Often the three pillars of sustainability are presented equally using a Venn diagram, but sometimes they are shown in hierarchical order as environmental, social, and economic (see the link below). What's the reasoning behind it? Is it because, for instance, no economy exists without a society, and now society exists without an environment surrounding it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability#/media/File%3ANested_sustainability-v2.svg
The query can be explained in terms of mathematical modelling -
Environmental - Mathematics .
Social & Economical - Statistics & Economics itself .
Method ECONOMICS, STATISTICS, MATHEMATICS & COMPUTER SCIENCE: THE S...
In my opinion we should do all we can to keep all three pillars as strong as possible. It is very difficult to give them an order of priority because all of them are extremely interconnected.
Seeing the question, the first thing we think is: 1. Environmental; 2. Social and 3. Economic. But no, the social and the economic are as important as the environmental so that there is sustainability. The disregard of the social aspect can generate conflicts and that of economic component will bring financial problems that do not allow the system to continue.
Regards !
Any hierarchy implied is silly. People must live within communities to be sustainable, which requires working together (social pillar). If the community complexity is any more sophisticated than hunter/gatherer, then it must have an economy (economic pillar) to allow for specialization and investment. And the community must rely on the natural services that it has access to (ecologic pillar). A focus on any one pillar at the expense of any other means the system loses stability. It doesn't matter how we represent the concept graphically; that doesn't change the reality that we need all of them, all of the time.
Detailed analysis to the sustainability factor and their relationship with the Globally established Rating systems shows that the hierarchy order is not representative enough. Even though society creates economy and Environment surrounds all, because neither all Society nor all Economical activities contribute to sustainability.
Additionally, still analysing those rating systems against the Sustainability Categories you could see that Energy, Material and Ecology had the highest focus all over various rating systems; those factors have direct impact on the Economic pillar due to either fuel prices or material and land prices. Whereas, Health & Well-being, water and Management had intermediate involvement, a closer look to those factors shows that they are related to Society pillar. Environmental related pillars had the least focus on rating systems.
So, I believe the correct Venn Diagram could be illustrated as attached.
Please read https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324519629_Global_World_Wide_Rating_Systems_Development_and_Implementation_Guidelines
Dear all
I agree with you all above. The answer should be "No."
The sustainable development should be developed in balance for all lives because they are influencing to each other. Since the actual root of arising problems throughout the world has been from lacks of economic, social, and environmental development in balance.
Best,
Siribuppa
PS:
What particular points of economic, social, and environmental development are?
How are they linked together?
Being a scholar, empirically further research are needed for policies' adjustments to reach mutual goals.
Globalization helped to push the threshold for all of them out from the visible curve impact
however
environmental underpins the other 2
like a large triangle ramp of impact
almost like a fuel consumption to velocity and distance for rocket launch,
social automatically levels it’s expectations
based on the “local” economy
which is why we now can base economic and social choices vs the environmental impacts
we just tried to reduce the observed delta to something we could round to zero
Trying to create or thinking of a hierarchy in TBL in sustainability just doesn't sound right!!! Why would anyone have to choose from 'Social', 'Economic' and 'Environment' and rank them!!! To keep things in perspective we need these elements of sustainability equally and more than ever! This world is already way too complicated to bring simple changes, please do not bring in unwanted and silly controversies that will feed some already mentally challenged people in power (U know who I am talking about here) !!!
Human beings have largely polluted and destroyed the natural environment for the sake of economic and social development over the past couple of centuries. While all three pillars of sustainability are intrinsically important, under equal conditions we should prioritize the environmental dimension. Studies on the contemporary history clearly shows that economic and social dimensions have developed fairly well after the industrial revolution (see the link below). It's also important to take into account that economy is based on contracts among humans in societies while natural environment is the very mother of any sort of life on the planet.
https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-conditions-in-5-charts
"The sustainable development is not about balancing profits with people and the planet. Sustainable development is about improving lives, bettering society, reducing inequalities, reversing ecosystem decline, tackling the climate crisis and much more. Sustainable development is a global aspiration for society. Profitability is one means to that end". Prof. Wayne Visser, Professor of Integrated Value and Chair in Sustainable Transformation at Antwerp Management School
I will agree with Aryan Shahabian's latest answer.
According to the UN 1987 definition sustainability is based on the three pilars of environmental protection, sociar equity and economic growth, not just 'environment, society, economy'.
However, without environmental protection, social equity or economic growth cannot last for long, thus, no system can be sustainable, when prioritising economic or social criteria / policies. [The examples of Mesopotamian civilisations, who ended up when the environmental balances of the two rivers could not be kept any more, the civilisation of the Island of Easter that disappeared violently, attributed to environmental issues and more recently environmental catastrophe of the Nauru island (its economic maintenance -not growth- is not built on social equity) are examples that we should keep in mind and project them in the more global conditions that we face today.]
A way of approaching the issue is through the weighting factors (w.f.) placed on the indicators of each domain, putting larger w.f. on environmental criteria. Interestingly enough, for my last pieces of research, that I have used online surveys so that weighting factors can be expressed directly by citizens and not just experts, environmental criteria attain the highest weighting factors.
Like a circus performer
Economics and social pillars balance upon the environmental ball
The doctrine of ‘sustainable development’ derives from a discipline in economics that has been evolving for almost two centuries. The debate about whether Earth’s limited natural resources will continue to provide life support for humanity’s burgeoning population began with the work of the English political economist Thomas Malthus in the early 1800’s see Dixon and Fallon, 1989 . Ž . In An Essay on the Principle of Population Ž . 1798 , Malthus framed the fundamental tenet of environmentalism}namely, that because human population tends to grow in a geometric progression while subsistence can grow in only an arithmetic progression, population growth is destined to be checked by natural resource depletion and inevitable human want and misery see Eblen and Ž Eblen, 1994 .. Since the days of Malthus, economists have tended to ignore the dilemma of resource depletion. Traditionally, economists have been concerned with the efficiency of resource use. They have been slow in developing economic models that adequately account for resource scarcity and pollution. Only rarely have economists worried that some resources may be in short supply, and that if these resources are used indiscriminately, they may become exhausted and constrain the very growth for which they are developed. Hence, economic theories explaining long-term growth and technical progress have remained unsettled into the modern era see Freeman, 1973 . Ž . In recent decades, global concern has emerged about the non-renewability of natural resources as a factor limiting production and the threat to long-term economic growth caused by environmental destabilization and pollution. Economists have begun to address the question first posed by Malthus whether exponential growth in population and in resource use but only linear growth in technology and in subsistence is bound to lead to a social catastrophe}in a word, whether the contemporary course of economic development is ‘sustainable’
Hello Aryan Shahabian
Very interesting your question and your comments
In the following articles you can find different models of sustainability and interactions between dimensions:
Wu, J., & Wu, T. (2011). Sustainability indicators and indices: an overview. In Handbook of Sustainability Management (Vols. 1-0, pp. 65-86). WORLD SCIENTIFIC. Retrieved from http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789814354820_0004
Wallis, A. M., Graymore, M. L. M., & Richards, A. J. (2011). Significance of environment in the assessment of sustainable development: The case for south west Victoria. Ecological Economics, 70(4), 595-605. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2010.11.010
However, we give our opinion below:
Nowadays, there are many articles and researches on the subject, and not only is the problem of weights to dimensions, or their priority, but also the number of dimensions to address the problem.
First, there is diversity in the number of dimensions and principles for approach to sustainability, and this brings as consequence the variety of models: TBL, 4 Pillars, Pressure-State-Response" (PSR), the 3Es+1 model, The Cubrix, the Lowell Center model, the "Sustainability Balanced Scorecard" (SBSC), among others.
The models change or transform over time, for example, the PSR model has several variants: "Driving Force-State-Response" (DFSR), "Driving Force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response" (DPSIR), "Driving Force-Pressure-State-Exposure-Effects-Action" (DPSEEA), among others.
Therefore, not all of them are based on dimensions, some present cause and effect relationships between their elements, and others present levels of evolution.
Finally, there would come the problem of weighting, in the following article you can review a comprehensive study of Singh, R. K:
Singh, R. K., Murty, H. R., Gupta, S. K., & Dikshit, A. K. (2012). An overview of sustainability assessment methodologies. Ecological Indicators, 15(1), 281-299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.01.007
The problem is more complex than simply being able to take one dimension over another, and on the other hand, reality also surpasses the solutions given by scientists, academics, politicians, entrepreneurs (stakeholders) and meanwhile, the current economic order and the behaviour of human society is destroying the environment.
In my opinion, any scientific solution or model must put the environment and human beings first. The human being, as a social entity, with principles and values, plays a fundamental role in sustainability, hence we understand that business ethics, or ethical aspects are essential in sustainable development and are not taken into account by current models.
My best from Cuba,
Juan A.
We must focus on the entire life cycle of the exchange
from product need, sourcing, use, and reclamation beyond any mindset of buy and burn.
Sustainability is an abstract and very old concept (from more than 300 years ago). The three pillars are a simplification of its complex reality, and I think each author can introduce different preferential weighs to each pillar, criteria or indicator.
From my point of view:
- Environment circle is higher as withouth environment there is no life (social pillar) nor resources (economic pillar).
- Societies (social pillar) create their own economic systems/models (pillar). And here, from my point of view:
- Economic pillar circle must be smaller than the social one beacuse: (1) society is broader than economy: it also creates culture, traditions, heritage, agrolandscapes, etc.; and (2) economy is not always needed as some societies they don't have economic system, they hunt, exchange goods, raise animals, harvest, etc.
Yes. Possible hypothetical relations through time (studying something changes its nature):
- Environment>Social>Economic
- Environment>(SocialEconomic)
- Social>Economic>Environment
Article The Three Laws of Thermodynamics and the Theory of Production
Thesis National-level energy use, rebound and economic growth: Insi...
Article An ecological-thermodynamic approach to urban metabolism: Me...
Article Sociophysics
This is a 3 ground important cycle. Environment give us good economy and we are sociable.
The three spheres are interdependent since when a sustainability measure is applied in one sphere , i.e. management of the environment, like reduced energy use, the economy is affected in terms of reduced expenses, it impacts on the valuing process of people in terms of what is good for the environment. Sustainability involves not only objective measures but equally a change of values and behaviour on the personal level, all these simultaneously happening in one gesture of sustainability application. There is no hierarchy articulated here as the process flows invariably across the interdependent spheres of operations.
The three pillars of sustainable development (environmental, social and economic) are important elements of the green economy. In the past, the development of civilization was based mainly or exclusively on economic and social pillars. however, due to the progressing faster and faster global warming process, the importance of the environmental pillar has been growing in recent years and the need to implement the principles of sustainable, pro-ecological development in economic processes is also increasing.
Regards
Dariusz Prokopowicz
The query can be explained in terms of mathematical modelling -
Environmental - Mathematics .
Social & Economical - Statistics & Economics itself .
Method ECONOMICS, STATISTICS, MATHEMATICS & COMPUTER SCIENCE: THE S...
- Badges
- Science topic