Talk:Sustainable development

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Vanperry.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 January 2019 and 24 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cgao29.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:31, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 October 2020 and 12 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Vliu4399. Peer reviewers: Embis10, Xiaoshi He.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:31, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Should the energy section be an extract?

If so what do you think should be duplicated here from sustainable energy?

(By the way Meganlahn (talk · contribs) glad to see you have picked this as one of the articles for your student project - it is important and gets thousands of views every day but looks tough (to me anyway) so if you need help please ask) Chidgk1 (talk) 16:21, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, good idea about the excerpt, I have done that now. Should the same be done for many of the other sections, e.g. for sustainable transport? The article overall is quite a mess, will need a lot of work! EMsmile (talk) 12:59, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

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• Sugarcane Deforestation, Bolivia, 2016-06-15 by Planet Labs.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:12, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Missing information on water/sustainable development?

To those of you watching/editing this page: Do you feel that a section on Water as it relates to sustainable development is missing? I am starting a Wikiedu project with my students in August and would be happy help add this section, if you feel it belongs here. Let me know. Chemkatz (talk) 20:48, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi Chemkatz, happy to hear that you have an interest in this article. It needs a lot of work... I find that with a lot of student assignments, the focus is on adding new content to articles, rather than improving/rearranging/restructuring what's already there. I am involved in a project to improve 150 Wikipedia articles related to the Sustainable Development Goals, see here. This article is one of them. As part of that we have scored this article, using 10 parameters. I can make the detailed scores available to you if you like. It scored 54 out of 100 for the entire article, and 32 out of 100 for the lead. Those are pretty low scores compared to the other articles. For example the parameters on readability and comprehensiveness were scored low. - With regards to water, it depends what you have in mind. I see that the word "water" already appears 18 times in the article. So the first step might be to see if some of those sentences ought to be moved to a section on water. Secondly, you should look at which related articles you could link with (rather than creating content that is perhaps already available in those related articles). One article that is closely related is the one on SDG 6. Then there is also the one on WASH and Water issues in developing countries. Be careful that your students don't duplicate existing content and start writing things from scratch rather than better utilising content that is already there, but spread across several articles. I always say to novices: "think of Wikipedia as a web of information; the different articles should fit together like puzzle pieces." - Happy to discuss and brainstorm further with you. EMsmile (talk) 23:41, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

I would like to echo what EMsmile says: this article would benefit from getting a better structure based on overview sources, for instance (the index of) books that cover the entirety of sustainable development. If those overview sources have a section or subsection on water, we can copy that structure and collect information about water or add if necessary. FemkeMilene (talk) 09:49, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

HiEMsmile and FemkeMilene Thank you for taking the time to respond. I don't plan on having my students add a lot of new content. I'd prefer that they improve already existing articles; however, if I have students who feel compelled to try to add new content, I'm not going to discourage them (the training suggests they should Be Bold!). After going through the trainings myself, I feel confident that if my students make inappropriate improvements, either myself or an experienced Wikieditor will remove what they write. I hope this project will help my students improve their (science) information literacy using their understanding of our course content (sustainability/chemistry/Water), and my plan is to use student-selected Wikipedia articles for their training process (perhaps this one, for example), but use one target article, Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment, for the entire class to improve as the goal for the semester-long project. The pandemic article is good but needs some work, specifically with respect to water quality. Since we're 18 months into the pandemic, there's finally available reliable resources regarding how water quality has been impacted. But since, as you mentioned, water is also SDG 6, when I stumbled on this page, it felt like water was missing. If one of my students stumbles on this page, I will suggest they read this talk page to get a feel for the interconnectedness (web) of the topics. Thanks for your great suggestions. --Chemkatz (talk) 17:46, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Summary of what scholars have learned about sustainable development - the 6 capacities

I have been corresponding with some academics that have summarized the latest thinking surrounding sustainable development. Here is a summary of their findings. I suggest we put this in near the beginning of the article. Any comments would be appreciated.

Summary of what scholars have learned about sustainable development Source: Clark, William C., and Alicia G. Harley. 2020. “Sustainability Science: Toward a Synthesis.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 45 (1): 331–86. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-012420-043621.

1. The goals of sustainable development have been debated through a multi-decade deliberative process spanning the globe. The particular constituents of the goals that are given the most weight vary across groups, places, and times. But a widely shared common vision has emerged focused on equitable improvements in human well-being within and across generations.
2. The ultimate foundations or determinants of sustainable development are the suite of natural and anthropogenic resources on which people draw to produce the goods and services that are consumed to create well-being. Development paths that deplete the ability of the resource base to generate well-being are not sustainable.
3. Interactions between nature and society in the Anthropocene constitute a globally interconnected, complex adaptive system in which heterogeneity, nonlinear relationships, innovation, and power play formative roles.
4. The complex adaptive dynamics of the Anthropocene give rise to a system that is inherently unpredictable and subject to deep uncertainty. Decisive collective action is nonetheless essential to confront the sustainability crisis. Needed are strong, polycentric, and reflexive strategies capable of advancing collaborative action agendas at all scales of social organization, even while continuously reexamining their own core commitments.
5. Such strategies for the pursuit of sustainability can be strengthened by fostering a set of six essential capacities: i) the capacity to measure sustainable development; ii) the capacity to promote equity; iii) the capacity to adapt to shocks and surprises; iv) the capacity to transform the system onto more sustainable development pathways; v) the capacity to link knowledge with action; vi) the capacity to devise governance arrangements that allow people to work together in exercising the other capacities.
6. The advantage of focusing sustainability efforts on the six capacities identified here is that society has already built a significant understanding of how to foster each of them. Even as we conduct further research and experimentation to strengthen and integrate these six capacities, they can be put into action today by diverse actors across levels and between action situations to support the pursuit of a more just and sustainable world. ASRASR (talk) 09:24, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

So those six points are copied from the summary section of the paper by William Clark (2020). As it's an open access paper there is no problem with copyright. However, I feel that the way it is written is not really suitable for layperson, it's more for academics. So we might have to simplify some of the language? Personally, I don't understand most of the points myself (might have to read the full paper first)... Also would we be giving it too much weight if we copied such a big chunk from one particular paper? Furthermore, I think we should generally use standard section headings. A section heading of "Summary of what scholars have learned about sustainable development" as a Level-1 heading would not feel right, maybe as a Level-2 heading but then what would the Level-1 heading be? Also, does this content overlap or contradict content that is elsewhere in this article? If so, then it should be weaved in well to provide a logical flow. EMsmile (talk) 14:41, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

References

Hi EMsmile Actually as an alternative, the Clark and Harley paper has an excellent graphic which summarizes the 6 capacities. This would be a useful addition to the article and it is quite straight forward to understand as well. I have now registered the graphic with WM Commons.

Capacities for sustainable development

ASRASR (talk) 16:17, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

That's a good idea to use graphics from their open access paper. In addition, perhaps we could simplify some of those bullet points so that lay persons can understand them. EMsmile (talk) 14:16, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

The graphic is obfuscation and offers no clarity for stewardship. It is the result of publish or perish and should stay in the arena of academic discourse. The three R's "reduce reuse recycle" are far better for GA. TheKevlar (talk) 09:38, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Moved content to sub-articles and replaced with excerpts

I have just moved quite a bit of content to sub-articles and replaced that text with excerpts. I did this because I felt this article veered too much into related sub-articles rather than staying on topic. There was also a fair bit of essay like material which might have been added during student assignments. There is probably still scope to take this further, e.g. some of the content on economics deviates too much from the main topic, I think. By trimming down the article further we can make it more focused and less waffly in places. EMsmile (talk) 04:49, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

I have continued with the culling exercise today, based on the same reasoning that I provided in September last year. Where possible, I would move content to sub-articles but in many cases, the material was outdated and poorly sourced so I couldn't move it to sub-articles without reducing their quality. In those cases, I deleted those text blocks altogether. EMsmile (talk) 21:46, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

How to remove overlap with sustainability?

There is a lot of overlap with the article on sustainability, for example in the history section but also in the description of the three dimensions. I've recently revamped the sustainability quite a lot and would now like to streamline it with this one. It is actually very difficult to distinguish "sustainability" from "sustainable development". Could we agree that the "mother article" is the one on "sustainability"? Meaning that "sustainable development" would be regarded as a "sub-article"? I think some content should be moved from here to "sustainability". Do we have a clear position to guide us so that we know which content belongs here and which belongs there? Are there any publications that could help in that regard? EMsmile (talk) 15:53, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with User EMsmile talk to have [sustainability] as the main article. Sustainable development accentuates a little more the development aspect, of course. However, in my view, it does not add any particular content. This understanding is implicitly also present in the WCED /Brundtland commission's report: Here are a few examples:

Part I. Common Concerns, 1. A Threatened Future, I. Symptoms and Causes: "51. No single blueprint of sustainability will be found, as economic and social systems and ecological conditions differ widely among countries. Each nation will have to work out its own concrete policy implications. Yet irrespective of these differences, sustainable development should be seen as a global objective." No blueprint of sustainability, but sustainable development is a global objective.

Similar throughout the report. Here are a few more places: e.g. chapter 2, IV: "2. Thus the goals of economic and social development must be defined in terms of sustainability in all countries - developed or developing, market-oriented or centrally planned" In section "1.2 Lending for Sustainable Development" the report writes: "35. The major priority is for sustainability considerations to be diffused throughout the work of international financial institutions." Again, "48. The sustainability of development is intimately linked to the dynamics of population growth." ()

Furthermore, despite the discussion on potential shortcomings of the Brundtland definition (as will be /is being discussed in 1.4 Critique and Variations), this definition has certainly become the most widely used.

Finally, from a practical and pragmatic viewpoint, one could argue that Sustainability has become such a widely used concept that most people will rather look for Sustainability instead of Sustainable development.

Bottom line: I would see Sustainability as main article and merge Sustainable Development with this one, adding a few comments as just explained.

Seemountain (talk) 09:07, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't go as far as merging the two articles, at least not yet. For now, I think we should move content from sustainable development to "sustainability", therefore shrinking down "sustainable development" to its essentials. I think in current usage the two terms are not used interchangeably but for different purposes by different people/stakeholders. Maybe we need to focus on that. We could also be guided by looking at which other Wikipedia articles link to here. You can see that by clicking "what links here" on the left of the article (scroll down a little). - Compare also with the article Third World which we decided to keep - as a historical term - even though it is now replaced with developing countries. In the article we explain how it was used, by whom, and why. The example is not directly comparable but I just thought it's good to point out that even terms that are "outdated" might still have their own Wikipedia articles. EMsmile (talk) 11:46, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I've just put into Google "what is the difference between sustainability and sustainable development?" and found all sorts of explanations. This one by UNESCO comes out on top and is short: https://en.unesco.org/themes/education-sustainable-development/what-is-esd/sd#:~:text=Sustainability%20is%20often%20thought%20of,research%20and%20technology%20transfer%2C%20education "One might ask, what is the difference between sustainable development and sustainability? Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal (i.e. a more sustainable world), while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it (e.g. sustainable agriculture and forestry, sustainable production and consumption, good government, research and technology transfer, education and training, etc.)." What does that mean now with regards to our two Wikipedia articles?EMsmile (talk) 18:06, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Agree that merging the two articles is not a good idea. At this point when sustainable development has finally been put into action around the world with the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the world needs a good article called "sustainable development". Agree that sustainability should be the mother concept and SD an implementation cc. EMsmile Seemountain ASRASR (talk) 01:39, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

If we decide to keep the two articles as separate articles then let's figure out which content should go where. If SD is the implementation of S then everything about implementation and barriers should be in the SD article? Currently the table of content for sustainability looks like this (with my suggestions for change shown below):

1Definitions and common use
1.1History
1.2Policy concept
1.3Contemporary use (three dimensions)
1.4Critique
1.5Variations
2Related concepts
2.1Planetary boundaries
2.2Ecological footprint and carrying capacity
2.3Sustainable development
3Dimensions of sustainability
3.1Environmental dimension
3.2Economic dimension
3.3Social dimension
4Barriers to sustainability --> move to sustainable development?
5Pathways to achieving more sustainability --> move to sustainable development?
5.1Scales
5.2Modifying affluence, population and technology
5.3Management of human consumption and impacts
5.4Approaches of different stakeholders
5.5Measurement

The one on sustainable development looks like this:

1Definition
2Development of the concept --> move some of this to sustainability?
2.1Origins
2.2Reception
2.3Requirements
3Dimensions --> move to sustainability?
3.1Environmental (or ecological)
3.2Economics
3.3Culture
4Measurement approaches --> move to sustainability?
5Sustainable Development Goals

EMsmile (talk) 14:24, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

There is also this definition by UNESCO (here): "Sustainability is often thought of as a long-term goal (i.e. a more sustainable world), while sustainable development refers to the many processes and pathways to achieve it". After thinking further about it, I am now proposing this approach for re-organising the two articles: We change things around so that the "sustainability" article becomes the broad concept, goal description, overview article to point people to all the related articles. Then we put the more concrete details on how to achieve the goal, pathways, implementations, policies, and alike into the article on "sustainable development". For something like "barriers", this can be a section in both articles. There can be barriers towards the broad concept (e.g. the complexities of the world), and there can also be barriers towards the implementation (e.g. lack of finances). I envisage an end result where the article on sustainability is the "mother article" but is possibly fairly short in length. Whereas the article on "sustainable development" comes below in the tree structure but might become longer and more detailed (and perhaps more dynamic over time, with more frequent changes and additions of new content). EMsmile (talk) 11:46, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I concur with this suggestion EMsmile.

In my view, we have to accept the following facts:
– For most common people, the noun Sustainability is probably easier to find than the phrase "Sustainable Development"
– Sustainability is so prominent in the global public discourse that it deserves a sound Wikipedia entry
– Even overview articles like the one by Clark /Harley quoted above do not precisely distinguish between the Sust. and Sust. Devl. "Sustainability science … is an applied science defined by the practical problems … of sustainable development” (Clark /Harley p. 333). They then refer to the Brundtland report and point to the inseperable character of 'environment' and 'development' before they continue with quoting the famous (and most widely used) definition: ‘Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable: to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. (3, pp. ix, 8)‘
– The following argument might be "original research" but I would strongly argue that "Sustainability" as a noun has entered (or at least become so common) the (public as well as academic) discourse ONLY after the political discussion about the concept of "sustainable development" (i.e. after WCED 1987 and Rio 1992). To validate this: the HarperCollins /Pons English-German Dictionary from 1991 (3rd unabridged ed. 1997) with 280,000 entries does not even list the noun "sustainability" but only "sustain", "sustainable", "sustained" and "sustaining"

I would therefore agree with your suggestion, EMsmile, but suggest in addition that we add a paragraph in both cases pointing to the issue - as I have just done. Furthermore, regarding the statements of User:ASRASR and EMsmile and the UNESCO quote, I would agree that Sust. Dev. naturally emphasizes the development aspect a bit more than the noun.

However, as Berg 2020 (Sustainable Action) pointed out it's problematic to have the same concept /word for both the goal and the measure to get there, Berg sees this as a "conceptual challenge": "Goal and measures are labelled with the same term. Sustainability is the great vision for humanity’s future. At the same time, the measures to reach the Sustainable Development Goals ought to be 'sustainable' here and now (which can never be proven as true). This charges each single measure with the ultimacy of the great goal – which is likely to fail." Seemountain (talk) 09:18, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the points made above by EMsmile and Seemountain. Perhaps one or two considerations to add. It is true that the concept of sustainability really entered the public discourse with the Brundtland report, which is why I have always been in favour of defining sustainability as that report does. One might also say that what rich countries need is not development but sustainability. We are prosperous enough, but have reason to worry whether that prosperity can be sustained. In view of the interests of future generations, we may even have to sacrifice some of it. For developing countries, however, they need to improve the prosperity of their inhabitants without endangering the future of all of us.TK26 (talk) 16:45, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi TK26, thanks for your comment! I would say rich countries also need "development" but for me the term "development" is not necessarily about building new roads and houses etc but can also mean "social development", peace, equity etc. From that perspective all countries need (sustainable) development. If we manage to properly clarify and illustrate the definitions in the two Wikipedia articles, this would be a great achievement. EMsmile (talk) 10:26, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

References

Removed content about World Bank stuff that was overly detailed

I have removed this text block because I felt it was giving too much weight to World Bank stuff, was overly detailed and poorly sourced (difficult to verify). If someone thinks that it could be salvaged (or parts of it), do speak up: "However, Gilbert Rist says that the World Bank has twisted the notion of sustainable development to prove that economic development need not be deterred in the interest of preserving the ecosystem. He writes: "From this angle, 'sustainable development' looks like a cover-up operation. ... The thing that is meant to be sustained is really 'development', not the tolerance capacity of the ecosystem or of human societies."

The World Bank, a leading producer of environmental knowledge, continues to advocate the win-win prospects for economic growth and ecological stability even as its economists express their doubts. Herman Daly, an economist for the Bank from 1988 to 1994, writes:

When authors of WDR '92 [the highly influential 1992 World Development Report that featured the environment] were drafting the report, they called me asking for examples of "win-win" strategies in my work. What could I say? None exists in that pure form; there are trade-offs, not "win-wins." But they want to see a world of "win-wins" based on articles of faith, not fact. I wanted to contribute because WDRs are important in the Bank, [because] task managers read [them] to find philosophical justification for their latest round of projects. But they did not want to hear about how things really are, or what I find in my work...

" EMsmile (talk) 21:17, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

References