EPTA Special Meeting
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Business as Usual or a Need For Change?

Thursday September 26, 1996,
Royal Academy of Engineering, London.

BACKGROUND

In view of the importance of sustainable development to many areas of national policy, EPTA had decided to bring together presentations from its member organisations on different aspects of interest to their respective parliaments.

CHAIRMAN'S INTRODUCTION

The Chairman (Dr. Michael Norton of POST) introduced the conference by giving a brief history of the increasing concern over the impact of man's activities on the environment and the evolution of the concept of sustainable development, following the work of the Brundlandt Commission. National Parliaments were increasingly having to deal with issues of sustainable development - whether in the context of international negotiations on matters such as climate change, or in resolving national or local conflicts between aspirations for economic development and limited resources. These tensions could apply in many fields, and the experience of EPTA members was straddling the fields of agriculture, health, environment and technology, consumption, transport and information technology. It was thus hoped that, through addressing all these different aspects of sustainable development, common themes would emerge.

Paper One:
CROP PROTECTION SUITABLE FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE NETHERLANDS

This paper looked at the attempts in the Netherlands to reduce dependence on pesticide use in intensive agriculture, as part of a Government policy. The Rathenau Institute project had identified and focused on two different approaches, one based on the chemical optimisation of pesticide use (e.g. lower doses, use of disease-tolerant varieties, etc.), or a system-oriented approach, based on changing agricultural practice, with the main objective of preventing disease.

Various approaches did offer the possibility of drastically reducing dependence on pesticides, but the study had identified many barriers to their use; these included:-

• low pesticide use meant a possible increased risk of failure,
• a lack of knowledge,
• higher production costs,
• poor communications between research and applications,
• the increasing proprietary nature of knowledge, impeding dissemination,
• lack of commercial motives for reducing use.

The report identified a number of policy options, ranging from tax incentives, stimulating the development of know-how, diffusion of knowledge, and helping stimulate the development of pesticides and disease-resistance.

Paper Two:
HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

This report's focus was on the links between environment and health, particularly for children. The study had looked at the way in which children interact with their environment in terms of their physical, mental and social well-being, and had identified a total of 14 recommendations:-

1. Establishing a policy of surveys on the impact on health prior to certain major development plans.
2. Collecting and codifying laws dealing with health and environment
3. Increasing budgeted personnel in the field of health/ environment.
4. Holding a conference on "rule of good conduct" in the field of risk assessment.
5. Development prevention and detection of diseases in schools.
6. Continuing or undertaking essential actions regarding lead poisoning and personal stereos.
7. Developing "town-health" and "school-health" experiments within the framework of WHO programs.
8. Adopting legislative measures in order to organize air-pollution control in towns.
9. Setting up a specialized agency in the field of health/ environment modelled on the National AIDS Research Agency.
10. Giving priority to surveys on social and behavioral risks to which the child is exposed.
11. Upgrading the national public health network
12. Developing registers, particularly in the field of congenital diseases and child cancer.
13. Taking stock of disciplines relevant to risks assessment and management.
14. Creating a fully-fledged environmental medicine branch.

Paper Three:
INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGY, ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

This paper looked at the interactions between various types of environmental protection and the German economy. It started by examining whether environmental regulation was seen as a net positive or negative influence on the economy, particularly employment, and concluded that even if the effect was positive at the moment, there was a danger that further regulation would lead to negative impacts on the overall economy. Current environmental technologies were based on end-of-pipe technology, which added to capital costs, running costs, and required additional inputs of energy. Moreover, the technology often only moved the pollution from one location to another.

Nevertheless, Germany was a major world player in environmental technologies, with strong exports and innovation at present. Looking to the future there were many arguments in favour of developing a more systems-integrated approach to try and change the production paradigm. This would be characterised by:-

1. reduced use of energy and materials,
2. avoiding hazardous materials,
3. more life-cycle analysis,
4. more re-cycling,
5. more durable and repairable products.

Moving in this direction required, however, several barriers to be overcome. Some were within the company, due to the requirements for new knowledge, new investment and a new approach, but there were also external barriers founded on the current bias towards end-of-pipe approach in environmental standards, and the lack of economic incentives to reduced emissions further than required by the regulations. The report identified a number of policy options:-

• a longer-term planning horizon in environmental policy,
• more flexibility and moving away from the command and control, top-down regulation,
• more use of economic instruments,
• scope for voluntary agreements,
• eco-audits and eco-labelling.

Paper Four:
CONSUMPTION AND SUSTAINABILITY

This presentation described the Consensus Conference being prepared on consumption and sustainability, whereby a lay panel would be invited to address a number of fundamental questions, relating to the tension between the aspirations of the Danish Finance Minister to see continued growth in the Danish economy (40% over 10 years), and the Environment Minister's concern over impacts on the Danish and global environment. The conference was based on the assumption that it was not just sufficient to try and improve economic efficiency and levels of environmental protection, but that a conflict between sustainability and growing levels of consumption was inevitable.

The panel were being asked to look at three 'scenarios':-

1. 'computer dreams' - which was a world of highly efficient, technologically-driven society, with tight regulations and controls,
2. 'home again' - a world of much more modest consumption, with local production and consumption, with a reduced role for the state and reduced 'economic' aspirations,
3. 'free initiative' - a world where consumption is good and where everything is left to the market.

The panels will be asked to imagine these scenarios and develop their views on them, and to discuss particularly the principles that might be applied to guide future development of society, and how to influence both consumer and producer behaviour. Central to this will be to develop some sort of understanding of the relationship between consumption and quality of life.

Paper Five:
TRANSPORT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR SUSTAINABILITY

This described the POST investigation into the implications of current trends in transport, and their implications for sustainability. The report looked at the growth in emissions, and the competing trends of improved end-of-pipe technology and increased car usage, other potential conflicts between road construction and car usage and resources and habitats, and the factors which influence personal choice over the type of transport we use. Particular points of conflict with sustainability were in the field of growth of carbon dioxide emissions. Here, if transport were to be required to play a pro-rata roll in reducing national emissions, vehicle mileage would have to be 20-33% less than that forecast on current trends for 2010. Such realisations had led there to be a 'great transport debate' in the UK, and the report described the outcome of this in the form of the UK Department of Transport White Paper. This had reached a number of overall conclusions, including:-

1. environment and sustainability are central considerations in transport,
2. change in emphasis was needed away from roads,
3. change in attitudes needed,
4. new trunk roads planning system,
5. broadening local powers (e.g. to control traffic at times of high air pollution).

Paper Six:
SUSTAINABILITY AND THE INFORMATION SOCIETY

This paper looked at the possible implications of new information and communication technologies, and sustainable development - whether contributing to it or making sustainable development more difficult. The study had taken several indicators of sustainable development (e.g. greenhouse gases, deforestation, acid rain, biodiversity) and examined the possible implications in each sector of ICTs.

While some technologies offered the scope for 'dematerialisation' (e.g. electronic newspapers) or 'de-intermediation' (i.e. removal of intermediate service providers, e.g. travel agents), the report had reached the general conclusion that rather than drastically changing any current trends, they would be deployed to encourage 'business as usual'. For instance, transport telematics might allow more aircraft into the same amount of airspace, ICTs would help competitiveness, so encouraging growth of economies and help the efficiency of use of materials, energy, water, etc. In particular, ICTs offered particular promise to help sustainable development in the area of:-

1. environmental information services,
2. energy management,
3. telemetry and environmental monitoring,
4. environmental management support systems,
5. telemetry for transport.

DISCUSSION

In the discussion a number of common themes were agreed to emerge, which cut across the various subject areas of the studies, and these are summarised below:-

• What does Sustainable Development actually mean? Here there was a need at the policy level to translate the general wording of sustainable development into specific targets (eg. reduced pesticides, reduced energy etc.). Most policy discussion tended to avoid the inevitability of conflict between economic aspirations and environmental objectives, and very little progress had been made on alternatives to economic statistics as indicators of national well-being. There was some discussion about whether such indicators might seek measurements of 'happiness' or 'quality of life' but these presented major difficulties.
• Technology is both part of the problem and part of the solution. One example here is that technology is clearly responsible for the adverse environmental effects of pesticide use, equally technology can be used to try and better control application rates, and reduce pollution. However, in most of the studies taking place the solution was not technological, and often required many social and institutional barriers to be overcome.
• It is much easier to identify the problem than to solve it. This had proved to be the case in nearly all the presentations, where clear descriptions of the problems and their underlying causes were available, but solutions which were capable of being implemented were much more difficult to define. Often it involved a 'schizophrenic' attitude on the part of people who agreed there was a problem (e.g. traffic congestion), but did not see themselves as contributing to it.
• The case studies had often illustrated great resistance to change, both by consumers and producers, and the lack of incentives to bring about change in the direction of sustainable development. Thus neither farmers nor producers had a primary incentive to reduce the consumption of pesticides; neither drivers nor car manufacturers had an incentive to reduce ownership or use of cars.
• Partly as a result of the complexity of most cases studies, they were not amenable to the single big initiative, but often would require lots of very small individual actions which, cumulatively, would have an impact. This meant it was just as important to seek a devolution of initiatives to local level (e.g. via Agenda 21 initiatives), as it was to look for bold 'national' initiatives.
• Sustainable development requires society to set itself real objectives. For instance to define its needs and targets in terms of access rather than mobility (i.e. to ensure people had local access to shopping rather than freedom to drive 30 miles to shops). Also, to try and find other measures of achievement that are not consumption related, and incorporate quality of life. This leads to the need to continue approaches to find new national targets, for instance, a green/ sustainable GDP measure, to help the market deliver real signals in its pricing which include environmental and resource costs. In this it was felt that there was still a long way to go before a credible alternative approach could be developed to current economic indicators. In this context, some discussion took place on the relative role of eco-taxes and whether these should represent a net increase in taxation, or merely a shift from taxing labour to taxing consumption.
• Because of the uncertainties it was important to identify as many 'no-regrets' policies as possible - i.e. those policies which it is known contribute to sustainable development, and which are also widely accepted to be beneficial or at least not damaging to the economy. These are typified by the search to improve energy conservation, and economically viable renewable sources of energy.
• Role of the Social Sciences. Given the increasing complexity of society, and the different lifestyles being evaluated, the social sciences have an important role to play in exploring alternative low-consumption patterns, to draw lessons and to predict trends. Social sciences are also critical to understanding people's resistance to change and the factors that might affect this, and the public perception of sustainable development. Given the existence of significant numbers of people sympathetic to more sustainable alternative lifestyles, a stronger involvement of people in decision-making might actually overcome some of the institutionalised resistance to change.