Challenges in Sustainability | 2013 | Volume 1 | Issue 1 | Pages 29-40

DOI: 10.12924/cis2013.01010029

Research Article

The Pitfalls of Sustainability Policies: Insights into Plural

Sustainabilities

François Mancebo

International Research Center on Sustainability, Reims University, 57 bis, rue Pierre Taittinger, 51096 Reims

Cedex, France; E-Mail: fr[email protected]; Tel.: +33 612537446

Submitted: 21 December 2012 | In revised form: 30 March 2013 | Accepted: 24 May 2013 |

Published: 18 June 2013

Abstract: A lot can be learned from the numerous pitfalls of sustainable development

implementation: they outline how collective representation, short term interests and balance of

power can undermine sustainability. For instance, the usefulness of global institutions in dealing

with sustainable development is questionable as most are skewed toward the interests and

perceptions of developed countries. The notion of sustainable development itself induces a

profound cleavage between academic authors and the actors of its implementation, some of

whom confuse it with sustainable growth (which favors spatial equity), whilst the others with

environment management (which favors intergenerational equity). This polarization is a real

problem, since originally, "Our Common Future" report promotes an inclusive approach, able to

cope with both equities simultaneously. Finally, if there are obligations toward future

generations, there are also obligations toward the current generation. The key issue for

effective sustainability policies should be making them acceptable to everyone by including the

expectations of local societies and communities. As a matter of consequence, universal

solutions do not exist. They would not meet the specificities of local circumstances. The

traditional prescriptive sustainable development model should give way to flexible plural

sustainabilities. Singular, top-down, global-to-local approaches to sustainable development

should be substituted for multiple sustainabilities.

Keywords: actors strategies; environmental policies; planning; sustainability

1. Introduction

Throughout the 1990s, starting with the release of the

World Commission on Environment and Development

report [1], and even more so following the Rio

Summit, sustainable development began being widely

discussed among international organizations such as

the OECD, the European Union, and the WTO, as well

as various NGOs. Rio's Agenda 21 has seen national

and even regional and local governments enter into

under a Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

discussions on sustainability [2]. But with the ever

increasing debates on sustainable development, the

term took on a multiplicity of sometimes contradictory

meanings [3]. It became an all-purpose grab bag of

notions such as "development that is tolerable to

ecosystems", "development that spares natural re-

sources", "development that is conducive to a good

quality of life", "that permits economic growth", "that

drives employment opportunities", "that encourages

social cohesion", and so forth. The situation is now so

complex that it needs mapping [4]. This is all but

natural as it is impossible to answer the basic ques-

tion of what is sustainable and what is not because

sustainable development is not only about science,

but also about values [5], which means that various

views and interpretations are likely to thrive since

values may differ considerably between cultures and

over time [6].

However, the core idea of sustainable development

is simple enough: recognizing the finite nature of our

biophysical environment. It promotes a type of devel-

opment that meets the current needs of our societies

without compromising those of future generations.

Such a definition, however, points out three difficulties

which are developed in this paper:

• The assumption that large and small scales of

action can be treated similarly is all but evident (for

example the nesting of local agenda 21s within

Agenda 21). Some environmental constraints that

can seem absolute at the global level, often

perceived as a matter of survival, appear merely

insignificant at local or regional levels.

• Frequently sustainable development is con-

fused with sustainable growth which, moreover,

can be considered an oxymoron. The result is a

contradiction between the imperative of a slow-

down in the use of resources on the one hand and

the willingness to ensure steady economic growth

on the other. All the more so, since this

contradiction creates an ever-larger gap between

rich countries, which favor the environment and

intergenerational equity, and poor countries, which

favor economic growth for the sake of spatial

equity.

• According to the "Our common future" report,

if there are obligations toward future generations,

there are also obligations toward current

generations. All the more so, since predicting what

kind of resources these future generations will

require is a matter of speculation.

Besides, these three difficulties outline how

collective representations, perceptions, short term

interests and the balance of power between public

actors may undermine the success of sustainable

development policies—I shall call them sustainability

policies—promoted by local societies and communities.

In this article, I will use the term sustainability as a

synonym for sustainable development. Some authors

consider sustainability to refer to objectives to be

achieved, with sustainable development referring to

the processes to achieve them [7]. Others interpret

sustainable development as focusing on ameliorating

economic growth by taking into account the

environment, while sustainability focuses on the ability

of humanity to live within the environmental limits of

the planet [8]. Strictly speaking the distinction

between sustainability and sustainable development is

logical, otherwise the word development would be

entirely useless, but at the same time it "needlessly

complicates the sustainable development debate and

merely shifts the complex and vibrant interpretational

debate to the conceptual level" [9]. I agree with this

idea since the debate on the difference between

sustainable development and sustainability remains

unresolved [10]. Leaving this issue open may create a

"constructive ambiguity" [3].

2. Linking the Different Spatial and Temporal

Scales: A New Catch-22

One major issue when trying to implement sustain-

ability is the relevant scope to effective policies [11].

This issue becomes a bottleneck when considering, for

example, cross-border pollution [12]. Cross-border

pollution is classically connected with global phenom-

ena such as greenhouse gases, or gases that impact

the stratospheric ozone layer. However, it is a

widespread problem with sources which can be

precisely located. I will mention here three very

different cases. In 2005, the explosion of a chemical

plant in north-east China spilled huge amounts of

benzene—a carcinogenic substance—into the Songhua

River, which provides drinking water to millions of

people in China and Russia [13]. Russian cities

downstream had to cut their water supplies, affecting

millions of people for several weeks. This ended in a

long legal dispute between Russia and China over

responsibilities and compensation [14]. This

contamination can also be chronic: Japan is under

constant threat from acid rain caused by the sulfur

injected in the atmosphere by China's Shanxi province

industrial plants and carried across the Sea of Japan

by the wind [15]. In particularly great danger are the

famous ice trees (juhyo) along with the fragile

ecosystem that supports them on Mount Zao [16].

Sometimes cross-borders pollution ends in everlasting

conflicts without solution. So is the contamination of

the Rhine river by the French mining company Société

des Mines de Potasse d'Alsace (MDPA), which resulted

in a long-running environmental dispute [17]. The

Netherlands accused the French company of dumping

salt effluents (sulfates, ammonia, chlorides) into the

Rhine. This pollution made the Rhine water unfit for

agricultural purposes in addition to corroding water

delivery systems. Despite a 1989 order by the

Strasbourg Administrative Court in favor of the Dutch

government, things continued largely unchanged until

the MDPA site was closed by injunction of the court in

2004 [18].

The three cases show how difficult it is to delimit

relevant areas for sustainability policies—the func-

tional space of an industrial site, including its

employment base, does not usually coincide with the

area affected by the atmospheric or hydrographic

pollution that it generates, and it often does not

coincide with the territorial jurisdiction of the

institution charged with regulating such issues,

notwithstanding all the discussion about linking scales

of action. Indeed, the assumption that large and small

spatial scales can be easily drawn up raises a number

of questions. Can the principles of sustainability

[19,20] really be applied identically from the global

down to the local level, as if each level were

controlling the other in some sort of gigantic planetary

mechanism?

It is true that some global issues like climate

change or ozone depletion need global answers

embodied by top-down policies which should be

translated directly into regional policies [21]. Johan

Rockström identified a set of such critical sustain-

ability issues where perturbations resulting from

human activities present a risk of unacceptable global

environmental change [22]. But even in these cases,

if the top-down initiatives prove unenforceable be-

cause they have not been adjusted to accommodate

local or regional considerations, they will be useless in

addressing these problems, as with the mechanisms

to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and

forest degradation (REDD) [23].

Thus, it would be an error to apply policies locally

that do not fit the concerned areas, as would it be to

dictate a single approach in defining problems and

drafting solutions. In France, the utilization of sewage

sludge on agricultural fields illustrates how not taking

local concerns into account—here, perceptions of

sewage sludge as a nuisance—can lead to major

problems. While working on the periurbanization

dynamic in the Ile-de-France (Paris metropolitan

region), I realized that land application of sewage

sludge often resulted in significant neighborhood

conflicts addressing the quality of life at the local scale

when this practice was considered sustainable at the

regional scale [24]. These conflicts combined with

distrust in industrial agriculture after the BSE (Bovine

Spongiform Encephalopathy) crisis in the 1990s to

provoke a persistent and massive rejection by the

population (either neighbors or customers) of the land

application of sludge (appendix). As mentioned by

Flor Avelino, attempting to change human perceptions

and behavior through imposed technocratic ap-

proaches usually leads to unsustainable power

relations and conflicts [25]. However, it is important to

remember that for more than a century Parisian

sewage sludge was used to grow vegetables for the

capital, and that traditional family gardens have

always put human manure to good use. If sewage

sludge has no health risks, it certainly has others: the

risk to a local representative or official committed to

sewage sludge utilization of being sued; the risk to

food industry actors of being hit by a boycott, more

out of fear than due to an actual event; and, finally,

the risk of scapegoating faced by a farmer who uses

sludge on his fields in an environment where farming

practices are often called into question.

The preceding cases highlight the difficulties

involved in drawing up different scales of action;

neither general, normative measures nor strictly local

ones that undermine the scope of action can

contribute to a solution. Such cases point to the

explosion in Northern societies of a climate where

opinion dictates its choices on a purely emotional or

self-interested basis, a sort of generalized NIMBY or

Not In My Backyard atmosphere, in which local

residents are opposed to the roll out or extension of

public goods such as industrial sites, waste disposal

facilities, communication lines, refugee processing

centers, etc. Firstly, NIMBY opposition gives

concerned inhabitants a unified and coherent political

grouping, clustered around so-called common

interests—they form de facto actor coalitions [26]. But

this type of action usually evolves quickly to take on

different forms, which differ according to what their

activists consider to be the key issue worth defending;

the result is different pressure groups finally emerging

and opposing each other. They have contradictory

interests, which is all but normal when considering

sustainability transition, which requires synergetic but

also antagonistic power dynamics between moderate

and radical groups of actors [25]. But instead of

developing an inclusive approach by focusing effort on

dialog between, and within, all these different groups,

public authorities—be they local, regional or national

—and project promoters more than often fuel the

conflict between the different pressure groups by

choosing only a few interlocutors among them whilst

ignoring the others. Naturally, when this type of

situation occurs, tension grows between the different

pressure groups and the situation rapidly becomes

chaotic, such that everything is finally disrupted—not

just the project itself, but also daily life in the local

communities where the project is intended to be put

in place. Living conditions worsen rapidly for

inhabitants, until a threshold of acceptability is

crossed, whereupon public authorities and project

promoters can impose just about any project, no

matter how dubious, justifying it through exceptional

circumstances (sometimes even claiming a state of

emergency). Can such an attitude be considered a

deliberate strategy on the part of the project

stakeholders? To quote Maarten Hajer, "policies are

not only designed to solve problems, problems also

have to be designed to be able to create policies"

[27]. Pressure groups usually oppose each other

because the narratives that they develop about their

environment, and specifically about "quality of life"

and "good environment", are different. They oppose

each other on the basis of "essentially fragmented

and contradictory statements", to quote Hajer again

[27]. Thus, environmental conflict occurs primarily

over the interpretation of so-called environmental

problems. As the different pressure groups realize that

they need one another to craft effective political

agreements, these conflicts should normally give way

to the formulation of a common narrative and

objectives [28]. But social power relations have a

delicate balance and need time to grow their sources

of trust and legitimacy. This evolution never happens

when the stakeholders (mainly local authorities and

project promoters) act in such a way as to block the

process at its conflictual phase.

At this point, the difficulties in drawing up the

scales of action as well as the resulting problems, for

instance NIMBY movements, highlight the importance

of taking imported sustainability into account as an

essential component for sustainability policies. David

Pearce speaks of imported sustainability when an area

guarantees its sustainability by transferring its cost

onto other areas; for example by exporting pollution

or waste, exporting activities that pollute, or by

purchasing natural resources at artificially low prices

[29]. This area meets the needs of its population

while appearing, on the face of it, to meet the general

criteria of sustainability. Internal sustainability is thus

achieved through the export of undesired products or

impacts, to the detriment of the area's external

sustainability [30]. Thus, policies aiming at the

realization of sustainable development must be

conceived on areas large enough to minimize

imported sustainability from outside areas [2,22].

Though less apparent, difficulties also concern

temporal scales. Just as inequalities and injustices

may arise from one area to another, from one

community to another within the same area and from

one person to another within the same community,

they can be handed down to from one generation to

the next. For instance, it seems easy to differentiate

between renewable and non-renewable resources,

based on man's and society's interactions, destructive

or not, with the environmental resources that are

accessible to him. However, there is a certain gray

area, in that, generally speaking, a renewable re-

source is a resource that is utilized less rapidly than its

natural capacity for regeneration or regrowth. But

how are we to estimate this capacity? In many cases,

the rate of renewability of a resource is difficult to

determine. Forest resources are a good example, with

renewability estimates varying greatly depending on

whether one is concerned primarily with biodiversity,

lumber production, landscape dynamics or soil quality

[30]. Furthermore, the notion of "non-renewability"

falsely suggests an irreversible process. Irreversibility

thus applies only to the scale of human history or that

of future generations. It should also be noted that

man can produce "non-renewable" resources, for

example soils that can take thousands of years to

form when left to nature [32].

3. Resources, Growth and Development:

Delicate Balances and Complex Trade-Offs

Our actions take place within a vast system of bio-

physical networks. These actions generate a specific

discourse, produced by social practices and productive

of social practices. This can be considered a "specific

ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorizations that

are produced, reproduced, and transformed in a

particular set of practices and through which meaning

is given to physical and social realities" [27]. In this

sense, this discourse structures the environment, or

the "nature", of a society. These are both social

constructs and, as such, are often exploited by

different policy-makers in an attempt to create their

own definition of the real world to cover incomplete

arguments and biases [33]. So, the environment is

embedded in societies. The human being builds a

representation of the ecosystems he lives in, and calls

it "the environment", he makes of its resources taking

(air, water, minerals), inputting (pollution) and altering

(housing, transport) [17]. The environment more-or-

less represents a noisy neighborhood to which we

must adapt. Depending on the moment in a societies'

history, not all the "items" present in ecosystems are

necessarily considered resources. The knowledge we

have of our environment changes continually: nature

in medieval times was not the same as it is today, if

only because the dynamics of the atmosphere and

genetics were not well understood. This, of course,

raises the crucial issue for sustainable development:

what is a resource?

A resource cannot be considered as such by its

mere presence. Societies must also possess the

knowledge required to make use of it. Coal for

example only acquired value as a resource once its

combustible properties were discovered and

techniques for its use were developed. Prior to this,

coal had only negligible value. In addition, inventories

of resources change over time. New practices or new

relationships to the environment give rise to new

resources while others disappear or move toward

obsolescence. Besides, expressions such as "repairing

nature", "restoring nature", "remediating nature" or even

"recreating nature", are very ambiguous. Thus, when

some of Spain's political ecologists—for example the

Ecologistas en Acción de Tierras de Granadilla [34]—

speak of "restoring" Mediterranean nature, to which

Mediterranean nature are they referring? The climacic

deciduous forest that covered Spain ten thousand

years ago? The sparse open forest of green oaks,

cork-oaks and carob trees of antiquity? Or the

garrigas (scrublands) of recent centuries, which in fact

represent an advanced stage of forest degradation

from an ecosystemic point of view? In fact, it is

usually the garrigas [35,36]. This is not illogical, if we

consider that nature is essentially a social construct

and there is nothing like a unique ideal biophysical

type. But precisely because it is a social construct, the

garrigas that the Ecologistas en Acción value so much

tell us a lot about their cultural and historical

references as well as their vision of Spain today.

Garrigas are the recent past of the country so there is

nostalgia in such a choice, besides, garrigas are

associated in the Spanish collective memory with the

civil war—Bunuel's movies and media coverage of the

war show scrublands— and the bull silhouette of the

Spanish brandy Osborne dominating arid landscapes

[37,38]. The point is this: were the promoters or the

garrigas option conscious of the history they valued

indirectly? Probably not.

Besides, what sense does it make to conserve

resources for future generations, when we cannot

know which resources they will require? Firstly, when

asking this question, which generations are we

considering? One could argue that everybody thinks

spontaneously of his "own" future generations—i.e.

those closest to him, both socially and culturally—and

not about humanity in its entirety, which remains a

rather vague reference. Similarly, at what time horizon

does one cease to be interested in the future? On this

issue, there is likely a wide divergence of opinion

amongst people in different regions of the world; the

future is not perceived in the same way when life

expectancy is thirty-five as when it is eighty-five,

when basic food and health needs are met and when

they are not. In addition to the bizarre idea of putting

ourselves in the place of future generations to decide

on their best interest, sustainable development

glosses over the fact that human history, rather than

being a continuous process, alternates between

relatively stable periods and sudden ruptures that are

favorable to development and that cannot be

foreseen. Considering that resources vary over time, is

our concern for future generations a good enough

guide for adapting our productive activities so as to

make them less harmful to the environment?

More importantly, the aporia created by trying to

determine which resources will be required by absent

third parties in an uncertain future results in a

theoretical bottleneck when designing sustainability

policies. It leads to two definitely divergent views on

sustainability—one "weak", and one "strong" [39].

Proponents of "weak" sustainability consider

manufactured capital capable of being completely

replacing natural capital, with technology answering

the environmental challenges arising from the

production of goods and services: "the world can, in

effect, get along without natural resources, so

exhaustion is just an event, not a catastrophe" [40].

Proponents of "strong" sustainability denounce this

point of view. They consider manufactured capital

incapable of perfectly replacing natural capital,

especially some global processes vital to human

existence such as the climate or the ozone layer

[41,42]. In this perspective, it is crucial to limit the

qualitative and quantitative degradation of natural

capital by diminishing the quantities of material and

energy that are extracted from the biosphere and

altered [43]. All the more, since there are critical

thresholds at which tiny perturbations may irreversibly

transform the state of the Earth system once what

Lenton calls "tipping elements" cross them. As far as

climate change is concerned, monsoon systems, jet

streams, coral mega-reefs, tropical rainforests maybe

considered "tipping elements" [44].

The Brundtland report is no help in determining the

relation between these two sustainabilities. Of course,

it points out that the satisfaction of human aspirations

should "not endanger the natural systems that

support life on Earth: the atmosphere, the waters, the

soils, and the living beings…It is part of our moral

obligation to other living beings and future

generations" [1]. But, simultaneously it promotes a

more rapid economic growth in order to overcome

poverty, in reference to the "trickle-down theory"

which affirms that economic growth is eventually of

benefit to everybody and as such reduces poverty

[45]. Such a position is ambiguous. It creates

confusion on what the substance of sustainable

development is, giving room to the divergence

between "weak" and "strong" sustainability. Indeed

according to Herman Daly, current sustainable

development policies seek to correct a mode of

development often confused with a mode of growth.

As such, the term is oxymoronic as traditional

economic growth is clearly unsustainable since it

needs more and more resources and produces more

and more waste and pollution [46]. Of course, these

last years, there have been strenuous attempts to

decouple economic growth from material consumption

and, for example, to foster recycling channels for

material resources [47]. But still, such an approach

can be considered based on "weak" sustainability

which, according to Rees, turns out to be a "morally

bankrupt solution" to poverty [48]. This is not

surprising, given that growth has been the mantra of

western societies since WWII, stemming from the

simplistic vision that increased production by means

of industrialization automatically increases mankind's

wellbeing. This was true for post-war Europe's

devastated economies, at a time when 20th century

industrialization was at its peak. It is no longer true in

the 21st century, nor for the rest of the world. Yet this

belief persists and has taken on a parasitic role in all

reflections on sustainability. The Maastricht Treaty

goes so far as to use the term "sustainable growth" as

a synonym for "sustainable development" [49], so

does a recent report from the OECD which drew

together green growth and sustainable development

policies [50].

Sustainable development can also be considered an

oxymoron in that the term "sustainable development"

itself conceals a fundamental contradiction. Etymo-

logically, the word development implies structural

change, be it in embryo development, the process of

converting land to a new purpose, the qualitative

changes of economic development, or more generally

the transition to a new stage in a new situation. But

sustainable means the exact opposite—among the

many synonyms of the verb "to sustain", we find "to

bear", "to continue", "to maintain", "to preserve", "to

perpetuate". As such, sustainable development could

be understood as "sustained change"—a change that

can last forever—which would make it meaningless

[51]. Of course, this oxymoron is purely semantic. But

it introduces an apparent and original flaw in

sustainable development. It induces a recurring

question that features prominently in large sectors of

academic works on sustainable development, namely,

since the words "development" and "sustainable" are

so opposed, what is the respective weight of each in

the complex notion of sustainable development?

Historically, according to Waas, "in addition to its

environmental roots the concept draws on the

experience of several decades of development efforts"

[9]. Indeed, some authors consider sustainable devel-

opment to be the successor of traditional develop-

ment, to which an important environmental dimension

was added in 1987, with the WCED report [52]. Thus,

human needs, quality of life and increases in

everyone's capabilities and wellbeing are the principal

issues of sustainable development [53]: As mentioned

in Our Common Future: "Poverty…is an evil in itself"

[1]. Finally, since sustainable development is a social

construct, what it means depends entirely on how the

people who define it—whoever they are—see the

world they want to live in [6,54]. They make choices

based on the values they decide to maintain or, more

precisely, to sustain. Recently, Bill Hopwood drew up a

system of classification and mapping of different

trends of people's thought on sustainable

development (status quo, reform, transformation)

linked to their political and policy frameworks and to

their attitudes toward change [4]. But all these trends

have a point in common: when under-development

threatens the environment and human needs, more

development is required; but when development

becomes an equal threat, more of the same kind of

development is not desired [3].

4. Combining Spatial and Intergenerational

Equity: From Sustainability to Place-Based

Sustainabilities

In a general sense and in the first place, sustainable

development is concerned with quality of life, which is

about the place of every person in a complex society,

about lifestyles and social ties, and not just with

material consumption. As such, it seeks to promote a

conscious co-evolution between human societies and

the ecosystems within which they are embedded. For

this reason, sustainable development should be

considered a process and not an end state [55]; a

process which considers the question of "how

decisions are made": It is "not about mobilising

resources to realise a pre-determined societal order.

Rather, it is about adjusting the structures that

regulate societal interactions so that they can

encourage positive developmental adaptation" [56].

Therefore, the issue of determining what form of

governance is the most effective for actions of

sustainable development, is at the heart of sustai-

nability policies. Despite extensive literature on

governance for sustainability, "many of its funda-

mental elements remain unclear in both theory and

practice" [57]. Indeed, the term governance, in itself,

has very different meanings [58,59]. As far as

sustainable development is concerned, and in a very

general sense, governance is not only about the

design and implementation of government policies,

but also about the collective process of debate and

decision through democratic interactions to ensure

that these policies proceed along a sustainable path.

It means that the effectiveness of sustainability

policies is largely dependent on their acceptability and

collective suitability [60]. Thus, the existing social

and cultural fabric should not be forgotten [31]. It is,

therefore, important to define, on the global scale,

what a good environment is for the communities

involved, i.e. one in which the improvement of

environmental conditions stricto sensu (water quality,

air, biodiversity, prudent use of resources, land and

energy, etc.) leads to improved living conditions. To

do so, it seems logical to put non-market institutions,

local communities and individuals able to form self-

determined user associations together as governance

actors—alongside traditional public actors and

organizations— to design sustainability policies. This is

what Elinor Ostrom demonstrated earlier, when she

proved, twenty years ago, that user communities can

manage the commons more efficiently than the

market or institutional structures, provided that these

communities are legally empowered to exclude "free

riders" [61,62].

Unfortunately, more than often, the organizations

and traditional public actors of sustainable develop-

ment are inclined to push aside this type of gover-

nance—complex and difficult to implement—to replace

it with pseudo-governance practices proposing ready-

made grids and rigid ready-made policies, in contempt

of local realities. Such a bias is not confined to local

authorities fostering their interests, nor to nations

with rigid administrations. In fact there is a strong

temptation on the part of international organizations

to use normative control measures when dealing with

global issues. These organizations produce a profu-

sion of "good practices" furthering the interests of one

actor or another. For instance, the World Bank directly

supported sustainable development projects in poor

countries by allocating funds that require the

borrowing country to follow directives unilaterally

issued by the World Bank [63]. But the priorities of

the World Bank were very different from those of the

populations. Of the six requirements imposed by the

World Bank, two are quite revealing: "encouraging

private business development" and "promoting

reforms to create a stable macroeconomic environ-

ment, to facilitate investment and long-term planning"

[64]. On the surface, the intention seems

praiseworthy enough, considering that many

requesting countries are plagued with widespread

patronage. In the recent past, this approach has had

many side effects: such requirements were not being

suitably adapted to the local conditions and often

resulted in disastrous, economic, social and

environmental consequences [65]. One participant at

a sustainable development conference summed it up

thus: "A debate on standards is unavoidable. What

sense do standards imposed by the North make, when

they care more about micrograms of nitrates in water

than about millions of salmonella germs" [66]. This

pernicious effect fuels criticism that sustainable

development reflects the unilateral insistence of elite

Northern countries on concerns like global warming,

population growth, species extinction and free market

[67]. At the same time, it leads emerging and poor

countries to give a veneer of sustainability to their

actions, even when unrelated to their real objectives.

Sustainability, thus, loses all credibility in the eyes of

the local authorities, who write them off as mere

whims of the rich nations. Once initiated into the

game, they soon get busy maneuvering the imposed

sustainable development objectives. Many countries

who are unable to manage their resources sustainably

will, for example, give much lip service to the themes

of poverty and inequalities. They will try so as to

legitimize policies which continue to destroy resources

or ecosystems. Poverty may even become a resource

when it allows access to funds aimed at restoring

spatial equity. Obviously, there is need for a sound

debate on the normative and practical tensions

resulting from the juxtaposition of sustainable

development and governance.

On the local scale, these rigid policies also tend to

reduce sustainability to its technical dimensions,

considering only biophysical, energetic, or ecosystem

constraints, without considering any more the social

side-effects [68]. For example, with the rising concern

on climate change, "exemplary" buildings and devices

—all technical solutions—are often favored to the

detriment of more holistic approaches, such as active

land management and transformation of the urban

fabric (differential densification, restructuring urban

cores, etc.). To promote "green" buildings, elected

officials accept paying extra charges of up to 20% of

the original costs to obtain a Low-Energy label. They

are less interested in the urban design, which is more

important to creating a real sustainable city but, of

course, harder to implement and less profitable as an

electoral issue, as in the Clichy-Batignolles urban

project, in Paris [69]. Working within the IRCS

(International Research Center on Sustainability) at

Rheims University on an update of planning practice

and theory with regard to sustainability and social

justice, I realized that technical issues (such as

resource conservation or reduction of greenhouse

gases emissions) siphoned money away from other

priorities and public and private actors' attention, in

accordance with the earlier observations of Elizabeth

Burton in similar situations [70]. Since the end of the

1990s, the European Union has financed climate and

energy initiatives mainly when sustainability is

addressed [71]. Prioritizing this climate topic in local

and regional public policies—as in Climate Change

Actions Plans—induces very localized eco-technical

solutions: energetic autonomy of agglomerations with

the development of local renewable energy sources,

insulation of buildings, passive houses and so on

[72,73]. But a zero energy housing development does

not necessarily help in creating a sustainable

neighborhood. A crucial issue is forgotten here: the

fact that sustainable development is also about

managing social change.

A larger and larger gap is growing between

intergenerational equity (preservation of the resources

and protection of the planet for the generations to

come, which often goes with more technical

approaches) and spatial equity (environmental justice,

living conditions). These were not the original

intentions of Our Common Future report, which

features sustainable development in its ability to cope

simultaneously with both spatial equity and

intergenerational equity. When the United Nations

assigned the writing of a report to the World

Commission on Environment and Development

(WCED), its mission statement mentioned explicitly

that its objectives were how to reduce inequality and

poverty without damaging the environment granted to

the future generations [1]. Indeed, there is a general

equity principle, which we could also call justice or

fairness, at the heart of sustainable development [74].

In fact, there are many equities. It is possible to tailor

the general principle by addressing different questions

[75]. Academic authors usually differentiate between

intergenerational equity, spatial equity—which

includes intragenerational equity and geographical

equity, procedural equity and, finally, interspecific

equity [76]. But in fact, the dyad of intergenerational

equity and spatial equity is the element that most

strongly influences sustainability policies, especially by

urging for a clearer distinction between short-term

(spatial equity) and long-term (intergenerational

equity). Spatial equity refers mainly to the short term

and the right for present generations to meet their

needs and aspirations, and to have a decent quality of

life. It finally has a lot to do with the term

"development" in "sustainable development" and with

social justice. Intergenerational equity, on its side,

refers mainly to the long term, to the right for future

generations to live on a healthy planet which means

to keep our economic activities within the

environmental limits of the Earth. Fundamentally, it

relates to the term "sustainable" in "sustainable

development". Officially, of course, sustainable

development is an integrative notion that should

harmoniously unify development objectives with

environmental objectives [77]. But, it is evident that

these two equities are antagonistic notions, which cut

across the antagonism between weak and strong

sustainability seen above in this article: trade-offs are

often necessary, which, currently, usually favor

intergenerational equity, suggesting sacrifices among

the general sustainability objectives. Besides, the

environment is only one of the 3 "pillars" of

sustainable development together with social and

economic aspects. The idea of three separate and

connecting pillars, leads to the erroneous impression

that each one is, in part, independent of the others.

But humanity is completely dependent on its

environment, and the environment is completely

transformed by the economy and the societies

existing within it, and the resources used by the

economy all come from the environment or the

societies themselves, and so on [77]. Therefore the

perception of the three "pillars" is certainly the least

appropriate in depicting sustainable development;

curiously it is the most popular [78].

5. Conclusions

There are numerous ongoing debates about sustain-

able development. Though the theoretical corpus on

sustainable development is already considerable, it is

constantly evolving and presents many internal

contradictions. This is due, in large part, to its wide

dissemination through various domains and sectors:

political, administrative, activist, corporate, etc. As a

consequence, different authors use the same words to

describe sometimes very conflicting perspectives,

goals and methods about how to foster transition to

sustainability. They introduce their own cultural,

scientific, political and ideological backgrounds into

the debates. The success of sustainability policies is

often compromised by poor coordination between

different decision levels (states, regions, cities, local

governments), each one with its own priorities and its

own strategic position. In this paper, it has been

shown that the well-known adage that sustainability

should be "thought globally and acted locally" is very

difficult to implement. Every person and community

living has various relationships based on various

territorial scales. Implementing sustainable

development leads to permanent dilemmas, which

generate radically different policies depending on the

balance between equities.

So, there is no such thing as a single unified

conception of sustainable development, and a key

factor is explaining why it is so difficult to implement

effective sustainability policies: around the world,

existing political, cultural and economic contexts, as

well as existing environmental policies, interfere with

sustainability initiatives to create very complex

situations [79]. Finally, since the multiple antagonistic

views on sustainability cannot be reconciled, no single

approach should be seen as correct. As a matter of

consequence, there is no such thing as sustainability,

there are only sustainabilities. Universal solutions do

not exist and cannot meet the specificities of local

contexts, anyway. Thus, traditional singular, top-down,

global-to-local approaches to the sustainable devel-

opment model should be substituted by multiple

sustainabilities.

The hotchpotch of undifferentiated sustainability

suddenly makes sense when you consider each

initiative from a local perspective. Thus, local

sustainability policies, rather than blindly observing

global injunctions and rigid rules, should adapt

themselves to local interests, local cultures and

preceding codes or policies. Eventually, these local

issues will often antagonize, as mentioned in this

paper with cross-border pollution or imported

sustainability conflicts. In reality, instead of focusing

on objectives to be achieved, sustainability policies do

make much more sense if considered as a process

where different and even divergent views can be

expressed and confronted. This position—an open one

—acknowledges sustainable development as a political

issue and gives insight into how to successfully foster

transition to sustainability, it calls for a comprehensive

approach that considers all human factors, such as

collective representations, perceptions and power

relationships.

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Appendix: Land Application of Sewage Sludge

in France: Conflicts and Mistrust

In the 1970s, sewage sludge utilization in agriculture

was a confidential and mutually beneficial arrange-

ment between sewage treatment plants and farmers.

Many authors stress the double advantage of

transforming urban waste into an agricultural resource

for nearby rural communities [80]. This practice

gradually came to be organized under the auspices of

the French Agency for Environment and Energy

Management (ADEME) and the Permanent Assembly

of the Chamber of Agriculture (APCA) as a

sustainability policy initiative [81]. In 1986, the

Council of Europe issued a directive to clarify the

status of sewage sludge—one difficulty stemmed from

its dual status as both waste and fertilizer—and the

requirements for its utilization, as well as to provide

health and environmental guidelines [82]. The French

Ministry of the Environment transposed it into a

national decree in 1988.

In the 1990s, sewage sludge production increased

steadily as a result of both the incentive of the decree

and stricter regulations on the treatment of waste

water, sewage sludge use on agricultural lands

increased sharply, giving rise to a high incidence of

odor nuisances [83]. In the Paris regions, non-

farmering neighbors began to protest: opposition

movements appeared that antagonized local periurban

communities [24]. Some land owners threatened to

stop renting their properties for farming purposes,

claiming that sewage sludge utilization would

negatively impact their property value [84].

At the same time, certain sectors of the food

industry, in particular food distributors, began taking

positions to limit, or even forbid sewage sludge

utilization. Indeed, at the beginning of the 1990s, the

BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) crisis, in

Europe also named the "mad cow" crisis, surged [86].

Linked to the incorporation of meat and bone meal in

cattle feed, it lent itself to the idea that incorporating

any non-traditional components into the food chain

presents a health risk [87]. Confusion was such that

there were even rumors that sewage sludge was

utilized in animal feed, instead of animal meal from

meat rendering facilities. Finally, the financial benefits

of sewage sludge utilization, instead of constituting a

positive argument, further increased distrust among

the public, who perceive health matters and economic

matters as systematically opposed [88].

Placed under considerable pressure, some farmers

then began to refuse sewage sludge. In the Paris

region, many authors addressed these conflicts

between different local actors (farmers, non-farmers

inhabitants, companies, local authorities, etc.)

concerning the utilization of sewage sludge on fields,

but no practical negociation tool to cope with this

problem emerged [89].

Though, alternative disposal means for sewage

sludge were rarely discussed by the opponents of

agricultural utilization, who tended to frame the

debate in simplistic "city vs. country" terms. These

opponents, principally urban dwellers, tended not to

see themselves as immediately concerned by the

waste elimination problem. Sooner or later though

they will have to come to terms with the fact that they

generate the bulk of the waste and that if nothing is

done they might one day "find themselves submerged

in it" as expressed by an inhabitant of the village of

Champlan, near Paris, during a study addressing the

acceptability of this "nuisance" [89].