Dear Thawhidul,

Sustainable development seeks for improving sustainability. However, as you can observe in the paper attached, sustainable development has no clear definition, and depending on the scope of it (defined by scientist, policymakers, rural development agencies, etc.) it will whether or not be possible to achieve high levels of overall sustainability.

As you said, those who have the power (those who control others) to define determine what sustainable development is will shape strategies and politics to achieve it. In this sense, economic views ('weak sustainability' approach) will lead to higher economic sustainability but lower environmental one and so on.

In relation to this last paragraph and with your last questions, 'weak sustainability' approach support the idea that environmental problems can be fixed with economic investment, while "strong sustainability' approach claim that environment losses cannot be replaced/restored with money, and in fact this approach is based on the principle that economy is dependent on the environment (instead of the opposite: it is, in contradiction to the first approach).

Regards,

Alfredo J. Escribano.

Article The Contribution of Organic Livestock to Sustainable Rural D...

This is a brilliant question.  Over the vast majority of human history and pre-history, humans lived sustainably.  Only recently have we generally left that way of life (although there are communities that are sustainable in a variety of places around the world), and we are going to return to it at some point in the future - we don't really have a choice in that.  The question is only at what population, and what quality of life.

Simplicity is in our future.  We can choose today for this to be Voluntary Simplicity, or Mandatory Simplicity (also known as poverty).  If we choose soon, we can choose the first, and decide what we want to do without.  If we choose 'later', we will be left only with the second choice, whether we like it or not. 

People use their time to meet their wants and needs, or they use their time to convert resources into the means to meet their wants and needs.  The first part of that statement is addressed through Human Development, and the second part through Technological Development.  There is Sustainable Human Development and Sustainable Technological Development, which are distinguished by the time required only to meet needs, and the resources only available in perpetuity to the community.

I hypothesise that there is no such thing as Sustainable Economic Development, but there would be Economic Sustainable Development - we can't grow in perpetuity, but we can 'grow' into a way of life that can be maintained in perpetuity.

We will try to use technology to replace the ecological services that have been lost through bad development of the past, to varying degrees of success (both strong and weak theories of Sustainability are true in different situations).  We will ultimately substantially reduce inter-dependency between communities, and increase both resilience and self-reliance (so that bad management from our neighbours won't specifically diminish our capacity to meet our needs).  We will not stop demonstrating our wealth by what we can afford to waste, but we will have significantly less that we can waste. 

We can continue to harvest nature's bounty, so long as we choose to not extract the capital - only the interest.  Thus far, we've demonstrated we're bad at that.  Market forces that do not recognise the difference have to be eliminated - economics is a tool of society, not the other way around.

I look at this from the lens of an engineer, rather than an economist.  I invite you to look at my blog at www.sustainabilityengineering.net to see how that vision plays out.

Doug

See book Sustainability: Key issues

ISBN-10: 0415529867 

Thanks, Thawhidul, for a good question. The answer, in a word, is no: the concept of sustainable development cannot assure sustainability. There are at least (what is close to my area) two reasons: (1) uncertainty of the future (e.g., patterns of population growth); (2) imperfections of institutions and knowledge in the present (e.g., "those who are in control" do not know or ignore the effects of climate change or the level of dependence of quality of life on natural capital), which leads to inefficient decisions.

Reason (1) implies that, in terms of indicators, we can say only about "potential sustainability". We indeed can estimate current states and trends, and try to improve the situation. A simple example from "weak sustainability": http://www.econorus.org/journal/pdf/Bazhanov_12.pdf

Reason (2) implies that the decisions of "those who are in control" can sometimes be detrimental for long-term sustainability even if these decisions are consistent with the (current) state of the art in sustainability theory (e.g., http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420715000550 - I attach a copy in case you cannot download it).  

To be optimistic, nobody proved so far that sustainability is impossible. Hopefully, with time, we'll improve our knowledge and institutions and converge to sustainability.

Cheers,

Andrei 

Thanks everyone for your valuable opinions. Yes I also do believe that we can calculate sustainability, we can forecast potential sustainability too and to some context we also can guarantee sustainability. But my question is can we achieve sustainability without harming the environment? If it is yes, then how? and if it is no, then why Environmental, Ecological and Green economists collocate sustainability with environment?

Yes.  By ensuring that each community has an ecological footprint smaller than their locally managed biocapacity, while meeting all needs.  In communities that are consuming more resources than can be supported by the landmass they manage, then sustainability is achieved through reducing consumption to prevent more degradation of the environment.  In communities that are consuming significantly less than their biocapacity, then sustainability is achieved by increasing the access to resources as required to address needs. 

Dear Thawhidul, four comments with all positive intentions:

a) Sustainable development and sustainability are two different concepts

b) Sustainable development used to mean 6 different things from 6 different angles, but now there is no confusion anymore as since 2012 RIO/UNCSD conference sustainable development now sustainable development formally means “eco-economic development or environmentally friendly economic development or green market based development or green growth based development”;

c) the problem economists in general, and environmental economics, ecological economics and green economics are facing today is a paradigm shift knowledge gap created when the traditional market model of Adam Smith was formally corrected partially in 2012 to reflect environmental concerns and shifted towards green markets….green markets are eco-economic markets, partnership based markets requiring a different type of thinking, partnership based thinking….The knowledge base supporting the traditional market no longer works in the green market….

d) the shift from Adam Smith’s traditional market to the green markets confirms we are approaching sustainability backwards in terms of economic thinking and that markets have always been distorted

When you have time take a look at these papers and use them as food for thoughts about the future of economic/development thinking:

Beyond traditional sustainable development: Stating specific and general sustainability theory and sustainability indices using ideal present-absent qualitative comparative conditions

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281276522_Beyond_traditional_sustainable_development_Stating_specific_and_general_sustainability_theory_and_sustainability_indices_using_ideal_present-absent_qualitative_comparative_conditions

Introducing a Simple Qualitative Comparative Dichotomy Approach to State and Clarify Sustainable Development and Sustainability Related Concepts and Issues

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281244558_Introducing_a_Simple_Qualitative_Comparative_Dichotomy_Approach_to_State_and_Clarify_Sustainable_Development_and_Sustainability_Related_Concepts_and_Issues

Did Adam Smith Missed the Chance to State the Goal and Structure of Sustainability Markets in His Time? If Yes, Which Could Be Some of the Possible Reasons Behind That?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286625136_Did_Adam_Smith_Missed_the_Chance_to_State_the_Goal_and_Structure_of_Sustainability_Markets_in_His_Time_If_Yes_Which_Could_Be_Some_of_the_Possible_Reasons_Behind_That

Complex and Man-made Markets: Are We Currently Approaching Sustainability in a Backward and More Chaotic Way in Terms of Economic Thinking?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281277199_Complex_and_Man-made_Markets_Are_We_Currently_Approaching_Sustainability_in_a_Backward_and_More_Chaotic_Way_in_Terms_of_Economic_Thinking

What If Markets Have Always Been Distorted? Would It Then Be a Good Fix to Add Fair Trade Margins to Correct Distorted Agricultural Market Prices?.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281244562_What_If_Markets_Have_Always_Been_Distorted_Would_It_Then_Be_a_Good_Fix_to_Add_Fair_Trade_Margins_to_Correct_Distorted_Agricultural_Market_Prices

Article Beyond traditional sustainable development: Stating specific...

Article Introducing a Simple Qualitative Comparative Dichotomy Appro...

Article Did Adam Smith Miss the Chance to State the Goal and Structu...

Article Complex and Man-made Markets: Are We Currently Approaching S...

Article What If Markets Have Always Been Distorted? Would It Then Be...