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barriers to sustainable development. Although profound policy and/or lifestyle changes
are sometimes advocated (Christie and Warburton 2001), intended impacts are
generally ameliorated by prolonged implementation timescales within established social
and economic arrangements (Hopwood, Mellor and O’Brien 2005). Typical members of
this group are academics, mainstream non-governmental organisations, who have
relinquished political agitation in favour of collaborative relationships with those they
seek to influence (Rowell 1996), and, less commonly, enlightened governments.
According to Hopwood, Mellor and O’Brien (2005), some approaches identified as falling
within this category empathise with the ideological vision of other groups. For example,
the findings of the Brundtland Report (WCED 1987), despite advocating considerable
change, in reality tend towards the status quo whereas appropriate technology
(Schumacher 1973) aligns strongly with transformative notions.
Mebratu (1998) identifies three principle academic interpretations of sustainable
development, namely environmental economics, deep ecology and social ecology.
However, Hopwood, Mellor and O’Brien (2005) ascribe the last two perspectives to their
transformation heading, which effectively maps to the Mebratu’s ideological category
(Table 1). A similar inconsistency exists between these papers in relation to the category
to which the findings of the WCED (1987) are assigned. This is illustrative of the
classification problems which exist where a branch of knowledge is immature, complex
and contentious, as in the case of sustainable development. Regardless, the assignment
of these two approaches either to the reform / academic class or the transformation /
ideological class is somewhat arbitrary. What is relevant is that they are both perceived
to be external to conventional proposals for the realisation of a sustainable future and
that they are subsumed and influence the related debate accordingly.
The most practically applied academic interpretation of sustainable development is the
neo-classical, reductionist approach of environmental economics (Pearce, Markandya
and Barbier 1989). This technique seeks to commoditise and price the natural
environment (i.e. in the parlance of economics, internalise it) based on the market
conventions of supply and demand such that an optimum level of environmental
protection can be adopted (Jacobs 1996). Advocates of this approach acknowledge that
natural resources have spatial and temporal availability constraints, the innate carrying
capacity of the planet and the need to preserve environmental capital (Lozano 2008b).
Frequently, environmental economics is actualised as cost benefit analysis (CBA), a
protocol for assessing the financial feasibility and efficient allocation of resources among
competing project and policy options (Pearce, Markandya and Barbier, 1989; Boardman
et al.
2006). CBA is commonly used in the public sector (Fuguitt and Wilcox 1999; HM
Treasury 2003). Notwithstanding philosophical and practical objections to the attempted
monetisation of the natural environment (Harding 1998; Bartlemus 1999) and criticisms
of its pro-Western stance on environmental protection (or rather access to natural
resources), there remains a strong sense that environmental economics is a
fundamentally robust way of addressing the environmental crisis. However, this
assertion is predicated on the proper valuation of natural resources and services
(Redclift and Benton 1994). Otherwise the overuse and attrition of these assets is sure to
follow (RICS 2001).
Ecological conceptions of sustainable development are commonly expressed as deep
ecology. Deep ecology, as originally espoused by Naess (1973), commends biocentric
egalitarianism as the means to resolve the environmental crisis. This approach denies
humanity the right to degrade or further reduce the sum of non-human entities present
on Earth except where required to fulfil essential needs. Furthermore, it encourages
social and cultural diversity, deemed necessary for the continued survival of the human
