On General Sustainable Development
501
2 Sustainable Development Goals
Economic growth and income redistribution are the basic goals of traditional
development mode. This kind of bi-dimensional standard neglects natural capital
and doesn’t consist with sustainable development, which has three fundamental
principles—efficiency, equality and ecological sustainability in the broad sense.
1. Efficiency
Sustainable development isn’t asceticism. Its basic goal is meeting human needs.
Efficiency, which means using minimal cost of rare resources for maximal benefits,
is still one of its basic goals. Unlike in traditional development, benefits here don’t just
include the consumption of man-made products and labor (human system), but also
environmental capital, and cost doesn’t just include the input of man-made material
capital, but also the consumption of environmental capital.
Efficiency can be improved in two ways. First, between the consumption of manmade products and environmental capital, we can increase one and decrease the
other, resulting in net benefits increase. Second, we can increase both the consumption of man-made products and environmental capital. Some scholars call the former
Weak Sustainability and the latter Strong Sustainability (Giaoutzi and Nijkamp
1993). Weak sustainability can be further divided into two scenarios—increase of
the consumption of man-made products but decrease of environmental capital, or
decrease of the consumption of man-made products but increase of environmental
capital increases, the latter very rare in reality. Generally speaking, due to different
development stages of productivity and human needs, developing countries usually
opt for “weak sustainability” while developed ones prefer “strong sustainability.”
2. Equality
The rich side (rich classes, regions and countries) can keep investing in new areas
in pursuit of maximal profits regardless of environment’s carrying capacity, whereas
the poor side (poor classes, regions and countries) abuses natural resources and
labor in order to stay alive. Empirical studies (eg. Gallopin and Barrera) show that
the richest and the poorest strata do more harm to environment than the middle
class, indicating that a high level of bipolarization is sure to lead to environmental
deterioration. Furthermore, it will lead to sharp conflicts between the rich and the
poor and eventually result in social revolution, thus destroying productive forces and
sabotaging sustainable development. However, these risks can be avoided if the land
system is reformed and other measures are adopted to ensure fairer distribution of
natural capital and social benefits. Therefore, promoting fair distribution should be
made an important goal and norm of sustainable development.
Fair distribution doesn’t only involve space, but also time. The common approach
of discount rate tends to ignore long-term impacts and may eventually cause marked
or irreversible hazards to the environmental system. Sustainable development stresses
501
2 Sustainable Development Goals
Economic growth and income redistribution are the basic goals of traditional
development mode. This kind of bi-dimensional standard neglects natural capital
and doesn’t consist with sustainable development, which has three fundamental
principles—efficiency, equality and ecological sustainability in the broad sense.
1. Efficiency
Sustainable development isn’t asceticism. Its basic goal is meeting human needs.
Efficiency, which means using minimal cost of rare resources for maximal benefits,
is still one of its basic goals. Unlike in traditional development, benefits here don’t just
include the consumption of man-made products and labor (human system), but also
environmental capital, and cost doesn’t just include the input of man-made material
capital, but also the consumption of environmental capital.
Efficiency can be improved in two ways. First, between the consumption of manmade products and environmental capital, we can increase one and decrease the
other, resulting in net benefits increase. Second, we can increase both the consumption of man-made products and environmental capital. Some scholars call the former
Weak Sustainability and the latter Strong Sustainability (Giaoutzi and Nijkamp
1993). Weak sustainability can be further divided into two scenarios—increase of
the consumption of man-made products but decrease of environmental capital, or
decrease of the consumption of man-made products but increase of environmental
capital increases, the latter very rare in reality. Generally speaking, due to different
development stages of productivity and human needs, developing countries usually
opt for “weak sustainability” while developed ones prefer “strong sustainability.”
2. Equality
The rich side (rich classes, regions and countries) can keep investing in new areas
in pursuit of maximal profits regardless of environment’s carrying capacity, whereas
the poor side (poor classes, regions and countries) abuses natural resources and
labor in order to stay alive. Empirical studies (eg. Gallopin and Barrera) show that
the richest and the poorest strata do more harm to environment than the middle
class, indicating that a high level of bipolarization is sure to lead to environmental
deterioration. Furthermore, it will lead to sharp conflicts between the rich and the
poor and eventually result in social revolution, thus destroying productive forces and
sabotaging sustainable development. However, these risks can be avoided if the land
system is reformed and other measures are adopted to ensure fairer distribution of
natural capital and social benefits. Therefore, promoting fair distribution should be
made an important goal and norm of sustainable development.
Fair distribution doesn’t only involve space, but also time. The common approach
of discount rate tends to ignore long-term impacts and may eventually cause marked
or irreversible hazards to the environmental system. Sustainable development stresses