پایداری 3بعدی: رویکردی برای تعیین اولویت در برخورد منافع به سوی توسعه پایدار

This paper aims to provide a new approach to objectively assess hierarchies and priority setting in the relationship between environmental, social and economic sustainability within Sustainable Development. After a literature review, several widely used conceptual figures (diagrams) describing this relationship were assessed using SWOT analyses in order to identify the major weaknesses in these pictorial descriptions. Based on the findings, a new concept called ‘3-D Sustainability’ has been developed and is presented visually as well as is described in the text. This concept introduces and ranks criteria for the assessment of hierarchies within, and conflicts of interests between, social, environmental and economic sustainability (the three dimensions of sustainability). These criteria are applied to several existing hierarchies and solutions to conflicts of interests. Based on the SWOT analyses, the main shortcomings of the widely used conceptual figures were identified as (1) misinterpretation of embeddings, (2) misjudgement of equity between the three dimensions of sustainability, (3) a lack of expression of limitations, and (4) lack of adequate decision support. These shortcomings are overcome (theoretically and in practice) by ‘3-D Sustainability’, a slightly more complex, but conceptually richer, figure than the widely used conceptual figures assessed. In particular, the shift of the burden of proof within the three sustainability dimensions is argued as a main solution. The application of the criteria of ‘3-D Sustainability’ to several real examples indicates its usefulness in decision support, while justifying more sustainable hierarchies and solutions in the settlement of conflicts of interests within the three sustainability dimensions.

Since its widely known definition in the so called Brundtland-Report of 19871, Sustainable Development has become one of the key terms in environmental policy (for a summary of the discussion see e.g. Dobson, 1996 and Ekins, 2000, pp. 75–82; de Mooij and van den Bergh, 2002). Large international organisations have started intensively discussing the term (OECD, 2001) and in 2002 it was the main topic of a World Summit in Johannesburg promoting sustainable development on the global political agenda.

While it should not be overlooked that the whole concept of 3-D Sustainability is itself a simplification, with all of the associated advantages and disadvantages, its pictorial expression addresses quite clearly the shortcomings of some common figures. In general, 3-D Sustainability constitutes a flexible instrument for analysis and decision support, which can be used for numerous topics and applied on different geographic levels, as the examples provided above clearly indicate. 3-D Sustainability reflects and addresses in more detail decision hierarchies that produce an ecologically sustainable scale, a socially fair and just distribution, and a market-based allocation mechanism (Costanza et al., 1997, pp.80 and 83). 3-D Sustainability is designed to influence the answers to the questions, ‘how much’ and ‘what’ to provide within a generation, and for future generations (Bromley, 1998, p.238). Hence, both the protection of future human interests, as well as of life-supporting environmental processes ‘viewed as morally considerable’, may require consumer sovereignty to be limited (Blamey and Common, 1999, p.811). In the sense of the geographically dispersed examples, 3-D Sustainability constitutes a common ground for understanding and a means to make concepts for the promotion of Sustainable Development more accessible and understandable to the broader public. Hence, 3-D Sustainability might finally contribute to more voluntary changes in consumer behaviour towards Sustainable Development.