Sometimes, we want to sustain part of the output but change the system.
Sustainable development implies change; sometimes we want to improve or transform the system, sometimes we want to change the system to improve some of its outputs.. [p. 11]
Sustainability is not the same as constancy. [....]
All living systems are changing systems and the essential point is not to eliminate change, but to avoid the destruction of the sources of renewal, from which the system can recover from the unavoidable stresses and disturbances to which it is exposed because of its condition of being an open system.
The concept of sustainable development is quite different from that of sustainability in that the word “development” clearly points to the idea of change, of directional and progressive change. [...Development] does not necessarily mean quantitative growth, being more akin to the notion of qualitative unfolding of potentialities and increasing complexity (which, depending on the concrete situation, may or may not include or require quantitative growth). [p. 19]
Here, what is sustained, or has to be made sustainable, is the process of improvement of the human condition (or better, of the socio-ecological system to which humans pertain), a process that does not necessarily require indefinite growth in the consumption of energy and materials. [....]
The central question is what is to be sustained, and what is to be changed. Moving towards sustainable development requires:
Removing accumulated rigidities and impediments;
Identifying and protecting the accumulated foundations of knowledge and experience that are important as a basis upon which to build;
Sustaining the social and natural foundations for adaptation and renewal, and identifying and enhancing the lost renewal capacity needed;
Stimulating innovation, experimentation and social creativity. [p. 20]
... basic elements of the sustainable development concept.
a) The ethical foundations of sustainable development
... intergenerational justice ...
... intragenerational ...
... ecocentric concern for biodiversity ... [pp. 20-21]
b) Dynamism
... learning how rates of change affect the behavior of social, ecological and economic systems over time ...
c) Concept
... a synthesis between economic development and environmental preservation ...
... the need to integrate economic and environmental concerns ...
... strategies designed to define and subsequently monitor some form of “sustainability limits” ...premised upon the observation that natural resources are finite and that there are limits to the carrying capacity of the Earth’s ecosystems.
... the “competing objectives” approach, which focuses on reconciling social, economic and ecological goals ...
... societal ability to resist or recover from disturbances, stresses and shocks rather than on its ability to produce goods ...
... economic development (sometimes assumed to be synonymous with economic growth) as sustainable whenever a certain crucial variable may be ‘sustained’... [pp. 22-23]
d) Implementation
... A key feature of the systems approach is the recognition that outcomes are not necessarily predictable since our activities may ‘force’ a system into a whole new form of behavior (that could include collapse) never seen before ....
... the need to integrate multiple perspectives ...
A means of assessing progress towards sustainable development .... Traditional market indicators ... complemented by sustainability indicators...
... achievable goals ... amid large groups of stakeholders ... [allowing] for different regions ... according to their specific interests and situation. [p. 21]
e) A variety of perspectives
... sustainable development can be treated as both a model and a point of legitimation ... for different purposes in scientific and political realms
In the final analysis, no single group has authority to define sustainable development. Consequently, the concept is wed to ambiguity. This ambiguous character exemplifies the inherent rationalism of sustainable development .... [p. 22]
But, there is also another aspect of resilience that concerns the capacity for renewal, re-organization and development, which has been less in focus but is essential for the sustainability discourse.... In a resilient social–ecological system, disturbance has the potential to create opportunity for doing new things, for innovation and for development. [p. 253]
A lot of work on resilience has focused on the capacity to absorb shocks and still maintain function.
This perspective and its relation to resilience is in stark contrast to equilibrium centered, command-and-control strategies that aim at controlling the variability of a target resource (e.g. fish populations, insect outbreaks, cattle grazing), a perspective that has dominated contemporary natural resource and environmental management. [p. 255]
... the necessity to learn to manage by change rather than simply to react to it and the key role that individuals and small groups or teams of individuals play in this context. It implies that uncertainty and surprise is part of the game and you need to be prepared for it and learn to live with it ....
... scholars involved with resilience in relation to complex adaptive systems increasingly avoid the use of recovery and prefer the concepts renewal, regeneration and re-organization following disturbance .... In the same spirit, it might be more appropriate to use words such as “regimes” or “attractors” instead of terms such as “stable states” or “equilibria” that give a sense of excluding dynamics .... [p. 257]
Engineering resilience ... focuses on maintaining efficiency of function, constancy of the system, and a predictable world near a single steady state. It is about resisting disturbance and change, to conserve what you have. [p. 256]
Theories of complex systems portray systems not as deterministic, predictable and mechanistic, but as process-dependent organic ones with feedbacks among multiple scales that allow these systems to self-organize ....
The study of complex adaptive systems attempts to explain how complex structures and patterns of interaction can arise from disorder through simple but powerful rules that guide change. [p. 257]
Holland (1995) identifies four basic properties of complex adaptive systems:
Non-linearity generates path dependency, which refers to local rules of interaction that change as the system evolves and develops. A consequence of path dependency is the existence of multiple basins of attraction in ecosystem development and the potential for threshold behavior and qualitative shifts in system dynamics under changing environmental influences ....
Arthur et al. (1997) identify six properties of complex adaptive economic systems;
Schneider and Kay (1994) make the link between complex systems, thermodynamics and ecology.
Regime shifts between alternate states ....