Strategic Sustainable Development and the need of Politic Strategies Vincenzo, SICHERA Mestrado 71558 Email: vincenzo.sichera@ua.pt Abstract: This essay tries to link the main aspects of Sustainability and Sustainable Developments with forms and technics of Strategic Spatial Panning. Are also defined and analyzed, according with literature, some criteria regarding Sustainable Development, identified into two main topics, Environment and Humanity. It is also used a study board of an example of a participative strategic project, Vauban Quartier in Friburg, Germany, to test the validity of criteria previously defined. The definition of these criteria, and the overlook on weakness and critics of Sustainable Development in literature, let argue a politic, strategic and ethic solution to environmental and social issues, linking government, plans and citizenship.
Keywords: Sustainability, Sustainable Development, Policy, Strategic Spatial Planning.
1. Introduction - Sustainability and Sustainable Development
In our contemporary global contest it is a common knowledge that the world resources are not endless. Since the well-known work of Malthus of 1803 on the theme of the existence of a limit to population growth, a big debate about the possibility of unlimited increasing, both of population and of output, born (Castro, et all., 2003). Malthus argued that reserves of natural resources, especially arable land, are limited, which inevitably leads to the conclusion that production and population will not grow indefinitely. Related to these questions, the exploitation of the world limited fossil fuel reserves, linked to the themes of pollution and increasing problem of earth heating, is assumed as one of the most important future brake to the population growth (Dunster says that “the human population of the planet is directly proportioned to the availability of cheap oil fuel”, 2010). All these concerns (and the issue of world equity, environmental safeguard and access to primary resources, like clean water and food), let born the concept of sustainability, which can be assumed as the last utopia of our times (Berizzi, 2013). Sustainability can be defined as the Vincenzo Sichera – Strategic Sustainable Development and the need of Politic Strategies – 19 Jan 2014
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“ability of humans to continue to live within environmental constrains” (Robinson, 2004). But this movement, born between different aims and really diversified issues, never arrived to a clear definition of purpose and feasible processes. During the last decades of discussion, we can find different perspectives among the environmental response. Two of them are “the more utilitarian approach and the more spiritual one”, explained in the table 1 (Robinson, 2004). These currents have different point of view about conservation and preservation of natural areas, for the first like a reserve of resources for human future, for the second a romantic and ethic battle to preserve and save the diversity and variety of our world, in a perspective of respect and integration in nature. Other two perspectives are the weak and strong sustainability (Houghton and Hunter, 1994), that argue about the ability or inability of humans to bridge the gap between natural and manufactured capital (Hopwood, et all., 2005). In this scenery of interest and vagueness, different and international meetings took place. In particular, the United Nation World Commission on Environment and Development, in its Brundtland Report, defined the new concept of Sustainable Development (SD) as “the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987). This document tries to net the pressure of capitalistic and neo-liberal economic powers about economic growth with the new strong environmentalist streams. It is, in fact, an attempt to bridge the gap between environmental concerns about the increasingly evident ecological consequences of human activities, and socio-political concerns about human development issues (Robinson, 2004). The porpoise is “changing the quality of growth, meeting essential needs, merging environment and economics in decision making” (WCED, 1987). As it will be argued afterwards, all these definitions of SD are vague and left a certain ambiguity (Wackernagel & Reel, 1996; Robinson, 2004).
Technical fix
Value Change
Natural area management
Conservation (utilitarian)
Preservation (romantic)
Pollution and resources
Technology (collective
Lifestyles (individual
policies)
values)
Sustainable development
Sustainability
Preferred language
Table 1: Forms of environmental response Source: Robinson, 2004
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2. Strategic Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development The complexity of the sustainable development problem, referred to the environmental and resources issues, is a factor that undermines the traditional project planning, which tries to solve social and multilevel problems with physical solution. During the 1990s, the use of new types of planning, the strategic ones, were introduced to deal with SD. In this context was born, for instance, Agenda 21, during the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (Agenda 21 is an action plan on global, national and local scale which combines the efforts of all the local stakeholders). This shift to Strategic Spatial Planning (SSP) finds justification in its own structure and methodology, and in its capability to interact with complex and holistic issues, in fact it “is used for complex problems where authorities at different levels and different sectors and private actors are mutually dependent” (Albrechts, 2001), which is properly the case of SD.
2.1. What is a Strategic Spatial Plan Strategic Spatial Plans was born for the necessity “that systems become more open and less prescriptive in determining precise land uses in favor of a more flexible system to respond more quickly and adequately to changing social and economic circumstances” (Albrechts, 2004). They are plans that, in opposition to Traditional Spatial Plans, define a strategy1 (which is a complex of guidelines, actions, relations, policies and programs to reach an objective) to create a process (or to front a request) of development (Table 2). The importance of Strategic Spatial Planning (SSP), so, can be related to the ability to identify major goals for the development and to relate them to a process of growth, made of minor, punctual and adaptable actions and politics. This ability consists in the capacity to change and to modify approaches and actions in relation to the changing and unpredictable developments of the context, such as a quality of SSP is flexibility. And this flexibility happens in all the times of process, since the beginning until after the fulfillment of the plan. This ability to change is given by the participative form of SSP: in fact, not only 1
“Strategy is a detailed plan for achieving success in situations such as war, politics, business, industry or sport, or the skill of planning for such situations” Cambridge University Dictionary Vincenzo Sichera – Strategic Sustainable Development and the need of Politic Strategies – 19 Jan 2014
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clients and planners (that still have an important role) are involved in the process, because also civil society and all the other stakeholders have the opportunity to compete in arenas adequately prepared for the discussion of critical issues, proposals and doubts. This process of debate and discussion generate a shared growth and acknowledgment of the participants (from here is possible to see the function also cultural, social and educational of SSP process). This way is possible to say that SSP is open, in participative and future results terms. The participants, or stakeholders, in a SSP have a key-role, and the process has more capacity to change and to be “open” more is diverse the background and the origin of the stakeholders, that have to represent all the social and institutional categories, from the governance to the civil society, passing through the private economic sector. To get really involved in the process and to become the fuel of SSP, stakeholders need arenas or forums to discuss, that have to be prepared from the engine of the process, such as a planning team and/or a strong client (Albrechts, 2001). The identification of the engine (or sponsor in Bryson & Roering, 1988) for SSP regarding SD has a crucial value: the complexity of the problem needs a strong client (organized in a multilevel-governance) that can construct, with planners, at least the key points of the SSP. This way can be possible to exploit one of the major strength of this kind of plans: the ability to shift from large-scale and a long-term vision to a small-scale and medium/short terms actions. The interactions between different social parts on one side, and different level of governance on the other, are called by Albrechts horizontal and vertical integration. “Horizontal integration stresses collaboration, coordination and the building of working relationships that span departmental and agency boundaries and policy areas. Vertical integration offers the potential to tease out causal linkages between global, national, regional, metropolitan and local change, while also taking account of the highly diverse outcomes of such interactions” (Albrechts, 2006).
Project plans
Strategic plans
Object
Material
Decisions
Interaction
Until adoption
Continuous
Future
Closed
Open
Time element
Limited to phasing
Central to problems
Effect
Determinate
Frames of references
Table 2: Project plans and strategic plans Source: Faludi and Van der Valk, 1994
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2.2. Strategic Sustainable Development Criteria
The developing of strategies to define, valuate and implement SD passes through the choice of criteria and principles useful to direct the SSP. Criteria can be points of view, main objectives, driving forces or methodologies of the plan. In literature, lots of authors tries to define them, using as a starting point environment, ethic, urban forms… (Into the table 3 are listed some principles coming from different authors). In this work it’s chosen to find some own criteria, based on the ones of literature. The main topic chosen are Environment and Humanity. Environment can be divided into four criteria: safeguard of biodiversity, preservation of natural resources, reduction and punishment of pollution, and technical energetic research of clean energy supply and energetic efficiency. Humanity is made of three main criteria: guarantee equity with development, generate fair and livable human space and fair governance. Equity with development is a complex principle that, according to the definition of SD Brundtland Report, has to mind intragenerational equity and inter-generational equity such as the present and future time equity. One of the best ways to avoid segregation and promote integration is diversification (of places, economic mechanisms, activities). And the way to fight world poverty and bridge the gap between first and third world is to promote a fair economic development. That means that world needs development to improve the physical and social conditions of each individual, while physical, economic and technical development needs to be servant of all humanity. Generate human space is the second criteria: to fight the segregation and to give to everybody comparable life chances, is needed a compact space that can mix land use and activities. That is the main way to avoid dormitory neighborhoods (or also slums) and urban sprawl, which are at the base of social and human inequities and discontents and of soil consumption. Give an identity and a sense of “place” is also an important factor to mind in the creation of human spaces, which can be created only with participation, work and sharing of a common good. Fair governance is required to let that all criteria be followed. It must be participative and democratic (involving as stakeholders and citizens as possible in the process), transparent (fair, clean and accessible) and multilevel (such as needs the ability to decline problems at the correct scale). This identification of criteria is summarized in the table below (table 4).
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Table 3: Strategic Sustainable Development Criteria and Sustainability principles in literature Vincenzo Sichera – Strategic Sustainable Development and the need of Politic Strategies – 19 Jan 2014
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NEW CRITERIA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Table 4: New criteria for Sustainable Development
2.3. An analysis case of SD Criteria
In the following table is analyzed a strategic plan developed in Freiburg, Germany. Through an evaluation board were analyzed the main points regarding the design process, the social goals and sustainability. In green and in brackets are highlighted aspects that can be related to the criteria previously analyzed.
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Table 5: Vauban quartier analysis board. In green all criteria previously descripted. Vincenzo Sichera – Strategic Sustainable Development and the need of Politic Strategies – 19 Jan 2014
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3. Weaknesses of Sustainable Development Even identifying a strategic spatial process and a set of criteria, the issue of sustainability remains a so multi-scale problem that the greatest challenge in facing him is the declination of that on a local scale. It is not always possible to find examples of strategic plans or projects in which the process aspect and the ecological aspect are congruent to well-defined criteria, like in Vauban. “SD is a chameleon-like discourse which has been (re)interpreted and deployed by a range of interests to legitimate and justify a range of often contradictory and divergent agendas” (Raco, 2005). As happened to Agenda 21, mostly declined on a small scale, a new discourse on SD cannot be separated from the attention to particular developments. This is the most critic field: in literature is diffusely present a strong skepticism about politic actuations of SD agendas. Koolhaas argue that greenwash2 is a big danger for local governments, which can use words of sustainability only for their own propaganda. “The basic concern here has to do with what might be called cosmetic environmentalism on the part of both government and business, prompted by the rise of public concern over environmental and social issues. Of course the problem of cosmetic environmentalism is made possible in part by the vagueness [of the topic], which permits many different claims of sustainable practice to be made. Yet it operates at a somewhat different level. The issue here is not so much how sustainable development is defined in principle as how it is measured in practice” (Robinson, 2004). The vagueness that permits these ambiguities comes directly from the first definition of SD and all the Brundtland Report, because it speaks at the same time of meeting poor needs, protecting environment and more rapid economic growth (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996). Sustainability is “laden with so many definitions that it risks plunging into meaninglessness, at best, and becoming a catchphrase for demagogy, at worst. [It] is used to justify and legitimate a myriad of policies and practices ranging from communal agrarian utopianism to large-scale capitalintensive market development” (Workshop on Urban Sustainability of the US National Science Foundation, 2000). The contradiction of this point can be founded directly in the (maybe) oxymoron ‘Sustainable Development’. Robinson (2004) argued that SD can be identified as a classic case of technological fix, which will perpetuate the underlying disease only by the treating of symptoms. In some ways, it is possible to say that there is a
2
“Disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image” Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 2008 Vincenzo Sichera – Strategic Sustainable Development and the need of Politic Strategies – 19 Jan 2014
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lack of deep conscientious change in terms of values. It seems a change to not change, just a clever economic tactic to give a sop to the economic society, with constant, but still too small, changes. Furthermore, in those years we faced a big failure in supranational sustainable meetings (Mostafavi, 2010): regarding the Kyoto Protocol, the United States has not yet ratified the agreement, while for the Copenhagen Conference the 193 participating states were unable to reach a meaningful substantive agreement. In this view the solution cannot be found in the process, contents or structure of the SSP, but in the process agents.
4. Conclusion - A Political Strategic Solution The economic driving force of the neo-liberal thought (which believe that ‘‘open, competitive, and unregulated markets, liberated from all forms of state interference, represent the optimal mechanism for economic development’’, Brenner & Theodore, 2002), rides mostly (frequently only) the private interests of investors, and, without a specific programmatic address, will not be able to guarantee sustainability in the economic process (hence the contradiction and criticality in SD). The task of governments and international organizations is to target the SD horizons towards more equitable and eco-friendly process. The biggest fault in the SD process is that, usually, the agent and engine that creates and develop programmatic addresses is more deeply into liberal economic aspects than into the social one, or doesn’t responds to criteria of transparency and participation. It’s needed a shift from economic governance to politic governance, in which “Policy3” has its noblest definition. This shift indicates an increment of responsibilities and aspirations shifting from material good and profit to equity and common good (as Aristotle said, the porpoise of Policy cannot be anything but common goods). All those aspects indicate the need and the possibility, for the discourse on SD, that Policy became the guide of economic development putting it at the service of sustainability, and that doesn’t happen at the opposite. The (ethical) political government, as opposed to the economic one, has the chance to become the promoter, the interpreter and the true supporter of Sustainable-SSPs, which are able to
3
“A set of ideas or a plan of what to do in particular situations that has been agreed officially by a group of people, a business organization, a government, or a political party” <http://dictionary.cambridge.org/>; “A course or principle of action adopted or proposed by an organization or individual” <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/>; see also <http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/politica/> Vincenzo Sichera – Strategic Sustainable Development and the need of Politic Strategies – 19 Jan 2014
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bring forward the criteria for achieving SD, in particular environmental and equity criteria. In some ways, yet the definition of SSP (as the opposite of the traditional plans, which tried to solve social and environmental issue with material answers) let imagine the SSP as a politic plan, such as a complex, continuous, open and mutable way to solve the social and environmental problems. In fact strategy has in his own definition politic characteristics (look at “1”), and both Policy and SSP have their born and their strength in the interconnection with citizenship, resulting inextricably linked to each other. With the exception of some virtuous cases like Vauban, nowadays is difficult to found between governance and SSP and between governance and citizenship the connection needed to score the goals agreed, mostly for bed governance that let born the skepticism which has been discussed in Paragraph 3. Sometimes is difficult to find this connection even between citizenship and strategic spatial plans or projects, well exemplified by “Parque da Sustentabilidade” in Aveiro, Portugal, where the lack of listening to civil society in the drafting of the project has generated strong civic struggles and great discontent. In the discourse of sustainability, to overcome these obstacles of lack of connection and confrontation, and for the difficult perception of environmental risks during the life of every day, are even more required arenas and forums for civic and politic discussion to inform citizens and create policies and strategies; or, sometimes, is required even the conscious growth of responsibility needed to make civil and politic struggles for the environment. It’s now clear that the responsibility for environment is and must be shared between all civil, economic and governmental actors. Environment is a common good, that mast be protected and preserved by civil participation and politic strategies, both in plans and during everyday life, even more if one of those three actors mentioned above forgets to think about the global wellness.
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