The following paper tries to explain the various reasons that made sustainability so contested by discussing the circumstances surrounding the emergence of the term and its evolution. It also tries to shed some light on the future of sustainability through employing a study technique borrowed from a well established field of human knowledge.

1. The contested notion of sustainability: Lessons from the
past and reflections on the future
Yousef Taibeh
It is said ‘study the past if you would define the future’; this inspiring observation by
Confucius (cited in(Moncur 2012), para. 12) has a clear validity in many aspects of human
development and is a basic concept that can guide us through in exploring the future
prospects of the elusive notion of sustainability. With hundreds of acknowledged definitions
(Dobson 1996) and an ever-increasing new compound words comprising sustainability or
one of its derivatives (Miller 2011), this all-encompassing term cannot be more confusing.
The following text will try to explain the various reasons that made sustainability so
contested by discussing the circumstances surrounding the emergence of the term and its
evolution, and then it will try to shed some light on the envisaged future of sustainability
through employing a study technique borrowed from a well established field of human
knowledge.
Humans realised the negative impacts of their actions on the environment a long time ago;
a notion that can be easily traced back to the eighteenth century, specifically to the writings
of Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834) on population limits (Marcuse 1998). However, the
interchangeable terms of ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ as they are known
today are very recent. The formulation of these terms began in the 1970s, when the
environmental concerns started being discussed on international scale under the custody of
the United Nations. This lead to the official coining of the term ‘Sustainable Development’ in
1987 by the Brundtland Report (Ricketts 2010).
It is argued that the involvement of the United Nations dictated the need for a broad and
general term, to ensure the inclusion of the widest possible spectrum in the cause and
having an international consensus (Lélé 1991). The unspecified ‘needs’ in Brundtlands
definition opened the door for many interpretations (Bonevac 2010), and the introduction
of the ‘triple bottom line’ of sustainability expanded its scope to include economy and
society in addition to the environment (Marcuse 1998). What may have also added to the
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2. existing confusion was that the term’s literal meaning is intrinsically contradicting, as
sustainability can never be forever in a finite world and any development will always require
exploiting limited environmental resources (Bonevac 2010).
As soon as sustainability started to influence public polices and gain popularity, businesses
began abusing the term as a marketing slogan or a pre-emptive action towards
governmental constraints in the form of ‘greenwashing’ to cover the negative outcomes of
many projects (TheِGreenِLife n.d.). This continuous use of the term in different contexts,
mostly contradictory similar to the oxymora of Sustainable Mining or even Sustainable War
(Miller 2011), largely contributed in draining it of any specific meaning (Marcuse 1998).
In response to this generalised and uncontrolled use, concerned researchers called for
reclaiming the term and limiting its scope to the original intents of the environmental
domain (Marcuse 1998). Other researchers had a different approach. Steve Connelly (2007),
for example, celebrated the inevitable contestation in sustainability, and drew a framework
for understanding the positions of thought groups and their interrelations based on the
‘triple bottom line’ and the various degrees of sustainability. While Hopwood et al (2005)
categorised the different approaches and theories of sustainability based on the announced
political and policy frameworks and the sought after changes for each group.
By accepting the variety and complexity of the domain, the previous two attempts of
categorising sustainability reveal a hidden structure that links between the different
interpretations of sustainability. Depending on this understanding, and as an endeavour to
envisage possible future trends, it is argued that additional revelations will be attainable if a
time vector is considered in the examination. Sustainability then will be seen as a term in
the making instead of being described as contested (Hillegas 2010). Each definition of
sustainability revel a certain aspect of the subject. The various interpretations are
reflections of the circumstances surrounding their emergence, where changing priorities are
given to the ‘three pillars’ based on the intentions and the domains of the researchers, or
based on the contemporary trends and the ‘spirit of the age’. If this hypothesis is to be
extended further, it can be even argued that our current understanding of sustainability is
confined with the present, and the subject has high evolutionary potentials into new
meanings based on our future understanding and consciousness.
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3. To understand this evolutionary nature of sustainability, the Business Management domain
can provide us with a powerful tool, the DMAIC principle. DMAIC stands for the different
phases of the problem solving process, namely: Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and
control (Insyt Consulting n.d.). If such a framework is to be applied to the evolutionary line
of sustainability, and in spite of the plethora of definitions, it can be safely concluded that
we are currently living the ‘Measure Phase’, where there is a growing interest among
professionals to develop techniques and tools for measuring sustainability in tangible terms
(Singh et al. 2012, Moore et al. 2012, Lei & Zhou 2012, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change 2007, Balmford et al. 2002), see Figure 1.
Fig 1: Our current position
in the envisaged evolution
of sustainability based on
the DAMIC principle
The ‘Definition Phase’ is believed to be concluding as there is a growing international
awareness of the annihilatory nature of our current way of living, a concern that is well
established, and is being constantly growing with each new human-made disaster (Ricketts
2010). In this regard, and although there is a limited agreement on what sustainability is,
there is a consensus on what sustainability is not (Jamieson 1998).
It is expected that the current ‘Measure’ trend will prevail in the coming years, signified by
devising rigorous and scientific techniques able to record and anticipate the impacts of
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4. human’s actions on the environment in widely accepted vocabulary. As soon as the needed
monitoring techniques and tools are in place, the focus in the future will probably shift
towards analysing, improving and controlling the processes and policies to reach the best
outcomes.
In the context of the previous analogy, describing sustainability in managerial terms may
have additional layers of validity. Both of the notions of ‘sustainability’ and ‘management’
are broad and multi-disciplinary. Management, for example, can range from organizing
student’s time to operating a mega business; yet, it is a well differentiated and established
domain of human knowledge. Correspondingly, having various definitions for sustainability
may not be a problem in itself, it actually may be a necessity to serve the different
circumstances and levels; however, and similar to management, sustainability needs to be
always seen as a guiding principle not a goal in itself (Marcuse 1998)
Finally, it is important to note that the issue of sustainability is much too complex and
sophisticated to be addressed in few pages. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention
to the possibilities of sustainability as a differentiated new field of human knowledge; the
identified phases of sustainability presented in the previous analysis are in reality much
more intertwined and overlapping, the previous findings are mainly based on the broad and
general trends in the movement as can be derived from the reviewed materials. Further
research is definitely required, but the basic argument remains that for the newborn
sustainability to secure its niche in the future, it needs to learn a lot from the previous time-
honoured fields of human innovations.
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