Chapter 2

The Concept of Sustainable Development

Keywords Paris Agreement · Sustainable development goals (SDGs) · Ecological

sustainability · Social sustainability · Economic sustainability · Efficiency ·
Consistency · Sufficiency

This Chapter’s Learning Goals

• You know the most common definition and the basic concept of sustainable
development.
• You know the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals.

2.1 “Our Common Future” or The Brundtland Report

There is no unanimously agreed upon concept of sustainability. The first globally

discussed concept can be found in The Limits to Growth, a report for the Club of
Rome in 1972, which clearly described how an exponential economic growth in a
world with a finite supply of resources can lead to a variety of negative global
scenarios. A political reaction to this academic debate was the United Nations report
published in 1987 by the so-called Brundtland Commission. This report established
itself as the cornerstone of sustainability and is still regularly cited, referenced, and
mentioned over 30 years after its publication and despite the introduction of the
Millennium Development Goals in the year 2000 and their successors, the Sus-
tainable Development Goals in 2015.
The report defines sustainable development as follows: “Sustainable development
is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs.” (World Commission on Environment
and Development, 1987, Ch. 2, IV, 1)
With this definition, intergenerational ecological equality, i.e., the responsibility
of one generation for the consequences of its actions on all subsequent generations,
is stated explicitly. In addition, the report also makes clear that the ecological

© The Author(s) 2023 17

M. Fischer et al., Sustainable Business, SpringerBriefs in Business,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25397-3_2
18 2 The Concept of Sustainable Development

challenges should be considered alongside economic growth and social justice, as

these aspects can have significant impact on ecological aspects of sustainability.

2.2 Three Dimensions of Sustainable Development

As discussed before, sustainability not only refers to the environment, but also to
society and the economy. Although the ecological challenges are often at the
forefront of today’s discussions they cannot be considered separately, as they are
closely linked to economic and social challenges. Droughts in one country, for
example, can lead to refugee flows, which in turn create social tensions in other
countries. Just as Raworth’s Doughnut Economy model does, it is therefore essential
to include the social dimension to achieve sustainable development. At the same
time, ecological challenges also have direct economic consequences. For example, if
the sea level rises by 5 m, many cities with millions of inhabitants will be affected by
floods, which will obviously lead to huge economic costs. The three dimensions of
sustainability must accordingly be understood as a system, whereby interrelation-
ships must be considered to make efficient decisions (see Fig. 2.1).
1. Ecological Dimension
(a) For how long will this environment be able to satisfy our needs and wants?
(b) What can we do to increase this environment’s productivity to fulfill our
needs without harming it and thereby us?

Fig. 2.1 The three

dimensions of sustainable
development (source: own
representation)
2.3 Three Approaches to Sustainable Systems 19

(c) What can we do to improve this environment’s resilience? Resilient environ-

ments are more stable, thus serving our needs better.
(d) When do we have to leave this environment behind and is there an
alternative?
(e) How long will this environment need to regenerate before we can come back
and consume from it again?
2. Social Dimension
(a) How can roles and resources in our group be allocated in a way that improves
or at least maintains the group’s integrity and stability?
(b) What is necessary to hold and strengthen socials bonds of trust and mutual
responsibility? A fragmented group is weaker and risks in fights, even
weakening it further.
(c) How can it be ensured that all individuals get an equal chance to contribute?
Only then does a community benefit from a range of talents, and not just the
gene-pool and ideas of the privileged few.
3. Economic Dimension
(a) How many and what resources are needed to ensure the group’s survival,
maybe even improve its resilience?
(b) How much can the group invest to gain a resource?
(c) How must the available resources be managed in order to meet future needs
and increase resilience?

2.3 Three Approaches to Sustainable Systems

When striving to render any resource-based system more sustainable, whether in

sustainable development or organizational sustainability, there are three basic
approaches: (a) efficiency, (b) consistency, and (c) sufficiency (see Fig. 2.2). All
these approaches aim to reduce resource consumption. Naturally, none of these
approaches can reduce environmental impacts to zero, but if they are applied in
combination, they can significantly improve the resource-related sustainability of a
system.
Efficiency
Efficiency is probably the best-known and therefore most intuitive of the three
approaches, and can often be seen, for example, with electrical equipment (see
Fig. 2.3). It measures the effort and degree to which a source material is transformed
to its target state. Low efficiency indicates that large quantities of raw materials
and/or effort must be invested to create the desired quantity of the final product,
i.e. lots of input little output. Therefore, low efficiency systems tend to lead to higher
production costs, as resources and effort are usually the main drivers of cost.
20 2 The Concept of Sustainable Development

Fig. 2.2 The three

approaches to sustainability
(source: own representation)

Fig. 2.3 Energy efficiency

ratings are used to compare
different devices, buildings,
vehicles, etc. (source: www.
europarl.europa.eu)

Therefore, improving system efficiency is a favored approach for most corporations

and other organizations and they have been applying it for decades.
The efficiency approach to sustainability means we have a convergence of
economic and environmental interests.
An increase in efficiency is, however, often followed by a phenomenon called
“rebound effect.” It describes a common side-effect of reduced production costs: The
product price is reduced in order to gain an advantage over the competition. This, in
turn, leads to a higher demand for the product, as broader sections of the population
can now afford to purchase it or rather the same consumers can now consume more
of it for the same price. Ultimately, the increased demand leads to increased
production, which in turn increases the amount of resources needed and,
2.3 Three Approaches to Sustainable Systems 21

Fig. 2.4 Outline of a circular economy (source: own representation based on Geissdoerfer et al.,
2020)

consequently, has a negative impact on system sustainability. In a nutshell, system

sustainability can never only be appraised using relative measures but always has to
take total resource volumes into consideration. E.g., the achievement of emitting
10% less greenhouse gases per car produced becomes worthless if 30% more cars are
sold and driving on the streets.
Consistency
Consistency strategies do not aim to improve the amount of resources and/or effort
as efficiency approaches do, but rather aim to either use infinite, renewable resources
or not to allow resources to be transformed into a state where they cannot be
transformed into anything useful anymore.
When taking advantage of the few practically unlimited resources, e.g., wind,
sunlight, and waves, increasing resource usage does not negatively impact on
resource availability. There is not less wind on this planet, because there are more
wind farms. However, transforming those resources into energy requires tools to
perform the transformation (wind farms, solar panels, etc.). To be 100% consistent,
these tools would have to be sourced from 100% renewable resources, which is
mostly not the case. As a consequence, consistency is in practice often an approx-
imation towards its goal, trying to optimize the availability and efficient usage of
renewable resources.
When addressing finite resources, the consistency approach strives to keep those
resources as long as possible either in use or at least transformable for its next use. It
therefore aims to create resource loops, with the goal to keep these loops as short as
possible (see Fig. 2.4). The shorter the loop, the less effort and transformation is
necessary and the smaller the effort to keep circularity going. E.g., investing in tool
maintenance and therewith prolonging the time the tool is used by the same entity is
better than having to transport it to somebody else for continued usage. Having to
22 2 The Concept of Sustainable Development

refurbish the tool to adapt it to a new task takes even more resources, but taking the
tool apart and salvage its materials in order to produce a different tool with them is
the last step in a circular setup, as it entails the largest effort and lost energy and
material. If the concept of consistency is applied to the economy, the literature
speaks of a circular economy (see Chap. 9).
Sufficiency
While efficiency and consistency approaches address the production side, suffi-
ciency addresses consumption, the basic idea being that reduced demand for a
resource leads to less extraction of that resource. There are three primary variants
of sufficiency:
(a) Reduction
Reduction is the simplest and most obvious form of sufficiency. The goal of
this approach is a quantitative reduction of the resources used by reducing
demand. If people fly less, there will be a reduction of flights and consequently
a reduction of resource usage and emissions. These effects are mostly directly
proportional, so if people travel 30% less, there will be roughly 30% less flights
and thus 30% less resources used. As simple as this concept is, it is often the
hardest to implement, as it is uncompromisingly effective and at its core contra-
dicts the dogma of the last few decades: eternal growth and increasing
consumption.
(b) Adaption
Adaption is closely related to the efficiency approach discussed above, the
main idea being that resources are only supplied where there is actual demand
and one can be sure that the resources will be put to use. Applied to the aviation
example above, adaption could mean a minimal utilization rate below which the
plane would not take off or a smaller plane would be used, since there is not
enough demand for this flight. It could also mean a reduction of resource-
intensive in-flight features (entertainment, food, air quality, noise reduction,
etc.), if there is not a large enough demand for them. The implementation of
adaption approaches has been made easier with the introduction of pay-per-use
concepts, popularizing the idea of customized offers with equally optimized
prices. If, for example, customers had the choice of not buying a laptop at all or
buying a feature-heavy model containing 8 CPUs, a GPU laid out for heavy-duty
rendering tasks and 512GB graphical memory, a huge SSD hard disk, etc., most
of them would buy the laptop offering them all those things they do not need
because it is the only option to get the few features, they indeed need. In contrast,
an adaptable offer means a more customized product, less unwanted features,
needing less energy, having wasted less resources for building and including a
feature that has never been needed and will therefore not create any added value
for the customer.
(c) Substitution
Substitution strives for a reduction but only in a specific aspect. Instead of
staying at home, as the reduction approach would dictate, the plane is substituted
by another means of transport, e.g., a train, noticeably lowering the total resource
2.4 Policy Action and SDGs 23

usage and emissions. The impact of substitution measures heavily depends on

what aspect is being addressed and what it is being replaced with. Replacing a
flight by traveling the same distance alone in a sports car qualifies as substitution
but is a relatively weak solution compared to a direct train journey. Conse-
quently, substitution approaches have to be checked thoroughly to assess their
consequences.

2.4 Policy Action and SDGs

Pollution of the environment by humans, for example through smog, mountains of

waste, burning rivers, poisoned soil, and species extinction became more and more
visible in the second half of the twentieth century. Environmental protection became
a political issue, and through globalization it became increasingly linked to the issue
of inequality between the so-called global north and global south.
In the face of these major challenges, worried citizens, scientists, and politicians
began to look for new visions and solutions. This search process and the growing
realization that we need a rapid change if we want to maintain our quality of life has
led to the demand for global sustainable development in recent decades.
The first milestone for coordinated action at international level was the Climate
Change Convention (UNFCCC), which was signed in Rio in 1992. For the first
time, climate change and the loss of biodiversity were discussed specifically at the
highest level, and thanks to the enormous media coverage the concept of sustainable
development became known for the first time to a large part of the world’s popula-
tion. The industrialized countries committed themselves to reducing emissions and
supporting developing countries in their efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and
adapt to climate change, e.g., by financing projects.
The Kyoto Protocol supplemented the Climate Change Convention and required
industrialized countries to achieve an average reduction of 5% (Switzerland and EU:
8%) for the period 2008–12 compared to 1990 levels. These commitments were
legally binding, but only covered around 25% of global emissions.
At the climate conference in Doha at the end of 2012, the countries agreed on a
second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol (Doha Amendment). The
industrialized countries committed themselves to reducing emissions in the period
up to 2020 by 18% compared to 1990 levels (Switzerland and EU: 20%). The second
commitment period, however, covered only 14% of global emissions. This is partly
because certain countries withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol and partly because
emissions increased in developing countries that did not committed to reducing
emissions.
The Paris Agreement was passed in December 2015. It was the first global
climate agreement that obliged all states to implement concrete measures to reduce
emissions and to adapt to climate change on the basis of their responsibilities and
capacities. The central goal of the Paris Agreement is to strengthen the global
response to the threat of climate change by keeping the global temperature rise
24 2 The Concept of Sustainable Development

Fig. 2.5 The 17 sustainable development goals of the agenda 2030 (source: www.un.org)

this century well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and continuing efforts to
limit the temperature rise further to 1.5 °C.
The CO2-Act is the heart of Swiss climate policy. In 2008, the federal govern-
ment introduced a CO2 tax on fossil fuels including heating oil, natural gas, and coal.
The tax can be increased if CO2 emissions do not fall sufficiently. To date, however,
no CO2 tax has been introduced on fossil fuels used in transport (gasoline, diesel).
More than two decades and more than a dozen sustainability-related
UN-conferences after the Climate Change Convention, the UN General Assembly
unanimously adopted Agenda 2030, which builds on the contents of Agenda 21 and
whose core is formed by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These
goals “are the blueprint to achieve a better a more sustainable future for all. They
address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality,
climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice” (UN Sustainable
Development Platform).
These 17 interlinked development goals for the environment, the economy, and
society are intended to ensure the well-being of the earth’s current and future
population while protecting and preserving the natural basis of life. The 17 SDGs
are specified by 169 sub-goals, whose implementation is based on 232 indicators,
and should be achieved globally and by all member states by 2030. The Agenda
2030 was adopted by all 193 UN member states (Fig. 2.5).
2.5 Knowledge and Tackling Sustainability Challenges 25

2.5 Knowledge and Tackling Sustainability Challenges

Science has a fundamental role to play in sustainable development. Its job is to

provide us with an understanding of the often interconnected natural and societal
processes that govern sustainable development. In a manifesto for Research on
Sustainability and Global Change (ProClim/CASS, 1997), Swiss researchers defined
three different types of knowledge that are central to this understanding: Systems,
target, and transformation knowledge.
Systems Knowledge (“Knowledge of What Is”)
Knowledge about how our environment, society, and economy work is indispens-
able. For example, we need to know how the climate system reacts to higher
greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, what the health implications of
malnutrition, or what the ecological, economic, and societal effects are of export
subsidies on agricultural production. It soon becomes clear that we need to under-
stand the interplay between social, ecological, and economic systems.
Target Knowledge (“Knowledge of What Should and Should Not Be”)
As we have seen in the section on planetary boundaries, there are very large, and
mostly still unknown, risks associated with irreversible changes in ecosystems and
socio-economic systems (e.g., migration, health, democracy, business cycles). To
assess these risks, knowledge about thresholds, “tipping points,” critical loads, etc.,
is central. Such knowledge must become the basis for decisions and negotiations of
sustainable development goals.
Transformation Knowledge (“Knowledge About How We Get from the Actual
to the Target State”)
Although we have very precise knowledge of the climate system, the effects of
climate change and the corresponding “safe operating space” (see the section on
planetary boundaries) for decades, emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise
despite countless climate conferences, climate targets, measures, huge investments,
etc. The same is true for biodiversity loss, species extinction, rising inequality, ocean
acidification and pollution, and many more great challenges. All these examples
show that, with respect to many sustainability goals, transformation knowledge is
arguably the one of the three types of knowledge that most needs our attention today.
It would seem that current socio-economic and institutional frameworks do not
foster sustainable development. For example, ecological and social costs are not
reflected in the prices of goods and services, and many societal, political, economic,
and legal structures provide incentives for unsustainable actions. Transformation
knowledge is therefore of central importance to sound solutions, laws, policies,
processes, or technologies to promote sustainable development. Thus, transforma-
tional knowledge about socio-economic and institutional frameworks is fundamental
in designing policies that create the right incentive structure to promote sustainable
development.
Systems, target, and transformation knowledges all address different aspects of
achieving sustainability. All of them are needed to tackle sustainability challenges.
26 2 The Concept of Sustainable Development

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Literature 27

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