Social Sustainability

Social Sustainability Research Theme

Social sustainability

Are there social constraints on development analogous to the ecological limits set by carrying capacity?

Social sustainability reflects the relationship between development and current social norms. An activity is socially sustainable if it conforms with social norms or does not stretch them beyond the community's tolerance for change. Social norms are based on religion, tradition, and custom; they are rooted in values attached to human health and well-being. The norms may or may not be codified in law. Some have to do with intangibles, such as deep-seated beliefs about right and wrong or values that are attached to the importance of different aspects of life and the environment. Even though they are intangible, these are very powerful factors.

Other social norms are less abstract: they concern language, education, family and interpersonal relations, hierarchies and class systems, work attitudes, tolerance, and all the other aspects of individual or group behaviour that are not primarily motivated by economic considerations. The main indicator of socially unsustainable development is antisocial behaviour, including damage to property, community disruption, and violence.

Most social norms are difficult to define and measure, and their limits are therefore hard to determine and evaluate. These difficulties are compounded in a multicultural country such as Canada because of the variety of communities with different social norms. In addition, social norms are not immutable, particularly in countries where change is pervasive. We live in a world of fast-moving social and economic change: behaviour that is unacceptable today may one day become fully acceptable, or vice versa. Social norms may persist in the short term, but most will almost certainly change in the longer term.

Nevertheless, the main consideration in assessing social sustainability is that, even though social norms may change, many are extremely persistent. Any proposal that would breach existing social limits will fail because the people involved will resist or oppose it. This leads to the question of how to deal with the social limits that must be respected to achieve sustainable development. It is clear that they cannot be measured. For instance, environmental features highly valued by some Canadian communities, such as a wild, free-flowing river, may seem worthless to an outsider. People who rely on traditional ways of making a living, particularly in occupations that are dependent upon a natural resource base, such as fishing, hunting, farming, mining, and logging, are often resistant to change to an extent that cannot be comprehended by others.

It may be concluded that social norms and social constraints on development must be taken into account in planning for sustainable development. To define social limits to sustainability, there is no alternative to exploring the issues in collaboration with the groups or communities concerned.

Sustainable development definition

Depending where one looks you will find various definitions aimed at describing ‘sustainability’ in a manner most favourable to the user’s point of view. Earlier definitions were driven by egocentrics who viewed economic growth as incompatible with environmental protection and predicated solutions based on minimal resource exploitation and organic agriculture. In contrast, the cornucopian techno-centrists argued for free market forces as these would lead to a general improvement in the quality of life, lower birth rates and a concomitant decrease in population growth and therefore in resource depletion. These two opposing views have given way to a new view that the world’s resources are in principle sufficient to meet long-term human needs[17]. However, this optimistic view is predicated on the resolution of a number of key areas.

Poverty is recognised as an important cause of environmental degradation and therefore recognises that economic development has a crucial role to play in contributing to poverty alleviation. “The critical issues on which the debate has come to focus are, therefore, the uneven spatial distribution of population relative to natural carrying capacities, international interdependencies in resource utilisation and the extent as well as degree of inefficient or irrational use of environmental resources.”[18]
The global intervention required to redress this imbalance has to do with managing the utilisation of natural resources correctly. This management requirement has come to be termed sustainable development.

Its objectives are quite concrete: development only takes place if the resource harvest rates are at levels no higher than managed or natural regeneration rates permit, and the use of the environment as a waste sink occurs only on the basis that waste disposal rates should not exceed the managed or natural assimilation capacity of the environment.

Sustainable development was defined by the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development in the 1987 Brundtland Report as “those paths of social, economic and political progress that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” In 1993 – a year after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro – the World Congress of Architects defined sustainability for the architectural fraternity as follows:

Sustainability means meeting our needs today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

UIA/AIA World Congress of Architects, June 1993



A more recent – and broader – definition is the following of 1996:
The concept of sustainability relates to the maintenance and enhancement of environmental, social and economic resources, in order to meet the needs of current and future generations. The three components of sustainability are:

Environmental sustainability – which requires that natural capital remains intact. This means that the source and sink functions of the environment should not be degraded. Therefore, the extraction of renewable resources should not exceed the rate at which they are renewed, and the absorptive capacity to the environment to assimilate wastes should not be exceeded. Furthermore, the extraction of non-renewable resources should be minimised and should not exceed agreed minimum strategic levels.
Social sustainability – which requires that the cohesion of society and its ability to work towards common goals be maintained. Individual needs, such as those for health and well-being, nutrition, shelter, education and cultural expression should be met.
Economic sustainability – which occurs when development, which moves towards social and environmental sustainability, is financially feasible.

Source: Gilbert, Stevenson, Girardet, Stren, 1996

With sustainable development as the goal of economic, social and environmental policy, what is needed is the redirection of economic activity in order to detach it from environmental and social degradation. Once this has been achieved there will no longer be a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection.

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