Controversies Concerning the Concept of Sustainable Development

Abstract

The chosen topic represents a return in the past to a very important process that has brought great changes worldwide, namely sustainable development, and a short characterization of this process that we have been faced with for quite a while. The sustainable development theory is relatively new and still being shaped. The concept of sustainable development has been born in time, during several decennia, through serious international scientific debates and has acquired precise political relations in the globalization domain as well. The present paper offers information both on the sustainable development realized in Romania and on the problems the whole nation is faced with in this domain.

Headnote

Abstract

The chosen topic represents a return in the past to a very important process that has brought great changes worldwide, namely sustainable development, and a short characterization of this process that we have been faced with for quite a while. The sustainable development theory is relatively new and still being shaped. The concept of sustainable development has been born in time, during several decennia, through serious international scientific debates and has acquired precise political relations in the globalization domain as well. The present paper offers information both on the sustainable development realized in Romania and on the problems the whole nation is faced with in this domain.

Keywords: sustainable development, strategy, social progress

JEL Classification: O1

Introduction

The concept of sustainability defined by the literature refers to the modality of use of the resources. The management of a resource is defined as sustainable if, knowing its depletion limit, its exploitation does not go beyond a certain point. In this respect, sustainable management means, for instance, the use of the sea for fishing purposes, by observing the natural cycle of the fish reproduction and by providing, therefore, the other people and ourselves with the possibility of continuing this activity. In exchange, when the use of a resource goes beyond this point, it leads to a considerable diminution of the stock, namely of the fish population, and to damages - not only economic one - which this action involves (Rojanschi et all, 2006).

The sustainability topic refers to the renewable natural resources, namely to those that have the capacity to reproduce or regenerate. The resources that do not have this feature are defined as exhaustible, and this is why one could rather speak about the moments and conditions of optimal exploitation than about sustainability.

To assess the lack of an exhaustible resource, most of the times the report between consumption and resources is taken as a landmark. A more complex analysis of the sustainability concept obliges us to notice that we have to consider the radical changes from all the life domains, since not only the consumers' habits need changing, but also their view on economy, society and politics.

"Each generation has to do their duties and not let them on the shoulders of the generations to come - this is the basic idea of sustainable development. And this clearly includes the global perspective, as well".

Sustainable development is a strategy by which communities look for ways of economic development, which take advantage of the local environment or improve the standard of living. Sustainable development is not a new concept; we could say that it is the newest expression of a very old ethics, which involves the relationship of the people with the environment, and the responsibilities of the present generations towards the future generations.

For a community to be sustainable, a threefold approach has to be adopted, which considers the economic resources, the environmental resources and the cultural ones, as well. The communities have to ponder on these needs not only in the short run but also in the long run.

Sustainable development has several definitions:

* Sustainable development has emerged in the vision of reconciliation between economy and environment, based on a new way of development to support the human progress, not only in few places and for few years, but for the whole planet and for a sustainable future"; (Camasoiu, 1994)

* Sustainability refers to the capacity of a society, an ecosystem or any similar existing system to continuously operate in a undetermined future, without reaching the depletion of the key resources"; (Rojanschi et all, 2006)

The word "sustainable" comes from Latin: subtenir means hold back / withhold or support from beneath. A community has to be supported from beneath, by its current and future inhabitants, some places - by the specific combination of their physical, cultural and spiritual features - inspire people to take care of their community. These are the places where sustainability has the highest chances of existence"; (Rojanschi et all, 2006)

Sustainable development offers a support by which communities can use resources as efficiently as possible; they can create infrastructures, protect and improve the standard of living, and create trade activities to consolidate their economy. A sustainable development can help us create healthy communities that should be able to support both the current generation and the generations to come.

Environmental protection is one of the present concerns of the modern society. The current society resembles the past one less and less, since the world population has increased three times, the world economy has increased, and so have the fuel consumption and the industrial production.

Since 1972, when the Conference on the Environment of Stockholm was held, until now, over 60 interpretations of the concept of sustainable development have been identified.

The one who used the expression sustainable development for the first time was the Norwegian Prime Minister, Mr. Gro Harlem Brundland, in 1987. In the report called Our Common Future he presented sustainable development as "the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs".

The widely accepted viewpoint is that of long-lasting, viable, sustainable development, within which the interaction of the compatibility of four systems - economic, human, environmental and technological - is pursued: the satisfaction of the present needs should be met without compromising the future generations' capacity to meet their own needs. For the achievement of the compatibility conditions for the four systems, the sustainable development strategy includes, as a basic element, the simultaneity of the progress in all the four dimensions.

The vision of the sustainable development strategies starts from the understanding of the fact that the economy of a country, and of all the countries, means more than the sum of its components, that the modifications produced in a subsystem or the other generate profound general changes, by virtue of the dynamic interdependences existing in its components.

Starting from the five factors that mutually influence the development process: population, the natural resources and the natural environment, the agricultural production, the industrial production and pollution; the sustainable development strategy aims to find the most suitable criteria of optimization of the needs-resources relation, activities to attain, as well as necessary means, based on the mutual compatibilities, in time and space.

Hence, it results that the sustainable development is defined by the natural dimension - in the sense that it only exists as long as the environment created by man is compatible to the natural environment; the economic dimension, based on competitionbased competitiveness; the social-human dimension, which means that all the outputs from the environment created by man have to meet directly the present and the future needs and interests of the generations that coexist and follow one another; a national-state, regional and universal dimension - which means a compatibility of the optimization criteria, both on the national level and on the regional or global-universal level (Angelescu, et. all 2000).

Therefore, the concept of sustainable development and its realization strategy bring into focus the issue of man and, generally, of the human community, from the perspective of time and space. The consideration of the development in time and space is particularly important for it to become sustainable. In 322 B.C., Aristotle considered that "most people believe that, in order to be happy, a State has to be large; but, even if they are right, they do not know what a large State and what a small State means. The dimensions of a State have a limit like the other things, plants, animals, objects; because none of these preserve their natural shape, when they are too large, or too little, but either completely lose their nature or change it" (Donella, 1972).

These perspectives that sustainable development has to integrate depend on man's level of culture, on his existence in the past, on the degree of development and assimilation of the conquests of science and technology, on the national and international strategies implemented by each country.

1. The national strategy for sustainable development

Beginning with 1997, the EU Strategy for Sustainable Development has become a political objective, by its inclusion in the Maastricht Treaty. The document has a unitary and coherent strategic vision, having as a general objective the continuous improvement of the standard of living for the present and future generations by the creation of some sustainable communities, able to manage and use the resources in an efficient way and to use the ecological and social potential of innovation of the economy, in order to assure prosperity, environmental protection and social cohesion.

The EU Strategy for Sustainable Development represents the basis of the Romanian National Strategy in this domain. The adoption of the national strategy for sustainable development represents a benchmark in the process of creation of a modern Romania, successfully integrated in the European Union. The strategy highlights the effort made during several months of hard work at the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and at the National Centre for Sustainable Development.

The implementation of this Strategy is the responsibility of the European Union and of its Member States, involving all the institutional components on a national and community level.

Within the Strategy, four key objectives have been identified:

* Environmental protection, by means of actions allowing the dissociation of the economic growth from the negative impact on the environment;

* Social equity and cohesion, by the observance of the basic rights, cultural diversity, of the equal chances and by the rejection of discrimination of any kind;

* Economic prosperity, by the promotion of knowledge, innovation and competitiveness in order to assure high standards of living and abundant and well-paid jobs.

1. Fulfillment of the international responsibilities of the European Union by the promotion of democratic institutions in the service of peace, security and freedom, of the sustainable development principles and practices throughout the world;

The European Union strategy suggests the following guiding principles for the provision of a balanced integration and correlation of the economic, ecological and sociocultural components of the sustainable development, namely: Promotion and Protection of the basic human rights; Solidarity within and between the generations; Cultivation of an open and democratic society; Actively informing and involving the citizens in the decisional process; Involving the business environment and the social partners; Coherence of policies and governance quality on a local, regional, global and universal level; Integration of the economic, social and environmental policies by impact assessments and by consulting the factors concerned; The use of modern knowledge to assure economic efficiency; Application of the precaution principle in the case of the uncertain scientific information; Application of the "polluter pays" principle.

2. Sustainable development indicators

To monitor and check the implementation of the present National Strategy, the European Union Member States have the obligation to create and maintain a national system of statistic indicators for the sustainable development, matching the one used on the EU level.

The indicator system for Romania integrates, in a pyramidal structure, the economic, social and environmental indicators usable for the three-dimensional assessment of the Romanian sustainable development.

Thus, the set of sustainable development indicators for Romania is structured on the basis suggested by Eurostat, having a hierarchy on three levels:

* Level 1: main (basic) indicators;

* Level 2: complementary indicators, usable for monitoring and reviewing the sustainable development programs;

* Level 3: analytical indicators, progress indicators of the National Strategy for Sustainable Development of Romania, covering the policy package that this generates, including the policies that are not included in the EU Strategy.

This structure of indicators suggested by Eurostat for the first Monitoring Report of the renewed UE Strategy associates to each strategic dimension a representative indicator (Level 1), a set of indicators for the subordinated operational objectives (Level 2) and descriptive indicators of the intervention domains for the associates policies (Level 3).

An additional set of indicators, beside this structure, (namely the contextual indicators) is included for the phenomena that are hard to interpret normatively or whose answer to interventions has remained unidentified.

The EU Member States have the obligation to create suitable forms of institutional support for the coordination of the development and of the use of statistical monitoring instruments and for the periodic revision of each National Strategy, every two years, in a manner congruent with the systematization effort of the Reports on the implementation of the EU Strategy for Sustainable Development.

For measuring the performances in reaching the objectives established by the Strategy and for a correct reporting of the results, the operationalization of two types of indicators has been considered:

* the progress indicators of the Romanian National Strategy for Sustainable Development, covering the whole policy package generated by this strategy, including those that are not contained in the EU Strategy;

* the national indicators for sustainable development, focused on the key priorities, expressed by quantifiable targets that, at the same time, should allow one to compare the national performances to those of the international partners and to the objectives of the renewed EU Strategy for Sustainable Development.

For each level, a series of indicators have been allocated; for Romania, there are 103:

* 19 indicators for Level 1;

* 37 indicators for Level 2;

* 47 indicators for Level 3.

Depending on the results of the analyzed indicators, the procedure of providing several indicators on each level in turn is essential in order to continue the monitoring of the sustainable development in Romania.

3. Economic and social progress according to the sustainable development vision

The deep analysis of the post-socialist transition processes, as a whole and on domains, has led us to the conclusion that without the elaboration and application of a strategy of sustainable socioeconomic development, which should outline, as clearly as possible, the basic objectives, we cannot get out of the crisis and improvising state.

Although the contemporary world is one of globalization, of interdependences, the sustainability of each country's development consists of their own effort of exploiting the resources, in cooperation with the other Member States of the European Union.

The essential condition of success is represented, on the one hand, by the existence and assurance of the resources, mainly the financial ones, and, on the other hand, by the consistent manifestation of the political will, and by the recognition of the conditions of action.

It can be expected that each step of the development will evolve in different directions. The socioeconomic reality requires that it be measured according to its orientation, in a direction or the other, only based on knowledge.

In order to realistically see this issue, it is necessary to objectively analyze the condition of the nation, and, based on it, the socioeconomic diagnosis and prognosis should be realized, namely, it is necessary to analyze and know the reality, in order to anticipate the future evolution. Such a way requires the use of science in the preparation and the elaboration of the decisions. From this perspective, it is important to bring to light the concrete diagnosis and prognosis elements, critically analyzing each field of the economic-social life: industry, agriculture, education, scientific research, education, culture - examined by means of the general social interests, but also of the national interests.

Conclusions

The term of sustainable development was introduced in the current language during the last decennium, and the importance given to it is reflected by the ample literature in support of the need to reconsider the current relation between man and the environment.

There is an attempt of systematically identifying the aspects specific to this type of development and elaborating new concepts offering criteria for the reorientation of the human activity.

Compared to the previous development, the sustainable development vision integrates a series of major exigencies on the level of all the national and universal economies, as well.

By the transition to the sustainable development, we hope to realize, not if, but how we can create this complex and lasting process, a present in an increasingly safer future.

In this basic process, it is elementary that science should help man analyze himself. The sustainable development requires a new set of values, realizable within a transition process towards a viable society, in which people can be attracted by new ways of organizing their lives.

The road covered by mankind until now is that of a non-viable universal economy, from the perspective of the environment, based on unlimited growth phenomena. The new age that mankind needs to adopt will have as a common denominator a single essential idea: meeting the current generations' needs without compromising the future generations' potential of meeting their needs.

The ecological age that has to be adopted will have to come up with the elaboration of a viable energetic system, based on solar energy as a renewable source, and on material recycling, reduction of wastes, change of products and of people's reactions.

The vision of sustainable development also includes the strategy of reconsidering the urban transportation, making sure that the transportation systems should satisfy the economic, social and environmental needs of the society, reducing their undesired impact on the economy, on the society and on the environment.

Therefore, we may state that the development cannot be realized when a great part of the population is affected by a precarious health and has an improper access to the medical care services, since man and his standard of living are recognized as central elements of the development of the society.

Acknowledgements

This work was cofinanced from the European Social Fund through Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013, project number POSDRU/159/1.5/S/142115 "Performance and excellence in doctoral and postdoctoral research in Romanian economics science domain"

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