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CHAPTER 4
SOCIETY
Society is usually defined as a self-perpetuating group of people bond together by a shared territory and cultural values and norms. Society is at the core of sustainable development because of those traits: populations try to reproduce themselves; everyone in a population is dependent upon the environment within their territory; and it is through shared values and norms that populations threaten their environment and can develop the means to protect it. Society exists at a national level where individuals may not actually be involved in direct relationships, but share common beliefs in political or economic rights. Society exists at local levels or within organizations of people who share values about religion, ethnicity, environmental concern or other concerns with greater levels of direct interaction. These more intimate forms of society are often discussed as community. Society is also required to exist at the global level, particularly in response to the need to develop common values and standards for environmental protection. Traditionally society has been the external environment which business has had to respond to. Business has to figure out what the dominant trends are for society as a whole and also what different segments or localized populations want in order to design and produce the services that these people want. Business has also been very successful in transforming these trends through innovations in technologies and services, and through marketing, convincing people to adopt these innovations. To achieve sustainable development, business still has to respond to these needs, but consideration of the ecological or physical environment transforms the parameters of that response. Social demands have to be met in a manner that does not threaten the functioning of ecosystems or disrupt human enjoyment of them. Furthermore, business needs to be attuned to and engaged in the social processes that make environmental limitations issues to be dealt with. In other words, business does not really respond to the environment, but to society’s demands for it to respond to the environment.
4.1 Society’s Pressures: the IPAT Equation The challenges facing society and business are great because over the last two hundred years society has developed a tendency to propagate not only its population levels, but also amplify each individual’s use of the environment. Society is outgrowing its environment, and changing this trend is proving difficult. The IPAT equation describes the increase in environmental impact resulting from the combined effects of growth in three basic human activities: population , affluence seeking, and technology development. This equation can be used to identify not only the primary causes of environmental impact, but also to reveal the social forces underlying them.
The IPAT EQUATION
IMPACT=POPULATION+AFFLUENCE+TECHNOLOGY
Population: All populations (of all species) have a tendency to grow exponentially unless checked by disease, predation, or food sources. The human species is no different. It has grown rapidly over the last two centuries because improvements in sanitation and health, clearing of more land and industrialization have removed many of the checks on human growth. In the last century alone the human population increased from just over l billion to 6 billion. The increased population has demanded more resources and more space and caused more damage to the environment than previous low levels of human population. The primary mechanism for this growth has been the changing relationship between birth and death rates known as the demographic transition. The transition shifts human population patterns from: Stage 1: Stable population levels because of a steady state of high birth and death rates (stage 1); sanitation, health care, nutrition, and wealth are limited; most people live in rural areas practicing subsistence agriculture; Stage 2: Rapid population growth because of high birth and low death rates; primarily a decrease in the number of childhood deaths; due to better agricultural techniques, food supply, and education; Nigeria, Indonesia, Bangladesh. Stage 3: Falling rate of population increase because of falling birth rates; specialization of agriculture, industrialization, and urbanization; government policy, contraception, female education and rights; China; India. Stage 4: Equalization of low birth and death rates creating stable population; increasing costs of raising children and priority given to consumption; Sweden, France; Stage 5: Decreasing population because of lower births than deaths; increasing costs of urban living and shifting priorities; Hong Kong, Japan, Italy.
Figure 4.i The Demographic Transition
The result of this temporary gap between birth and death rates has been an
The emphasis on equity in sustainable development also provides a great challenge because it promotes at least a minimal standard of living. This minimal standard is expressed in areas such as health care, housing, transportation, education, leisure facilities, and a healthy, enjoyable environment. Most of these services present difficult environment challenges because they require large inputs of resources and usually result in large outputs of pollution. On the other hand, demands for clean air or environmental education can support sustainability goals. Most importantly it is necessary to note that the way any of these services impact the environment varies greatly depending on the values, norms and traditions of different societies. For example, where some societies value large houses and individual commuting (cars) from low-density suburbs, others favour high densities, smaller homes and public transportation. These are not simply individual choices, but also result from the particularities of urban development, public policy and planning.
Technology: Industrialization has been made possible by technological advance. Most of these technologies have been created for the purpose of increasing variety of products that will be consumed in the market economy. Priority has been given to increasing the volume and reducing the cost of production and little consideration has been given to reducing environmental impact. Now many people look to technological innovation as the primary means to reduce environmental impact. Particularly people that are sceptical of any major shift from society’s demand for increasing affluence or who see no sustainable development without greater social equity. The core need is for technology to provide reduced levels of material and energy throughput per unit of production while still achieving similar levels of affluence. This is not just a question of technological innovation, however. The conversion requires changing economic incentives and disincentives, along with a transformation of the in how individuals and society participate in the use of technology, for example longer use, recycling, and different forms of payment or ownership. If technology is going to save the environment, however, it is going to have to come up with some impressive advancements—continued population growth and rising affluence will require an decrease in environmental impact per capita somewhere in the range of 50-90 percent.
4.2 Barriers to Change
Society carries with it a lot of inertia because the complex interrelations between strongly held values, accepted ways of doing things, institutional structures, physical infrastructures, and because of the monetary and intellectual investments we have made in these influences on our environmental behaviour. As we go through the course we will be looking at many of the ideas and practices that are incrementally chipping away at this social inertia. Here, however, we will simply note two of the most formidable barriers to social change.
Disconnection between Consumption and Environmental Exploitation
One factor not included in the IPAT equation, but is perhaps more difficult to deal
with than even its components is the disconnection between our use of resources and the location of their exploitation. People in developed countries, particularly in urban areas, are heavily dependent on the exploitation of resources and pollution sinks in other places. They import food from distant fields that have not only eliminated the natural habitat that preceded them, but are now treated with fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides. The fish stocks of the world’s oceans have been seriously depleted to feed people thousands of miles away from where the fish were taken. Vast forests are cut down to supply the timber and wood fibre for urban housing and paper needs. When these supplies are used up, urban markets take little notice because they can easily switch to a new source of supply or a different type of supply. Similarly, the pollution emitted by distant manufacturing or exploitation sources, or they greenhouse gas emissions have no direct impact on the urban centre. The ecological footprint serves to remind us of our real impact on environments beyond our immediate or regional surroundings. It is a calculation of how much area in oceans we need to support our fish and sewage dispersal needs, how much land to support our food needs, how much space for our forest product needs, how much forest we need to consume our CO2 output and so on. The ecological footprint shows that we in the industrialized countries consume the resources and space of land much more extensive than our own countries can provide. Indeed if everyone in the world were to consume like us we would need three planets to support us.
Overshoot
Overshoot is going beyond a limit without intending to. It is driven by rapid change or development. During rapid change we deplete the sources of non-renewable resources and renewable resources before we know it. We don't recognize what is happening because of inattention, lack of responsible authority, poor or insufficient information, or other failures for negative feedback to create an influence. Perhaps, more critical is the positive feedback that rewards the behavior and blinds people to the negative consequences of the action. Society for example has a lot at stake in the continued use of fossil fuels. The threat of overshoot is that society in its use of many sources (resources) and sinks (pollution) will soon both push the earth beyond its carrying capacity and lead to a collapse of our way of life. That is where the exponential growth in population and energy and material throughput indicated in the IPAT equation is taking us. Humanity has been able to find technological solutions, substitutes or further supplies for resources that were once thought to be running out (e.g. oil, its supply has been extended by better technology to drain existing reserves, more efficient use, and discovery of more reserves). It is also safe to say that the scarcities of some resources have been overcome and that investments in technological solutions have reduced some air and water pollution, and safe drinking water, sanitation, and garbage problems, especially at the local level. However greater problems loom, made worse by the separation of consumption and exploitation. These include greenhouse gases, ozone depleting gases, radioactive waste, biodiversity loss, waste volumes, marine pollution, water shortages, agro-chemical use, etc.
corporate institutions.
- Strategies and politics: activities used (demonstrations, lobbying, education, collaboration); confrontational or collaborative approach; levels of government, corporate, union powers and public opinion utilized.
- Impacts: government and corporate environmental policies, consumption, other aspects of behaviour.
Environmental social movements, although reaching out to the general population are usually driving by leaders or a group that becomes more formally organized. The organization of environmental movements may take the form of a political party. In many countries, for example, green parties now represent environmentalists in their governments. Most frequently the organization will take the form of a non-governmental organization (NGO) or a non-profit organization. Environmental NGOs obviously represent the organizing of environmentally concerned people trying to relieve the stress on our ecosystems. Their primary concern is to make people, governments and business accountable for their environmental impacts, push for changes, and to try to educate them about alternative ways of treating the environment. NGOs have sprung out of local movements. For example, in Hong Kong we have the Green Power, Green Lantau, Clear the Air, the Sai Kung Association, Friends of Tai Long Wan, among others. Environmental NGOs possess some of the most renowned brands today—WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and so on. There are thousands of environmental NGOs. China has recently seen an explosion of their numbers. These NGOs represent millions of people concerned about the environment and they have exerted tremendous influence on regional, national, and global governance of the environment—not only political governance, but also corporate.
Environmentalists are not the only type of NGOs or non-profit organizations. These organizations are voluntary organizations driving by a desire to fulfil some social end. Environmental NGOs are part of a non-profit sector that is a huge presence in developed societies—not only for the services they render, but also for the big influence they have on politics and policy-making. Most developed countries depend on these organizations to perform 7-12 percent of their economic activity. This covers everything from health and welfare services to education to arts and sports. Although these are non- profit organizations many of the people working for them are being paid, with money derived from the services they provide, from government grants or donations. As much or more work is provided by volunteers. The important thing about these organizations is that they fill needs in society that market system doesn’t and are an important contributor to creating social capital and the quality of life in a community. They are especially important in local communities, and indeed provide the fabric for most local communities. Their national and global influence is also great e.g. Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, Amnesty International. They are very important stakeholders at every level of community and they are also the watchdogs and public enforcers of corporate social responsibility in areas such as labour rights and working conditions, democratic principles, and philanthropy.
Another type of NGO that should not be forgotten is the industry association. At one time these organizations denied or resisted the social movements that were pushing for sustainable development, but now (in most cases) they are leaders in pushing firms to improve their environmental performance, adopt sustainable development as a vision and producing guidelines and other information on how they can do it.
Community Building
The word community is often used interchangeably with the word society. Community, however, is thought to be a group of people held together more tightly, yet more informally than a society. In traditional communities values and norms developed over time and these helped to bind people together with expected rights and obligations. Societies are thought to be more impersonal, a condition created by more numbers, distance and indifference, but these problems are overcome by designation of rights and obligations through laws. In reality traditional communities could be constraining places to live because of the intimacy and expectation of behaviour, whereas societies could allow more freedom and still retain informal expectations of behaviour. The interchangeable use of the two words reflects a desire to use the better aspects of both to build more cohesive and tolerant means of interaction among people. Thus community building reflects a desire to bring people together, and to work together for a common cause, but also to ensure individuality. Community can therefore be defined in this manner: 1) there is extensive participation by its members in the decisions by which life is governed, 2) the society as a whole takes responsibility for the members, and 3) this responsibility includes respect for the diverse individuality of these members.i At its core, community development is about building the social capital that bring people together in networks that allow them to exchange information and build the trust and confidence that allows communities to achieve their objectives collectively while minimizing the threat of free-riders and the tragedy of the commons. Social capital through increasing relationships and trust among people, not only helps to achieve community goals, but also increases quality of life because it is proven to be psychologically and physiologically good for us. Conventionally neighbourhoods, villages, towns or regions are thought to engender the development of communities as these localized conditions help to bind people together in respect of their environment and other interdependencies. There are in fact thousands of villages, towns and cities around the world that have organized themselves as sustainable communities. They have also organized themselves as a community of communities to share information and other support. The benefits of developing community responses to environmental problems at a local level include dealing with the problems in a holistic manner, obtaining better information, enable people to deal with their own environmental impacts directly, deal with contradictions between different expectations, and to ensure that other quality of life issues are integrated into solutions. This local community building respects the subsidiarity principle and avoids top-down planning and colonization of a region. In practice community building does not spring spontaneously from the ground, rather it requires community leaders, government, or different stakeholder groups to initiate it. Businesspeople are certainly high on the list of potential community leaders.
