re-cycling, re-use and recovery of resources derived initially from nature could reduce aggregate resource consumption.

Ultimately, however, it may be the linking of production and consumption activities and perspectives that will lead to the kinds of changes needed for sustainability.

Development today is embedded in a global economic system that exists largely because of its effectiveness in endlessly creating new wants.   States and their leaders have shown little willingness to work towards agreements on specific targets or timetables on sustainability. Much may depend on partnerships between civil society and responsible firms and governments [3] . The sustainable production –consumption agenda is a radical agenda because it would set new goals for the “development system”. That the sustainability of production-consumption systems is central to achieving sustainable development is at least acknowledged by world leaders. In the decade since the agreement on Agenda 21 at Rio this has been regularly acknowledged in rhetoric of international meetings, most recently at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 where changing consumption and production patterns was articulated as one of three over-arching objectives of sustainability [4] .

Conventional piecemeal responses focusing on just production technologies or consumer behavior have only had limited success.   Limited acknowledgement of the role of firms and governments as consumers, or conversely household enterprises as producers, has meant opportunities for influencing production - consumption relations have been missed [5, 6] . Many production-consumption systems cut across activities of the rich and poor, and the natural resources of developing and developed countries.   Transforming such systems could and should be a mechanism for strengthening social justice not just optimizing global sustainability indicators.

There will be a lot of resistance. States and firms and commercially-oriented non-government organizations cannot be trusted to set targets and monitor progress towards sustainability alone. Civil society will need to play a critical role, but they will also have to fight to re-design the governance systems in which they are embedded or it will be hard to get a voice at the tables that matter. Thus, one of the biggest challenges is institutional: we need new forms of governance, new mechanisms for producers and consumers to meet, and new ways to trace and monitor the ecological consequences of the resulting exchanges. Innovative institutions probably also mean rediscovering values like self-restraint or sufficiency.  

We need research on how people organize to reduce consumption, re-assert values that are conducive to sustainability and which explore alternative institutional designs.   The science and technology communities in developing and industrialized societies can and should make a larger contribution to efforts t0 transform production-consumption systems.

In October 2004 a diverse group of academics, activists and policy analysts got together in Chiang Mai, Thailand to discuss the priorities for research on sustainable production-consumption systems [7] . As a follow-up an ad hoc international working group is convening over 2005-6 to foster stronger knowledge-to-action links. This will bring together researchers and practitioners to re-define research and action agendas that would enable sustainable production-consumption systems. As a process independent from other more formal international activities it should provide good opportunities for innovative thinking, informed participation by civil society groups and responsible businesses. It will also be able to address the thorny political issues of why so little real progress has been made.   We know that this is very tough challenge but believe that the necessary trust and commitment can be forged for what will be a long-term but essential task.

FOOTNOTES

1. Princen, T., Logic of sufficiency . 2004: In Press.

2. Hamilton, C., Growth fetish. 2003, Crows Nest, Australia: Allen and Unwin.

3. Barber, J., Production, consumption and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 2003. 5 : p. 63-93.

4. WSSD, World Summit on Sustainable Development: Plan of Implementation. 2002, United Nations: New York.

5. Princen, T., M. Maniates, and K. Conca, eds. Confronting consumption . 2002, MIT Press: Cambridge.

6. Lebel, L., Transitions to sustainability in production-consumption systems. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2004. 9 (1): p. 1-3.

7. USER, SPACES: Sustainable Production and Consumption Systems. Web-site: www.sea-user.org/sustainable_consumption.php . 2005, Unit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University: Chiang Mai.