4. Economic versus Environmental Sustainability
Internationally, the concept of sustainability has generated broad popular appeal, raised environmental issues high on the political agenda, and led to a substantial and growing body of literature. Such responses are equally evident in New Zealand.
A major initial contribution to the popularisation of sustainability was the Report of the World Commission on Economy and Environment (the "Brundtland Report") in 1986. It highlighted several points central to the subsequent debate and to this current work. In particular it identified the primary relationship between economic well-being and a healthy environment, and the importance of institutional arrangements in promoting sustainability.
In practice, both researchers and policy makers have found these characteristics of sustainability difficult to handle. There is no good conceptual framework available to untangle financial/environmental links. The fundamental institutional changes that sustainability may require, may themselves need a strength of political will not readily secured. Consequently, in most countries, policy efforts have focused on the incorporation of sustainability within existing operational and ideological frameworks. More effort has been paid to issues of inter-generational transfer than to any redistribution of resources within any one generation. Equally more environmental legislation, determined on traditional lines, has often been substituted for efforts to better integrate environmental values into all decision making. To this extent environmental policies more frequently remain a "tag-on" to existing economic strategies, and production and environmental policies have generally remained polarised and apart, despite rhetoric to the contrary.
To some extent it can be argued that New Zealand provides an exception in so far as the Resource Management Act (1991) with its commitment to sustainable land management and emphasis on "effects" embodies a conscious effort to better integrate development activities and environmental needs. However, although almost all New Zealand policy documents concerning sustainability acknowledge social and economic components, the national emphasis on sustainable land management has (perhaps inevitably) highlighted physical environmental problems and relegated economic and social dimensions to a lesser position.
This primary concern with the country's physical resource base partially explains the attention paid to the sustainability of agricultural land. However, agriculture has often received apparently disproportionate attention in the sustainability debate, even at a global level. There are several reasons for this situation. Agriculture is the most extensive, land-based, global, economic activity. Many of the problems associated with agricultural land management involve non-point source pollution which is particularly intractable, and the solution to these problems commonly requires reductions in inputs or changes in management that are much harder to achieve than some of the technical "fixes" available in other situations. But it is also true that a focus on agricultural (rural) environmental problems has more appeal to urban voters than those problems which might require changes which impact more directly on their own behaviour and lifestyle. Whatever the reason, there remains a much larger New Zealand literature on sustainable land management concerning issues such as soil degradation and agricultural run-off, than on the multifaceted aspects of a sustainable urban environment, including traffic congestion, water consumption, and demand for landfill sites.
What remains true both globally and within New Zealand is the extensive "buy-in" by scientists, decision-makers, and the population at large to the goal of sustainability. Despite some healthy scepticism as to the basis for this support, the resultant debate (and research) has largely focused on how to manage the transition and increase the rate of change from where we are now, to where we want to be.
The New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture (MAF) defined the characteristics or goals of sustainability as the use of practices and systems that maintain or enhance:
- the ability of people and communities to provide for their social and cultural well-being
- the economic viability of agriculture
- the natural resource base of agriculture
- other ecosystems influenced by agricultural activities, and
- the quality and safety of food and fibre
(MAF 1993, 4)
Approaches to realising these characteristics are aimed at conserving resources, reducing environmental pollution, and providing an adequate and dependable farm income. Such approaches include:
- maintenance of a protective soil cover.
- tailoring land use to the productive and environmental capacity of the land.
- selection of livestock varieties, policies and management practices that are best suited to the farm's soil, climate and other resources.
- increasing efficiency and effectiveness in the application of inputs.
- weed and pest control
(Lockretz 1989)
The MAF (1993) report highlights the ability of people and communities to provide for their (own) social and cultural well-being (p4). Knowledge and information are recognised in this report as key components in fostering the necessary human resources this requires (pp. 14,16, and 19).
The extent to which sustainable agriculture is more knowledge intensive than conventional farming is uncertain. Certainly, it requires new kinds of information and understanding. Subsequently, the type of information required, the role of farmers in using this information, and ways to improve information flow have all generated their own research and literature (See, for example, Crosson and Rosenberg 1989; OECD 1993; Strategic Consultative Group 1995; and Bradshaw and Williams 1998)
In effect, sustainable agriculture requires a shift in favour of a more integrated or systems approach to the farm enterprise, which combines awareness of the interactions among the different dimensions of the farm business as well as the context within which it operates. Thus, while in the past sustainable agriculture was viewed in almost exclusively economic terms, the concept of sustainability now meshes both economic and environmental concerns. This reflects mounting scientific evidence that economic sustainability is jeopardised by neglect of the physical and biological resources on which it depends, just as much as the management of physical and biological resources is shaped by economic conditions.
To the researcher and policy maker alike, all this can seem somewhat overwhelming. Just as our scientific knowledge is expanding rapidly, now they are told that everything is linked to everything else. Coming to grips with sustainability consequently requires identification of driving forces. It is these forces which will provide a basis for policy decisions. Therefore to help implement sustainability, it is usefully conceptualised as a policy target, with environmental, economic and institutional dimensions (Figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1: The Four Dimensions of Sustainability
Source: Spangenberg, Wupertal Institute, 1997
The environmental dimensions of sustainability refer to the need to maintain (or restore) the physical resource base so that it endures indefinitely to meet the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations to meet their needs. This also highlights the underlying and fundamental time component inherent in sustainability.
Economic sustainability is equally conditional on the use of resources so as to avoid their overexploitation either in terms of their quality or quantity, or the use of resources which results in the generation of waste in excess capacity of the environment's to absorb it effectively.
The balance between environmental and economic sustainability is mediated through the institutional arrangements that shape and condition the management and use of the land, and those social norms that influence community values. In effect, the different dimensions of sustainability constitute the key components of the system, and act in concert to either promote or constrain the achievement of sustainability. Land use is the visual expression of the interplay among those different dimensions and as such can be an important indicator of the health of the overall ecosystem.
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