Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

An Alternative Definition of Sustainable Development based on Capitals Gemma Cervantes*

Resumen Esta comunicación propone una definición alternativa de desarrollo sustentable basada en los capitales. Se comentan algunas ideas contenidas en la definición del informe Brundtland para destacar porqué esta definición ya no es sustentable. La insostenibilidad de la definición de Brundtland se pone de relieve por algunas alertas que la Tierra y la Humanidad nos están dando. Se justifica por qué se opta por mantener el término y cambiar su contenido, en vez de eliminar el término. Finalmente se presenta la definición propuesta para el desarrollo sustentable. Palabras claves: Desarrollo Sustentable, Decrecimiento, límites, capitales. Abstract The communication proposes an alternative definition of sustainable development based on capitals. Some of the main ideas in Brundtland definition are pointed out in order to see why this definition is no longer sustainable. Some warnings from the Earth and humanity show this unsustainability. Also the choice of going on with the sustainable development term rather than changing it for another term is justified. Finally the alternative definition of SD is proposed Keywords: Sustainable Development, Degrowth, limits, capitals.

* Grupo de Investigación en Ecología Industrial, Unidad Profesional Interdisciplinaria de Biotecnología, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, México DF (México). Doctora en Química por la Universitat de Barcelona (España). Coordinadora de la Red Mexicana de Ecología Industrial. Miembro de la International Society for Industrial Ecology. Miembro de la Cátedra Unesco en Sostenibilitat (Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, España). Líneas de investigación: ecología industrial, medida del desarrollo sustentable (análisis de ciclo de vida, huella ecológica y de carbono, indicadores de desarrollo sustentable), agendas 21 y auditorías ambientales.

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

1. Introduction and outline This communication is based on the previous work developed by the Unesco Chair on Sustainability (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain), a group of researchers and practitioners that for a long time have been thinking, researching, teaching and practicing in terms of sustainable development (SD). The work has been followed and enriched by the Research Group on Industrial Ecology (Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Mexico) in a theoretical approach. First some of the main ideas in Brundtland definition will be pointed out in order to see why this definition is no longer sustainable. Some warnings from the Earth and humanity will show this unsustainability. Afterwards the choice of going on with the sustainable development term rather than changing it for another term will be justified. Finally the alternative definition of SD will be proposed.

2. The first SD Definition The Brundtland definition for SD is very well-known: "Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (WCED 1987). The report of the World Commission on Environment and Development and the creation of the SD term were possible because of the previous work, specially the report to the Rome’s club: Limits to growth, in 1972 (Meadows 1972). That means that behind the SD definition lays the concept of limits. But most of the people from governments, industries and citizens know only the exact words of the definition. In this way it’s important for the definition to be capable to transmit clearly the idea of SD, including that of the limits. There are four main ideas inside the Brundtland definition: a) development, b) intragenerational equity, c) intergenerational equity, d) needs. In 1987, SD definition was a novelty; not because of the intragenerational equity, but of the intergenerational one. The novelty also laid in needs, as they put people in the center and not an ambiguous progress.

3. Why the Brundtland definition is no longer sustainable? 3.1 Needs One of the main reasons for the unsustainability of Brundtland definition is that it's based in the fulfillment of needs.

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

Needs cover a very wide range: food, clothing, shelter, sexual activity, knowledge, affection, information, recreation, spirituality, etc. Needs are numerous and are continuously growing. Human needs aren’t objective, they depend on the person. The same object or capacity may be “felt” by one person as a need and not by another one. Needs are also insatiable, because when we meet a need, then we discover new needs to meet. For some people or in certain ages (for example teenagers) needs can be infinite. On the other hand, needs also depend on the historical moment: certain things can be perceived as a need (e.g. a cell phone) while in other times they weren’t. Also, needs are very different depending on the region one lives. Because of these reasons it is difficult to establish which needs of the population should be met and which shouldn’t. This last aspect sets out a problem for the Brundtland definition itself: how could social equity be put into practice if it’s not possible to decide which population’s needs should be met? Some authors have tried to show another ways for looking at needs, for example Max-Neef. He says that needs are few, finite, classifiable, interrelated and interactive (Max-Neef 1998) (McMahon 2011). He proposes replacing needs with the notion of “satisfiers”, where satisfiers would be approximately the way in which we satisfy our needs (Stahel 2011). But most people goes on understanding by needs the insatiable needs of consumption. 3.2 Warnings from Earth and humanity Another aspect of the unsustainability of Brundtland definition is caused by the accelerated use of resources and the impacts in Earth that the meeting of our needs is bringing. The global ecological footprint (EF) in 2008 exceeded 44% of the Earth's biocapacity (GFN 2011). If we go on with this model of consumption, in 2050 we will have used 2.8 Earths. The graphs shown in Figure 1a) and b) are plotted by the same entity: global footprint network (GFN), with only one year of difference. The EF in 2008 was only 0.1 numbers of Earths bigger than in 2007. But scenarios have changed in a more considerable way: with recent data GFN can predict that EF in 2050 won’t be 2.2 number of Earths as expected, but 2.8 Earths!.

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

Figure 1 Ecological footprint and scenarios calculated in 2007

Source: Global Footprint Network 2011.

Figure 2 Ecological footprint and scenarios calculated in 2008

Source: Global Footprint Network 2011.

Also Climate Change shows us that this style of living and rate of consumption will lead to the destruction of our planet. In Figure 2 the atmospheric CO2 can be observed. 350 ppm was the limit recommended in order that the temperature increase in atmosphere was lower to 1.5°C. But this limit has been broken and we are now 50 ppm above that limit.

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

Figure 3 Atmospheric CO2 evolution (1958-2012).

Source: CO2Now.org 2012.

In economic terms needs aren’t again the best ways to address sustainable development. As we may see in the chart in Figure 3 from the last Human Development Report (UNDP 2011), the gap between official development assistance and the investments needed to address climate change or the development of low-carbon energy are huge. So in economic terms most future needs will be unmet. Figure 3. Future investments needed to address climate change and official development assistance.

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

Source: UNDP 2011

Another warning, now from Humanity, comes from inequalities. Inequalities are growing in most of the countries. In Figure 4 the GINI index (that counts the income disparity and where 0 is perfect equality) may be observed (Citynoise 2005). Only two Latin-American countries are in this graph, both with the highest GINI indexes. In most Latin-American countries inequalities are growing. Also USA, India and China are growing in inequalities at a very big rate. But if we look even to Europe, some of the European countries are also being more unequal. Figure 4 GINI index evolution for different countries (1950-2005).

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

Source: Citynoise 2005.

Therefore it is not possible to live more to the rhythm of our needs. Humanity needs to find another benchmark.

4. Choosing the term but with a new meaning: a new standard In the literature we find different options for modifying the present SD concept: (Zaccai 2012): 1. Radical rejection: degrowth (Martinez-Alier 2010), (Ayres 1996), etc. 2. Transition: collective processes for defining sustainability objectives and steps to achieve them (Adams 2008) (Rumpala, 2010) etc. 3. make a Change to Green economy (UN 2012) (IISD 2010) 4. go on calling for growth with win-win strategies incorporating environmental issues (Aubertin 2010)

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

5. Good living ( or "living well", from the original Kichwa term "sumak kawsay",. in spanish "buen vivir") (Quijano 2012) 6. Redefining Sustainable Development (Rasafi 2006) The option presented in this paper is the 6th one: redefining SD, but with a content that is closer to the degrowth and transition options. Why choosing the option of maintaining the same term but with a new meaning? As it has been said remarkable changes in humanity and earth have occurred since SD was originally created in 1987. Also, as the term is being referenced in social and politic discourse the SD meaning is continuously devalued leading to misunderstanding and a series of parallel but distinct discourses around sustainability are arising (Redclift 2005). So, we could think it’s time to change the term and use some of the new terms that are being proposed, such as degrowth, sustainable degrowth (Schneider 2011), equitable development (Jacobs 1987) (Schneider 2010), prosperity without growth (Jackson 2009), or "living well", as some authors have pointed. But perhaps it’s time to take chance of this use done by society. If now everyone is including SD in politics, in the enterprises’ mission or in the NGOs basis, we could fill the term with a new meaning, while we wait that society becomes imbued with new concepts and terms, such as sustainable degrowth. It’s always easier to create a new term than to fill with new content an old one. Society is sometimes more receptive to understand well a new concept when it has new word than to change in its mind the old meaning of an existing term. So although it’s not easy that this new content for sustainable development is being adopted by society, these two words still have an interesting meaning all together.

5. An alternative definition of SD Some authors don’t want to use the SD term because historically development has been associated to growth.

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

But if we look up at the dictionary, development means constituting a new stage in a changing situation, convert to a new purpose, become more advanced, evolution in a qualitative way, process of producing or creating something new or more advanced. And growth means increasing in size and changing physically or become larger or greater over time. Observing this meanings, we discover that the word development has an interesting meaning to contribute to the SD meaning and also that we do not need to grow to improve Therefore it is necessary to redefine SD concept so that is genuinely sustainable development. This new definition cannot be based on an infinite and subjective concept –needs-, but on a countable and objective one-the capitals available-. These capitals are: natural capital (natural resources, biodiversity, etc., or the ecosystem and its services), human and/or social capital (knowledge, skills, multiculturalism, cohesion, participation, etc.), economic capital (financial, infrastructure, etc.). These capitals may be non-substitutable, as Daly proposed (Daly 1996). So, a new SD definition was stated: “Sustainable development is the kind of development that uses the available capitals for the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to use the same capitals.” (Xercavins 2005) This definition still proposes the intergenerational and intragenerational equity and includes the idea of limits, as capitals are finite. In some way is close to degrowth because this would be an important strategy in order to keep capitals for future generations. The meaning of SD proposed in this definition is closer to sustainable degrowth tan to the classic SD meaning.

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

6. Bibliografía Adams, W.M., Jeanrenaud S.J. (2008). Transition to sustainability: towards a humane and diverse world. International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural resources, Gland. Aubertin, C., Vivien, F.D. (eds) (2010). Le development durable: enjeux politiques, economiques et sociaux. La Documentation Francaise, Paris. Ayres, R. (1996). “Limits to growth paradigm”, Ecological Economics, vol. 19, pp. 117-134. Citynoise. (2005). Gini coefficients of selected countries, from publicly available data from the World Bank, Nationmaster, and the US Census Bureau. Available: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_since_WWII.gif. Last accessed 30th October 2012. CO2Now.org. (2012). Available: http://co2now.org/. Last accessed 5th September 2012. Daly, H. (1996) Beyond Growth: The economics of sustainable development. Beacon, Boston. GFN, Global Footprint Network. (2011). The National Footprint Accounts. Available: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN. Last accessed 20 October 2012. International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). (2010). Sustainable Development: From Brundtland

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Memoria del Foro Bienal Iberoamericano de Estudios del Desarrollo, 2013. Simposio de Estudios del Desarrollo. Nuevas rutas hacia el bienestar social, económico y ambiental. Sede: Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Chile, del 7 al 10 de enero de 2013.

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