Sustainable Development:

What is it?
Why does it matter?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustinability: Slide 1

What is Sustainable Development?

• Context
– Sustainable Development as a concept dominates
much of the literature concerning the broader
implications of technology and modernity

• Goal: To make students aware of

– Prevailing thinking about sustainability
– Challenges regarding synthesizing the impact of a
technology within a broader context

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 2

1
 What is Sustainable

Development?

Firstly, what is “Development”?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustinability: Slide 3

Development Economics

• Emerged in the 1940’s

• Goal:
To raise the standard of living throughout the
world
• After World War II, often tied up with Cold War
goals.
– Seminal Text:
The Stages of Economic Growth: A Noncomunist
Manifesto (Rustow)
• Led to the creation of World Bank, IMF, and

GATT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 4

2
Development Economics: Measures of Success

• Concept widely

accepted

• Global improvement
– Possible exception

Sub-saharan Africa

Source: Figure 1.4, Human Development Report 2005, UNDP

Courtesy of United Nations Development Programme.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 5

What is Sustainable

Development?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustinability: Slide 6

3
Classic Definition

•“Sustainable development meets

the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own
needs”
(The World Commission on Environment and
Development, United Nations,1987)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 7

Other Definitions of Sustainable Development

• Improvement in the quality of human life within the

carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems

(World Wildlife Fund)

• A condition in which the ecosystem maintains its
diversity and quality— and thus its capacity to support
people and the rest of life—and its potential to adapt to
change and provide a wide change of choices and
opportunities for the future
A condition in which all members of society are able
to determine and meet their needs and have a large
range of choices to meet their potential
• Economic growth that provides fairness and opportunity
for all the world's people, not just the privileged few,
without further destroying the world's finite natural
resources and carrying capacity
(Pronk and ul Haq 1992).
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives
Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 8

4
 Key Questions:

What?

… to Sustain?

… to Develop?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustinability: Slide 9

What is to be Sustained?:
Broadly Accepted Elements of Sustainability

• Economic
– Human Capital
Environ
– Human-made Capital Social Healthy
mental
• Environment Sustain
– Natural Capital able
Just Efficient
• Social
– Social Capital
Economic

Adapted from http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/sustainable-state/what-is.htm

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives
Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 10

5
What is Economic Sustainability?

• Human-made Capital
– Traditional economic capital
– Produced means of production
• Human Capital
– Often simply refers to labor
– More subtly, the ability of an individual to produce or increase
income
• Knowledge
• Skills
• Health
• Values
– Activities that increase human capital
• Education
• Training
• Medical care
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives
Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 11

Environmental Sustainability

• Maintenance of Natural Capital

– Ecosystem services that enable life

• Sources
– Stocks of raw materials
– Flows of renewable resources

• Sinks
– Capacity to assimilate wastes

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 12

6
Environmental Sustainability: Goodland 95

• Output Rule:
– Waste emission can’t exceed assimilative capacity
of local environment

• Input Rule
– Renewables:
Harvest rates should be within regenerative rates
– Non-renewables:
Harvest rates should be below that rate at which
renewable substitutes are developed

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 13

Social Sustainability
• Social Capital
– No Consensus definition
– Knowledge and rules of interaction in culture and institutions
• Legal system
• Government
• Social Sustainability general includes addressing basic needs of

population

• Recognitions of social issues in traditional development economics predate

environmental concerns
– Income distribution
– Quality of life
• Illiteracy
• Hunger
– Institutional participation
– Increasing choice

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 14

7
Development Economics: Measures of Success

• UN Development Program –

Human Development

Indicator

– GDP
– Education
– Life-expectancy
• Troubled Areas
– Sub-saharan Africa

Source: Figure 1.4, Human Development Report 2005, UNDP

Courtesy of United Nations Development Programme.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives
Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 16

How much is to be sustained?

Quantity Timeframe
or
Quality

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 17

8
 What is to be Sustained?
Sustainability Hierarchy (Marshall and Toffel)

• Actions are unsustainable that

– Level 4
• Reduce quality of life 4
• Violate other values
– Level 3
• Cause species extinction 3
• Violate human rights
– Level 2
• Significantly reduce life- 2
expectancy or basic health
– Level 1
• Endanger human survival
1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives
Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 18

Over what time frame should we care about

sustainability?
• Are these sustainable?
– Some would disagree with labeling B as acceptable
– During perturbation B, it is possible that another
perturbation may happen with consequences like C
A
Quality of
Ecosystem ? B
Service

C
Time
Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives
Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 20

9
Is it sustainable if we allow some forms of
capital to deteriorate while others are
maintained?

Examples?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustinability: Slide 21

Capital Substitutability:

Trading off over resources or time

• Strong Sustainability
– Cannot make tradeoffs among sustainability of
various resources
– What is an example of a potential tradeoff?

• Weak Sustainability
– Some resources / ecosystem capabilities may
deteriorate if the value extracted is reinvested in
substitutable capabilities

Massachusetts Institute of Technology ESD.123/3.560: Industrial Ecology – Systems Perspectives

Engineering Systems Division
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Randolph Kirchain
Sustainability: Slide 22

10