Ecologically Sustainable Development

In the past few decades across Australia, the concept of Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) has become ingrained in statutory planning legislation as the definitive goal for city planning. Take the New South Wales Environmental Planning & Assessment Act 1979 for example. Around the year 2000, the words “Ecologically Sustainable Development” made its way into the “objects of the act” provision. Since that time, in New South Wales (and Australia more broadly) ecologically sustainable development has been widely recognised by various levels of government as the most desirable outcome of city planning. But why I ask, do we still allow development and infrastructure projects that do not adhere to these principles of ESD? And are the principles of ESD and ESD itself as a concept ultimately flawed and impossible to achieve?

The Basics of ESD

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept of ESD, I’ll briefly explain the logic and principles behind it. Ecologically Sustainable Development breaks down development and city planning into three pillars: social, economic, and environmental. The idea behind this is, for development and planning outcomes to be truly sustainable, all three pillars must be assessed and taken into consideration in the planning process. For example, if I were proposing to construct a new community centre, I would assess the impact that this development would have on the economy, society, and the environment, and adjust my development accordingly. So in theory, I would govern my development proposal based on the impacts it would have on these three pillars, and adjust it to ensure that no one pillar is impacted or favoured over the other. More often than not, exaggerated emphasis is put on the economic outcomes/pillar in most developments, with economic outcomes being typically favoured over social and environmental outcomes. I believe this to be a result of the flawed logic behind ESD, as well as a capitalist-driven culture that puts profit before progress.

The Problems with the Pillars

The graphic above perfectly sums up the current thinking of achieving Ecologically Sustainable Development. However, I believe this structure of ESD to be fundamentally incorrect when you take into consideration the fact that without a liveable environment (both built and natural), both society and the economy cannot realistically function. In reality, the structure of ESD should be thought of more like this:

where the environmental pillar is the base of ecologically sustainable development and supports both economic and social pillars. It is also the pillar that is under the most amount of stress. This rings true of our current environmental situation today, where increased strain on natural resources and the globalisation of capitalism have triggered multiple catastrophic environmental events such as sea level rise, global warming, loss of biodiversity, ocean acidification and pollution, coastal erosion, extreme natural disasters (such as cyclones, droughts, heatwaves etc.) etc. The order of the social and economic pillars of this revised version of ESD is also of significance. I argue that the social pillar is only reliant on the environmental pillar, as society and humanity cannot function without an adequate and liveable environment. However, society does not rely upon economic activity to function, which is why I have placed the economic pillar at the top of this revision of ESD. There have been many societies and cultures in the history of humanity that have thrived without the need of an economy. Whether or not those societies were successful or ethical etc. is a whole other conversation. But the point still stands; humanity and society can exist and function without the need for an economy. The economy, however, cannot exist without a functioning society and liveable environment. Of the three pillars, it is often the one that gets the most attention and has the most emphasis put on it. Projects such as WestConnex are a classic example of this; where economic outcomes were put before environmental and social outcomes. Westconnex does a fantastic job in stimulating the economy- it creates jobs and engages the private sector effectively with its Private-Public Partnership business model. Where it fails, however, is in the categories of environmental and social outcomes. The installation of unfiltered ventilation stacks in local communities is not consistent with social or environmental principles of ESD. And yet, this project, and many others like it across Sydney and Australia more broadly, came into fruition despite legislation detailing ESD as the desirable planning outcome for development and infrastructure projects. So how does this happen? And what can we do to increase desirable ESD outcomes?

Propositions

First, I strongly believe that we need to remodel the form and structure of ESD. In its current form, economic considerations are given too much emphasis, whilst environmental and societal considerations are often left out in favour of maximising economic outcomes. I am of the belief that instead of dividing ESD into separate pillars, it should be considered as a pyramid:

where the size of each “base” (environmental, social, economic) is reflective on the amount of emphasis that should be put on those respective considerations (i.e. a large environmental base= large emphasis on environmental considerations to reach ESD). With this re-thinking of what ESD is and how we can achieve it, I truly believe that we can achieve more sustainable outcomes in our cities. Whilst I recognise that this cannot happen overnight, it is important that we try and change the way we as an academic and professional body think about ESD, and start to implement this new line of thinking into our studies and practice. Achieving fully sustainable cities may never be completely achievable: but with the current state of the global environment, it has never been more important to push for sustainable development.