Chapter 1

Introduction to Sustainability:

Humanity and the Environment

1.1 An Introduction to Sustainability: Humanity and the

1
Environment

1.1.1 Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, students should be able to
• learn the meaning of sustainability in its modern context
• acquire a basic facility for using the IPAT equation
• learn about patterns of human consumption
• understand the major factors that contribute to unsustainable impacts

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1.2 What is Sustainability?

In 1983 the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 38/161 entitled Process of Preparation of
the Environmental Perspective to the Year 2000 and Beyond3 , establishing a special commission whose
charge was:
(a) To propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development to the year 2000
and beyond;
(b) To recommend ways in which concern for the environment may be translated into greater co-operation
among developing countries and between countries at dierent stages of economic and social develop-
ment and lead to the achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives which take account
of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment and development;
(c) To consider ways and means by which the international community can deal more eectively with
environmental concerns, in the light of the other recommendations in its report;
(d) To help to dene shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and of the appropriate eorts
needed to deal successfully with the problems of protecting and enhancing the environment, a long-term
agenda for action during the coming decades, and aspirational goals for the world community, taking
into account the relevant resolutions of the session of a special character of the Governing Council in
1982.
1 This content is available online at <http://cnx.org/content/m41187/1.5/>.
2 This content is available online at <http://cnx.org/content/m41188/1.7/>.
3 http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/38/a38r161.htm

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 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO SUSTAINABILITY: HUMANITY AND
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THE ENVIRONMENT

The commission later adopted the formal name World Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED) but became widely known by the name of its chair Gro Harlem Brundtland4 , a medical doctor
and public health advocate who had served as Norway's Minister for Environmental Aairs and subsequently
held the post of Prime Minister during three periods. The commission had twenty-one members5 drawn from
across the globe, half representing developing nations. In addition to its fact-nding activities on the state
of the global environment, the commission held fteen meetings in various cities around the world seeking
rsthand experiences on the how humans interact with the environment. The Brundtland Commission issued
its nal report Our Common Future6  in 1987.
Although the Brundtland Report did not technically invent the term sustainability, it was the rst
credible and widely-disseminated study that probed its meaning in the context of the global impacts of
humans on the environment. Its main and often quoted denition refers to sustainable development as
 . . .development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs. The report uses the terms sustainable development, sustainable, and sus-
tainability interchangeably, emphasizing the connections among social equity, economic productivity, and
environmental quality. The pathways for integration of these may dier nation by nation; still these path-
ways must share certain common traits: the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority
should be given, and the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on
the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.
Thus there are three dimensions that sustainability seeks to integrate: economic, environmental, and
social (including sociopolitical). Economic interests dene the framework for making decisions, the ow of
nancial capital, and the facilitation of commerce, including the knowledge, skills, competences and other
attributes embodied in individuals that are relevant to economic activity. Environmental aspects recognize
the diversity and interdependence within living systems, the goods and services produced by the world's
ecosystems, and the impacts of human wastes. Socio-political refers to interactions between institutions/rms
and people, functions expressive of human values, aspirations and well-being, ethical issues, and decision-
making that depends upon collective action. The report sees these three elements as part of a highly
integrated and cohesively interacting, if perhaps poorly understood, system.
The Brundtland Report makes it clear that while sustainable development is enabled by technological
advances and economic viability, it is rst and foremost a social construct that seeks to improve the quality
of life for the world's peoples: physically, through the equitable supply of human and ecological goods and
services; aspirationally, through making available the widespread means for advancement through access
to education, systems of justice, and healthcare; and strategically, through safeguarding the interests of
generations to come. In this sense sustainability sits among a series of human social movements that have
occurred throughout history: human rights, racial equality, gender equity, labor relations, and conservation,
to name a few.
4 http://www.un.org/News/dh/hlpanel/brundtland-bio.htm
5 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Brundtland_Report
6 http://www.un-documents.net/wced-ocf.htm

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Figure 1.1: Overlapping Themes of the Sustainability Paradigm A depiction of the sustainability
paradigm in terms of its three main components, showing various intersections among them. Source:
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International Union for the Conservation of Nature

The intersection of social and economic elements can form the basis of social equity. In the sense
of enlightened management, "viability" is formed through consideration of economic and environmental
interests. Between environment and social elements lies bearability, the recognition that the functioning of
societies is dependent on environmental resources and services. At the intersection of all three of these lies
sustainability.
The US Environmental Protection Agency8 (US EPA) takes the extra step of drawing a distinction
between sustainability and sustainable development, the former encompassing ideas, aspirations and values
that inspire public and private organizations to become better stewards of the environment and that promote
positive economic growth and social objectives, the latter implying that environmental protection does not
preclude economic development and that economic development must be ecologically viable now and in the
long run.
The Chapter The Evolution of Environmental Policy in the United States (Section 2.1) presents
information on how the three components that comprise sustainability have inuenced the evolution of
environmental public policy. The Chapter Sustainability: Ethics, Culture, and History (Section 10.1)
explores in greater detail the ethical basis for sustainability and its cultural and historical signicance.
7 http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/iucn_future_of_sustanability.pdf
8 http://www.epa.gov/sustainability/basicinfo.htm#sustainability

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1.3 The IPAT Equation

As attractive as the concept of sustainability may be as a means of framing our thoughts and goals, its
denition is rather broad and dicult to work with when confronted with choices among specic courses of
action. The Chapter Problem-Solving, Metrics, and Tools for Sustainability (Section 9.1) is devoted
to various ways of measuring progress toward achieving sustainable goals, but here we introduce one general
way to begin to apply sustainability concepts: the IPAT equation.
As is the case for any equation, IPAT expresses a balance among interacting factors. It can be stated as

I =P ×A×T (1.1)
where I represents the impacts of a given course of action on the environment, P is the relevant human
population for the problem at hand, A is the level of consumption per person, and T is impact per unit of
consumption. Impact per unit of consumption is a general term for technology, interpreted in its broadest
sense as any human-created invention, system, or organization that serves to either worsen or uncouple
consumption from impact. The equation is not meant to be mathematically rigorous; rather it provides a
way of organizing information for a rst-order analysis.
Suppose we wish to project future needs for maintaining global environmental quality at present day
levels for the mid-twenty-rst century. For this we need to have some projection of human population (P )
and an idea of rates of growth in consumption (A).

Figure 1.2: World Population Growth Source: U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base,
10
December 2010 Update

Figure World Population Growth (Figure 1.2) suggests that global population in 2050 will grow from
the current 6.8 billion to about 9.2 billion, an increase of 35%. Global GDP (Gross Domestic Product,
one measure of consumption) varies from year to year but, using Figure Worldwide Growth of Gross
Domestic Product (Figure 1.3) as a guide, an annual growth rate of about 3.5% seems historically accurate
(growth at 3.5%, when compounded for forty years, means that the global economy will be four times as
large at mid-century as today).
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10 http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/worldpopgraph.php

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Figure 1.3: Worldwide Growth of Gross Domestic Product Source: CIA World Factbook, Graph
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from IndexMundi

Thus if we wish to maintain environmental impacts (I) at their current levels (i.e. I2050 = I2010 ), then

P2010 × A2010 × T2010 = P2050 × A2050 × T2050 (1.2)

or

T2050 P2010 A2010

         
1 1 1
= × = × = (1.3)
T2010 P2050 A2050 1.35 4 5.4
This means that just to maintain current environmental quality in the face of growing population and
levels of auence, our technological decoupling will need to reduce impacts by about a factor of ve. So,
for instance, many recently adopted climate action plans for local regions and municipalities, such as the
Chicago Climate Action Plan12 , typically call for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (admittedly just
one impact measure) of eighty percent by mid-century. The means to achieve such reductions, or even
whether or not they are necessary, are matters of intense debate; where one group sees expensive remedies
with little demonstrable return, another sees opportunities for investment in new technologies, businesses,
and employment sectors, with collateral improvements in global and national well-being.

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1.4 Human Consumption Patterns and the Rebound Eect

In 1865 William Jevons14 (1835-1882), a British economist, wrote a book entitled The Coal Question15
, in which he presented data on the depletion of coal reserves yet, seemingly paradoxically, an increase
in the consumption of coal in England throughout most of the 19th century. He theorized that signicant
improvements in the eciency of the steam engine had increased the utility of energy from coal and, in
eect, lowered the price of energy, thereby increasing consumption. This is known as the Jevons paradox,
11 http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=xx&v=66
12 http://www.chicagoclimateaction.org/pages/introduction/10.php
13 This content is available online at <http://cnx.org/content/m41191/1.6/>.
14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stanley_Jevons
15 http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Jevons/jvnCQ.html

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 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO SUSTAINABILITY: HUMANITY AND
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THE ENVIRONMENT

the principle that as technological progress increases the eciency of resource utilization, consumption of
that resource will increase. Increased consumption that negates part of the eciency gains is referred to as
rebound, while overconsumption is called backre. Such a counter-intuitive theory has not been met
with universal acceptance, even among economists (see, for example, The Eciency Dilemma16 ). Many
environmentalists, who see improvements in eciency as a cornerstone of sustainability, openly question the
validity of this theory. After all, is it sensible to suggest that we not improve technological eciency?
Whether or not the paradox is correct, the fact that it has been postulated gives us pause to examine in
somewhat greater depth consumption patterns of society. If we let Q be the quantity of goods and services
delivered (within a given time period) to people, and R be the quantity of resources consumed in order to
deliver those goods and services, then the IPAT equation can be rewritten in a slightly dierent way as:

GDP
       
Q R I
I=P × × × × (1.4)
P GDP Q R
h i
where Q R
represents the resource intensity, and R is the impact created per unit of resources consumed.
I

Rearranging this version of the equation gives:

 
R
R=Q× (1.5)
Q
which says simply that resources consumed are equal toh the i quantity of goods and services delivered times
the resource intensity. The inverse of resource intensity R is called the resource use eciency, also known
Q

as resource productivity or  eco-eciency, an approach that seeks to minimize environmental impacts

by maximizing material and energy eciencies of production. Thus we can say:
 
1
R=Q× (1.6)
Eco − eciency
that is, resources consumed are equal to goods and services delivered divided by eco-eciency. Whether or
not gains in eco-eciency yield genuine savings in resources and lower environmental impacts depends on
how much, over time, society consumes of a given product or service (i.e. the relative eciency gain, ∆e e )
must outpace the quantity of goods and services delivered ∆Q Q . In the terms of Jevons paradox, if ∆Q
Q ≥ ∆e
e
then the system is experiencing backre.
Part of the problem in analyzing data pertaining to whether or not such overconsumption is happening
depends on the specic good or service in question, the degree to which the data truly represent that good
or service, and the level of detail that the data measure. Table Historical Eciency and Consumption
Trends in the United States (Table 1.1) summarizes some recent ndings from the literature on the
comparative eciency and consumption for several activities over extended periods of observation. Taken
collectively these activities capture several basic enabling aspects of modern society: major materials, trans-
portation, energy generation, and food production. In all cases the data show that over the long term,
consumption outpaces gains in eciency by wide margins, (i.e., ∆Q Q ≥ e ). It should also be noted that
∆e

in all cases, the increases in consumption are signicantly greater than increases in population. The data
of Table Historical Eciency and Consumption Trends in the United States (Table 1.1) do not
verify Jevons paradox; we would need to know something about the prices of these goods and services over
time, and examine the degree to which substitution might have occurred (for instance aluminum for iron, air
travel for automobile travel). To see if such large increases in consumption have translated into comparable
decreases in environmental quality, or declines in social equity, other information must be examined. Despite
this, the information presented does show a series of patterns that broadly reect human consumption of
goods and services that we consider essential for modern living and for which eciency gains have not kept
pace; in a world of nite resources such consumption patterns cannot continue indenitely.

16 http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/20/101220fa_fact_owen

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Activity Time Period Avg Annual Avg Annual In- Ratio: Con-
Eciency Im- crease in Con- sump-
provement (%) sumption (%) tion/Eciency

Pig Iron 1800-1990 1.4 4.1 3.0

Aluminum 1900-2005 1.2 9.8 7.9
Fertilizer 1920-2000 1.0 8.8 8.9
Electricity-Coal 1920-2007 1.3 5.7 4.5
Electricity-Oil 1920-2007 1.5 6.2 4.2
Electricity-Nat 1920-2007 1.8 9.6 5.5
Gas
Freight Rail Travel 1960-2006 2.0 2.5 1.2
Air Passenger 1960-2007 1.3 6.3 4.9
Travel
Motor Vehicle 1940-2006 0.3 3.8 11.0
Travel

Table 1.1: Historical Eciency and Consumption Trends in the United States Source: Dahmus
and Gutowski, 2011 (p. 11)

Our consumption of goods and services creates a viable economy, and also reects our social needs. For
example, most of us consider it a social good that we can travel large distances rather quickly, safely, and
more or less whenever we feel the need. Similarly, we realize social value in having aluminum (lightweight,
strong, and ductile) available, in spite of its energy costs, because it makes so many conveniences, from air
travel to beverage cans, possible. This is at the center of the sustainability paradigm: human behavior is a
social and ethical phenomenon, not a technological one. Whether or not we must overconsume to realize
social benets is at the core of sustainable solutions to problems.

1.4.1 Resources
For more information about eco-eciency, see the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
report titled "Eco-Eciency: Creating more value with less impact17 "

1.4.2 References
Dahmus, J. B., and T. G. Gutowski (2011) Can Eciency Improvements Reduce Resource Consumption?
A Historical Analysis of Ten Activities Journal of Industrial Ecology (accepted for publication).

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1.5 Challenges for Sustainability

The concept of sustainability has engendered broad support from almost all quarters. In a relatively succinct
way it expresses the basis upon which human existence and the quality of human life depend: responsible
behavior directed toward the wise and ecient use of natural and human resources. Such a broad concept
invites a complex set of meanings that can be used to support divergent courses of action. Even within the
Brundtland Report a dichotomy exists: alarm over environmental degradation that typically results from
economic growth, yet seeing economic growth as the main pathway for alleviating wealth disparities.
17 http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/docsearch/details.asp?txtDocTitle=eciency&DocTypeId=25&CharValList=25;&ObjectId=Mjc5&URLBack=
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 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO SUSTAINABILITY: HUMANITY AND
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The three main elements of the sustainability paradigm are usually thought of as equally important, and
within which tradeos are possible as courses of action are charted. For example, in some instances it may
be deemed necessary to degrade a particular ecosystem in order to facilitate commerce, or food production,
or housing. In reality, however, the extent to which tradeos can be made before irreversible damage results
is not always known, and in any case there are denite limits on how much substitution among the three
elements is wise (to date, humans have treated economic development as the dominant one of the three).
This has led to the notion of strong sustainability, where tradeos among natural, human, and social
capital are not allowed or are very restricted, and weak sustainability, where tradeos are unrestricted
or have few limits. Whether or not one follows the strong or weak form of sustainability, it is important to
understand that while economic and social systems are human creations, the environment is not. Rather, a
functioning environment underpins both society and the economy.
This inevitably leads to the problem of metrics: what should be measured and how should the values
obtained be interpreted, in light of the broad goals of the sustainability paradigm? The Chapter Problem-
Solving, Metrics, and Tools for Sustainability (Section 9.1) addresses this in detail, but presented here
is a brief summary of the ndings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment19 (MEA), a project undertaken
by over a thousand internationally recognized experts, from 2001-2005, who assessed the state of the world's
major ecosystems and the consequences for humans as a result of human-induced changes. In its simplest
form, a system20 is a collection of parts that function together. The MEA presents ndings as assessments
of ecosystems and ecosystem services: provisioning services such as food and water; regulating services
such as ood control, drought, and disease; supporting services such as soil formation and nutrient cycling;
and cultural services such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benets. MEA presents
three overarching conclusions:

Approximately 60% (15 out of 24) of the ecosystem services examined are being degraded or
used unsustainably, including fresh water, capture sheries, air and water purication, and the
regulation of regional and local climate, natural hazards, and pests. The full costs of the loss
and degradation of these ecosystem services are dicult to measure, but the available evidence
demonstrates that they are substantial and growing. Many ecosystem services have been degraded
as a consequence of actions taken to increase the supply of other services, such as food. These
trade-os often shift the costs of degradation from one group of people to another or defer costs
to future generations.

There is established but incomplete evidence that changes being made are increasing the like-
lihood of nonlinear changes in ecosystems (including accelerating, abrupt, and potentially irre-
versible changes) that have important consequences for human well-being. Examples of such
changes include disease emergence, abrupt alterations in water quality, the creation of dead
zones in coastal waters, the collapse of sheries, and shifts in regional climate.

The harmful eects of the degradation of ecosystem services are being borne disproportionately
by the poor, are contributing to growing inequities and disparities across groups of people, and
are sometimes the principal factor causing poverty and social conict. This is not to say that
ecosystem changes such as increased food production have not also helped to lift many people
out of poverty or hunger, but these changes have harmed other individuals and communities, and
their plight has been largely overlooked. In all regions, and particularly in sub-Saharan Africa,
the condition and management of ecosystem services is a dominant factor inuencing prospects
for reducing poverty.

19 http://www.maweb.org/en/index.aspx
20 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System

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Organizations such as the World Commission on Environment and Development, the Millennium Ecosys-
tem Assessment, and several others including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change21 , the Or-
ganization for Economic Cooperation and Development,22 and the National Academy Report to Congress23
have all issued reports on various aspects of the state of society and the environment. The members of these
groups are among the best experts available to assess the complex problems facing human society in the
21st century, and all have reached a similar conclusion: absent the enactment of new policies and practices
that confront the global issues of economic disparities, environmental degradation, and social inequality, the
future needs of humanity and the attainment of our aspirations and goals are not assured.

21 http://www.ipcc.ch/
22 http://www.oecd.org/home/
23 http://www.nationalacademies.org/annualreport/

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1.6 Chapter Review Questions

Question 1.6.1
What are the essential aspects of sustainability as dened in the Brundtland Report?
Question 1.6.2
Dene strong and weak sustainability and give examples of each.
Question 1.6.3
State, in your own words, the meaning of the IPAT equation?
Question 1.6.4
What is the rebound eect and how is it related to human patterns of consumption?

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