Sustainability appraisal: jack of all trades, master of none?

Abstract

Sustainable development is a commonly quoted goal for decision making and supports a large number of other discourses. Sustainability appraisal has a stated goal of supporting decision making for sustainable development. We suggest that the inherent flexibility of sustainability appraisal facilitates outcomes that often do not adhere to the three goals enshrined in most definitions of sustainable development: economic growth, environmental protection and enhancement, and the wellbeing of the human population. Current practice is for sustainable development to be disenfranchised through the interpretation of sustainability, whereby the best alternative is good enough even when unsustainable. Practitioners must carefully and transparently review the frameworks applied during sustainability appraisal to ensure that outcomes will meet the three goals, rather than focusing on a discourse that emphasises one or more goals at the expense of the other(s).

Impact assessment: Eroding benefits through streamlining?

“…There are frequent arguments that development and conservation are not mutually exclusive (for example, Bond et al, 2012;Rudi et al, 2012) and these provide the basis for definitions of sustainable development (see, for example, World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). However, it is also acknowledged that sustainable development is just one of many environmental governance discourses (Bond and Morrison-Saunders, 2009), which can provide opportunities for powerful development interests to push forward their own agendas. Examples are easy to find, particularly in developing countries, of development versus environment conflicts where EIA fails to deliver mutually beneficial outcomes.…”

Sustainable Development: The Role of Scientific Literature in Dutch Municipal Spatial Planning

“…The anthropocentric nature of the Brundtland report is reinforced by the following statement that can be found in the report: : 'Species and ecosystems must be preserved because they have an economic value that is deemed crucial for development and important to human welfare' (WCED, 1987, p. 147). Bond and Saunders (2009) argue that the essence of the concept of sustainability, namely protecting and preserving the environment, has been lost as a result of nowadays focus on economic value. This ensures that the broader -ecocentric -sustainable perspective has been lost in favor of economic perspectives.…”

Sustainability assessment: the state of the art

“…Poor adherence to Gibson's tradeoff rules will realise this threat (Gibson 2006, Gibson et al 2005) which will exacerbate existing biases identified in sustainability assessment in some jurisdictions (Thérivel et al 2009). Another threat relates to the use of sustainability assessment as a symbolic process (one of the models of decision making identified for EIA by Bartlett and Kurian (1999)) whereby "current practice is for sustainable development to be disenfranchised through the interpretation of sustainability, whereby the best alternative is good enough even when unsustainable" (Bond and Morrison-Saunders 2009). This means that an inappropriate goal of sustainability assessment, in practice, is seen to be making proposals less unsustainable (than the initial proposal), rather than ensure the most positive contribution to sustainability while avoiding significant adverse effects.…”