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Pelletier, N. 2010. Environmental sustainability as the first principle of distributive justice: Towards a communitarian-based normative foundation for ecological economics.
Abstract
The ecological economic concern with environmental sustainability embodies the normative orientations of the field. This concern is foremost a matter of distributive justice, the definition of which determines the
relevance of the appropriate scale and efficient allocation criteria. Yet it would appear that the discipline
lacks a shared, internally consistent set of ethical premises by which this concern might be legitimized.
Various authors have embraced a Rawlsian conception of liberal justice as the appropriate banner for
ecological economics in place of the consequentialist–libertarian foundations of neoclassical economics
(including environmental economics). It is argued here that this is insufficient in so far as it is premised on a vision of a discrete, self-sufficient economic actor. Instead, it is posited that an ecological economic ethic must proceed from an understanding of the economic actor as community member — a recognition implicit in recent ecological economic contributions focused on discourse ethics and deliberative democracy. An ecological communitarian conception of distributive justice, which views the well-being of the individual as inseparable from the integrity of its implicate, mutually constituting human and non-human natural communities, is advanced as the appropriate basis for the ecological economic world-view. In this light, the thermodynamic foundations of ecological economics are seen to provide the necessary departure point for normative decision-making oriented towards ensuring sustainability in economic organization.
... However, from this perspective, ensuring environmental integrity takes primacy over social and economic issues. It becomes, in fact, the first principle of distributive justice because it constitutes the very foundation of human well-being (Pelletier 2010). ...
... Moreover, what constitutes efficiency and its relationship to sustainability may be defined in different ways from different perspectives and point towards different preferred courses of action with very different outcomes (Garnett 2014). Indeed, many of the counterintuitive conclusions that have been derived from LCA studies (for example, that organic food systems may not necessarily be better than their conventional counterparts, or that food miles often do not matter, or that reusable diapers may not be more resource efficient) are counter-intuitive precisely because they fly in the face of values and intuitions regarding sustainability that are not well-captured by standard, environmental life cycle assessment (Pelletier 2010). ...
... Against this foil, management imperatives can be identified based first on the relative contribution of the product system to the potential erosion of carrying capacity, and secondarily so as to weigh and balance the rich suite of other sustainability indicators that need necessarily be accommodated in our decision-making. This includes, for example, indicators from social life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, and other decision support tools (Pelletier 2010;Pelletier et al. 2014). In contrast to carrying capacity-based indicators, the latter indicators must be developed so as to reflect either internationally accepted norms (for example, ILO labor standards) and/or context/stakeholder-specific value preferences. ...
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is often described as a sustainability decision support tool. In practice, however, the interpretation and application of most LCA studies are restricted to eco-efficiency considerations, which provide an important but incomplete basis for sustainability decision-making. Recent methodological advances in the field enable assessing LCA results against sustainability boundaries or thresholds at planetary or more finely resolved scales. Weighting, although controversial, facilitates consistent, stakeholder-appropriate decision-making that reflects prioritization among multiple and potentially competing sustainability outcomes. Here, we discuss how the three minimum necessary criteria for sustainability (i.e., sustainable scale relative to biocapacity, distributive justice, and efficient allocation), as proposed by ecological economist Herman Daly, may provide an internally consistent basis for integrating these methodological developments, and for subsequently better positioning LCA as a sustainability decision support framework.
... While it has long been understood that this approach is inadequate (see Massenberg 2019, this issue), as well as often inappropriate (Lienhoop et al. 2015), the development of more appropriate approaches has only emerged in the last 20 years. In particular, those working in the field of ecological economics have developed new ways of thinking that move away from the descriptive and positivist assumptions underpinning neoclassical economics towards a more normative interest in questions about what ought to be (Sagoff 1988;Wilson and Howarth 2002;Wilson and Hoehn 2006;Pelletier 2010;Kenter et al. 2014;Kenter et al. 2015;Richardson et al. 2015;Dryzek and Pickering 2017;Strunz et al. 2017). In particular, new ways have been sought for overcoming the limitations of neoclassical economics, particularly with respect to recognising that social values are both plural and shared (see for example, Bartkowski and Lienhoop 2018;Lien et al. 2018). ...
... This recognition of a normative economic proposition is entirely appropriate to the study of shared social values for sustainability, since '… the idea of sustainability is intrinsically normative' (Schmieg et al. :2018: p. 785; see also Horcea-Milcu et al. 2019, this issue). Indeed, the normative link between economics and sustainability lies at the core of both fields, in their concern with conceptualising the basis upon which resource allocation decisions are made (Pelletier 2010). What differs is the purpose ascribed to such decisions, with the conventional normative proposition in economics being related to maximising surplus (Schmidt 2017) through the maximisation of individual utilities (Bartkowski and Lienhoop 2018), while in sustainability it has a broader understanding related to inter-and intra-generational distributive justice (Miller et al. 2014;Warlenius et al. 2015;Heindl and Kanschik 2016). ...
... Shared social values are fundamentally normative-because the purpose that we ascribe to them is to guide collective decision-making (Sagoff 1988;Pelletier 2010;Irvine et al. 2016). They are typically deployed in complex policy areas such as sustainability (Schmieg et al. 2018), where multiple constructions of value shape the ways in which we individually and collectively understand the world (Horcea-Milcu et al. 2019, this issue). ...
There is mounting evidence that a new set of principles is required to form and express, rather than capture, social values for sustainability. This is because many policy questions are sufficiently complex that individual people do not—possible cannot—hold fully pre-formed values with respect to them. Thus, when people are faced with such issues, a process is required to enable them collectively to form and express a bespoke set of values that are shared. This process of shared social value formation can be understood as normative, to the extent that those involved participate in a process of ascribing values to others. This invites us to reconsider the role of normative economics, because it implies that both procedural and distributive justice is unlikely to be achieved through conventional economic logic and processes. The paper argues that the theoretical traditions that have juxtaposed positive and normative economics have been lost, such that rational choice has been progressively limited to the maximisation of economic surplus. This may be acceptable for some policy areas where the state and the individual dominate. However, the formation of social values for sustainability demands a composite approach that enables individuals to work together to form values with respect to issues about which they may have little immediate reference. The paper identifies five principles for establishing normative shared social values, relating to social units of analysis, procedural and distributive justice, dialectical decision-making and the development of social value transfer as a means of relating the shared social values formed and expressed in one context with those appropriate for a related context. The paper concludes with an agenda for research that can test, develop and refine the five principles for normative deliberated social values for sustainability.
... En av nyckelfrågorna inom hållbar utveckling är hur resurser bör fördelas (Latour, 2018;Pelletier, 2010). Ofta är hållbarhetsfrågor komplexa och vi vet inte vilka lösningar som leder till en hållbar utveckling (Caiman & Halvars, 2020). ...
... Definieras som ett hållbart etiskt resonemang.Syftet här var att undersöka barns kollektiva resonemang om fördelning och huruvida det går att vandra mellan ett matematiskt resonerande och ett etiskt resonerande, och hur perspektiven eventuellt kan stödja varandra. Att resursfördelning innehåller matematiska egenskaper framgår tydligt när kontexten förändras, vilket synliggjordes i de olika fall som barnen fick i uppdrag att lösa (jfrHamamouche et al., 2020;Hestner & Sumpter, 2018;Latour, 2018;Pelletier, 2010). Mängderna som barnen fick i uppgift att fördela lös tes ofta med hjälp av delningsdivision, då som upprepad subtraktion, men där 6åringen också tillämpade gruppering. ...
Sammandrag En av nyckelfrågorna inom hållbar utveckling handlar om fördelning av resurser, en fråga som berör värder-ingar och har flertalet matematiska egenskaper. Denna artikel fokuserar på förskolebarns kollektiva reso-nemang om fördelning av mängder, när matematiken dominerar resonemanget alternativt ersätts av eller kombineras med hållbara etiska resonemang. Två barn, 4 och 6 år, löste tillsammans sex olika fall. Data ana lyserades med två ramverk: ett som handlar om kollektiva matematiska resonemang och fokuserar på inne-hållet i argumenten, och ett som handlar om processen att skapa etiska resonemang. Resultaten visar att enkla situationer löstes främst med matematiska resonemang med transformationen delningsdivison, men där värderingar blev påtagliga tog hållbara etiska resonemang över. Det fanns också en överlappning där matematik användes för att styrka ett etiskt resonemang. Barnen demonstrerade resonemangskompetens och implikationer av detta diskuteras. Abstract When fair share is not equal One of the key questions within sustainable development is allocation of resources, a question that comprises values and has several mathematical properties. This paper focuses on preschool children's collective reasoning about sharing, when mathematical reasoning dominates or is replaced or combined by sustainable ethical reasoning. Two children, age 4 and 6, solved six cases together. Data was analysed using two frameworks: one deals with collective mathematical reasoning and focus on the components of the arguments, and one about the process creating ethical reasoning. The results show that basic situations were often solved by mathematical reasoning concerning division, but when values were explicit, sustainable , ethical reasoning was used. There was also an overlap, where mathematical arguments were used to back up ethical reasoning. The conclusion is that the children demonstrated reasoning competence, and some implications are discussed.
... Moreover, intersectional inequalities--across genders, ethnicities, and religions--frame unfair institutions, livelihood modes and results. Additionally, global imbalances impact citizens' opportunities, national action scopes, and international socio-environmental patterns (Pelletier, 2010;Holland et al., 2009;Boyce, 2008;Anand & Sen, 2000). This is how accessibility comes in. ...
... Conversely, the economic and ecological limbos present the most strategies. The correlation between accessibility and sustainability (James et al., 2013;Pelletier, 2010;Boyce, 2008;Anand & Sen, 2000) makes clear that a sustainable CiV would need to improve its accessibility. Residents' entrepreneurialism and green initiatives educe that the unlocking of all four limbos could progressively be achieved through a local ecological economy that emulates the principles of a social enterprise (Vargas-Sáenz, 2016). ...
In Latin America, accessibility is increasingly becoming a priority in urban planning. Yet, looking closer and multidimensionally, its application tends to perpetuate socio-economic-spatial imbalances and segregation in the region by concentrating in few cities only. In addition, accessibility research and literature at the global scale usually over-focus on spatial and statistical analysis to the disregard of the concept’s social and intangible dimensions––as is digital accessibility. Through the case study of the social housing complex of Ciudad Verde, Soacha––to the southeast of Bogotá, Colombia––, I contribute qualitative depth to the ‘accessibility’ concept by looking at it through its intersection with sustainability and the ‘formality-informality’ continuum (Lévy, 2020). Within the framework of a larger research project on urban sustainability in Ciudad Verde (which conducted focal group interviews and map-based surveys), I also place due attention on digital accessibility through Facebook. I recognize the platform as an accessibility tool for residents and use it as a research methodology. This diverse range of evidence revealed limbic elements hindering accessibility in Ciudad Verde. By using the resulting accessibility limbo as an analytical lens, this dissertation extracts lessons on how the Colombian complex can unleash its accessibility and sustainability. I argue that local (in) formal practices of access hold the clues for this; since they point at the missing pieces from a multi-scalar and multidimensional standpoint.
... According to Pelletier (2010), there are three approaches to distributive justice in the western tradition of normative political philosophy. These are shaped by the libertarian, socialist, and liberal theories (Sterba 2003;Okereke 2006). ...
... Within the libertarian tradition, individual liberty and private property rights are central concerns for a moral and political ideal (Sterba 2003). Distributive justice in the context of libertarianism is about providing freedom to individuals to pursue their respective material aspirations (Pelletier 2010). In this context, neoclassical economists such as Hayek (1976) and Friedman (1962) see free market as inherently just and any redistributive interventions by nonmarket forces as violations of the individual's basic right to liberty (Hayek 1976). ...
Justice is an underlying principle and an important lens in understanding sustainable development goals (SDG). There is a need for analysis and clarification on the underlying principles of justice embedded in the SDGs. Goals such as no poverty (goal 1), zero hunger (goal 2), health and well-being (goal 3), gender equality (goal 5), affordable energy (goal 7), reduced inequalities (goal 10) as well as climate action (goal 13) aim for a fair distribution of resources, risks, and benefits for all. There is one specific SDG goal which explicitly mentions “justice” and that is stated in goal 16 in the context of peace and ensuring access to justice for all in effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels. In achieving these goals, distributive justice is a central element and can guide the political translation of SDG goals and targets in concrete strategies and policies
... The role of markets and social and racial justice Sustainability reflects a socio-ecological condition that ensures the basic needs of the global human population over time, in balance with long-term ecological stability. In terms of policy, analysts have recognized that pursuing sustainability requires integration, the coupling of environmental, social and economic dimensions of policy initiatives, which is achieved with the pursuit of two conditions, inter-generational and intra-generational equity (Campbell, 1996;Padilla, 2002;Pearce and Turner, 1991;Pelletier, 2010;Vojnovic, 1995). The understanding of inter-generational and intra-generational equity principles has been developing since the early work by Meadows et al. (1972), taking on increasing complexity over time, but these principles have remained the foundational goals in pursuing sustainability. ...
... Intra-generational equity is based on promoting the equitable access to resources within current generations, providing human populations with basic needs, such as shelter, water, sewage, employment and adequate nutrition (Manderscheid, 2012;Pelletier, 2010;Revesz, Sands, & Stewart, 2000;Vargas, 2000aVargas, , 2000b. As asserted by the Brundtland Commission, it would encompass dealing with all local problems that would ensure the elimination of ''poverty, hunger, and disease'' (WCED, 1987, p. 29 (Tolba, 1990, p. 108). ...
With the world becoming urban and virtually all population growth over the next three decades expected in cities, it is certain that key pressures of government and governance will be urban in nature. In addition, much of the global wealth and resource consumption is concentrated in urban regions, and particularly in high-income countries. Into the 21st century, these evolving urban socio-ecological conditions and pressures are reflected, in part, in the global interest in urban sustainability. This article explores the evolution of the concepts sustainability and urban sustainability and assesses where we stand now with regard to research, politics, policy and practice. A particular interest in this analysis is placed on what limits our advancement toward the sustainability condition, with a focus placed on the interplay between two variables, the limited understanding of the science behind sustainability or the lack of commitment and apprehension by governments in advancing urban sustainability.
... Ecological economists attempt to redefine the economic actor from a « holistic » perspective (Siebenhüner, 2000). The « Special Issue on The Human Actor in Ecological-Economic Models » (Janssen and Jager, 2000) initiated the research and debate around the homo economicus concept and recent papers intended to foster an alternative view to the standard microeconomic agent (Ingebrigtsen, Jakobsen, 2009;Murtaza, 2011 ;Pelletier, 2010 ;Waring, 2010). In experimental and behavioural economics, Gintis (2000) used game theory to demonstrate that human beings are strong reciprocators and that altruism is the most contagious behaviour. ...
... Economics (Bina, Vaz, 2011;Gintis, 2000 ;Janssen and Jager, 2000;Ingebrigtsen, Jakobsen, 2009;Murtaza, 2011;Pelletier, 2010;Siebenhüner, 2000;Waring, 2010), we adopt a "holistic" perspective of humans. ...
In this paper, we attempt to build a new microeconomic approach that could be considered as a basis of the degrowth macroeconomic view. As degrowth is a critique of the dominant macroeconomic model of the endless search for economic growth, its microeconomic foundations can be built by searching a relevant grass-root economic initiative to theorise. Our approach is based upon the case study research of a self-harvesting Community Supported Agriculture in Belgium. The mainstream microeconomic model is based on the well-known Homo economicus assumption of individual self-interest and competitive behaviour. By contrast, our model is based on a holistic approach of producers and consumers, based upon trust, cooperation and ecologically responsible behaviours. This contribution participates to the flourishing literature on degrowth in Ecological Economics. We begin by reviewing the debate on degrowth and economic behaviour. We discuss the case study and its accounting expression that departs from the capitalist profit-seeking model. We conclude by explaining the limits and challenges of our model that implements degrowth on a small scale and in a capitalist environment.
... The provision and preservation of ecosystem services have long been subject to extensive scientific research (e.g., Bingham et al., 1995;Daily et al., 1997;Davidson, 2012;de Groot et al., 2002;Helliwell, 1969;King, 1966;Odum and Odum, 1972;Pearce, 1993;Swift et al., 2004;Turner, 1993). Defined as "the benefits people obtain from ecosystems" (Dempsey and Robertson, 2012;MEA, 2005, p.vii;Rapport et al., 1998, p.397;) or the "biological underpinnings essential to economic prosperity and other aspects of our well-being" (Daily et al., 1997, p.2), ecosystem services are generally classified into the four broad categories -(a) provisioning services, (b) regulating services, (c) cultural services and (d) supporting services (see e.g., FAO, 2007, p.43;Fisher et al., 2009, p.644;MEA, 2005, pp.28 ff.). ...
... So far, its distributive function has been most extensively considered, when discussing the even allocation of scarce resources (e.g., Fast, 2010). Distributive justice is based on the question, whether the (re-)distribution of something is just with respect to its outcome or result (Davidson, 2012;Ladwig, 2004Ladwig, , p.121, 2012Pelletier, 2010;Rawls, 1975pp.81 ff.). ...
The increasing cultivation of energy crops for biofuel production has significantly altered the focus of the agricultural sector, but the impact of biofuel production and use is not merely an agricultural one. Even more importantly, it is an issue, which likely promotes inequitable conditions and the social conflict of different (basic) needs. Within this context, the dominant argument criticizes the growing demand for biofuels in the north to compromise food security and sovereignty in the south. In order to address these trade-offs and conflicts, the objective of this paper is the introduction of a conceptual framework of socio-environmental services. By expanding the construct of environmental services to explicitly include the social dimension, it shall accommodate for the fact that the provision of environmental services is often embedded in a complex system of global (economic, ecological as well as social) interdependencies. Recently, the concept of payments for environmental services (PES) has received much attention with respect to its potential contribution to both environmental sustainability and the economic alleviation of poverty. By linking the idea of payments for socio-environmental services (PSES) to the three functions of justice, its beneficial impact may be more fully tapped.
... EE research has discussed values in three contexts. First, they have played a central role in philosophical discussions of economics' research, differences between mainstream and EE, and various EE schools of thought (Bina and Vaz, 2011;Pelletier, 2010;Söderbaum, 1999Söderbaum, , 2015Spash, 2002Spash, , 2012. Second, they have featured in deliberations of the role of human behaviour in achieving sustainability goals (cf. ...
Values have been discussed both in relation to the normative character of Ecological Economics and, albeit implicitly, in conceptions of human beings. Nevertheless, a conceptualisation of individually-held values remains underdeveloped. Scholars who do engage on a conceptual level tend to focus on the values of nature in the context of ecosystem services, with less emphasis on: (a) more generally-held values, (b) the psychological mechanisms for value formation and (c) how this understanding can be leveraged to achieve a sustainable future. In this paper, we revisit Milton Rokeach's concept of instrumental and terminal values, and draw upon it to stress the importance of both desirable end states and the means to achieve the goals endorsed by Ecological Economics. Considering these concepts with respect to the emerging literature on inner transformations for sustainability , we adopt a deliberative inside-out perspective on value change. Our conceptualisation of human values and value change provides scholars with new tools to understand and study different dimensions that help to engage with the transformation towards sustainability from a human level, behavioural perspective.
... In cases of blatant environmental racism, distribution of toxic wastes and pollution have direct impacts on quality of life and lifespan of BIPOC community members (Bullard et al. 2007). Other equity issues are more subtle and may involve access to green spaces (Pelletier 2010), access to decision-makers (Hillier 1998), funding for community projects (Larson and Ribot 2007), and the ways in which environmental issues are prioritized (Potapchuk et al. 2005;Bonta and Jordan 2007). We argue that without centering equity as the key tenet of environmental problem solving, we will not be able to address holistically our most pressing environmental issues. ...
The environment and natural resource fields have traditionally centered western science, the scholarship of white men, and land conservation strategies that neglect historical inhabitants. These tenets have led to a narrow view of how conservation is defined and created challenges for BIPOC students and professionals to see themselves as full and equal participants in the environmental sciences. The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources has worked to address these shortcomings through courses designed to address issues of systemic racism and exclusion in the environmental field. In our student’s first year, we pair a fall course focused on communication skills with a spring course that addresses issues of racism and social justice in the environmental fields. We use the fall semester to create a learning community where students build relationships of trust, mutual regard, and care and develop a deeper understanding of their relationship with the environment. In the spring, we present students with a variety of frameworks to think critically about equity, inclusion, positionality, privilege, racism, and diversity. A key learning outcome is to help students consider how historical and present-day dynamics of race and racism have shaped the environmental field. Importantly, we focus on the voices and messages of environmental leaders who have historically been left out of popular environmental narratives. We outline lessons learned in the integration of diversity, equity, and inclusion into our environment and natural resources curriculum and ways to further enhance our centering of equity and inclusion in the curriculum.
... Although it is easy to assume that division is a higher form of sharing, a fair share is not always the same thing as division (Hamamoucheet al., 2020;Hestner& Sumpter, 2018): it is about how resources should or could be shared (Chernyak&Sobel, 2016;Hestner& Sumpter, 2018;Smith et al., 2013). Looking at research in sustainability, sharing is one of the key questions (Latour, 2018;Pelletier, 2010), especiallysince we, according to Agenda21, need to be abstemious with resources (Zwarthoed, 2015). Sharing resources is also about the size of the parts: in the Brundtland report, it was concluded that resources need to be distributed more evenly to achieve sustainability (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). ...
Sharing and division are two concepts that have overlapping properties, and both are connected to the interpretation of fairness. In the present study, we study preschool children's work with a case where eight biscuits were shared between soft toys. The focus is onthe different arguments that the children express. The results show that children use both ethical arguments and mathematical arguments in their solutions. Some of the arguments can be categorised as 'Fair sharing related to number of pieces only' or 'Fair sharing employing ad hoc attempts at equal size'. The arguments that were coded as sharing not associated with mathematical sense of fairness were either classified as ethical reasoning or play. In the discussion, we raise the need of the combination of ethical reasoning and mathematical arguments if we want to create situations for children to develop critical thinking.
... Furthermore, common to both approaches is that processes in the environment are interpreted as the combined e•ect of human-environment relationships. These human-environment systems are in a state of constant transformation and change, and disturbances caused by the systems will result in inequalities and injustices with strong spatial consequences (Davidson, Anderton 2000;Pelletier 2010). Environmental injustices are space and scale-based as injustices appear di•erently in space and at various scales (Kurtz 2003) due to distributive processes (Walker 2012). ...
In recent decades, environmental justice has become a defining concept in socio-spatial inequality research, political debates, and activism. Environmental justice research, which is essentially based on theories of social and spatial justice and providesa normative framework for thinking, focuses on the unequal distribution of environmental harms and risks and their social consequences. Environmental justice research aims to explore the economic, social, health, and legal differences that individuals and groups face in their environment as a result of environmental processes, decision making, power relations, and law enforcement practices. This is largely related to the subjective perception of individuals and the perception of injustices by different actors. In the vast majority of environmental justice studies, spatiality provides a framework for interpreting and understanding environmentally unjust situations and processes. Environmental justice is therefore not only a natural, but also a socially dependent phenomenon, in which the key element is nevertheless the non-human factor (e.g. environmental events such as floods), which affects individuals and groups indifferent ways. As a result, an environmentally unjust state and situation may occur. The evolved injustices also interact with inherited spatial inequalities, existing socioeconomic systems, and the institutional structures that originally shape them.
This paper summarizes the theoretical framework of environmental justice in geography and spatial sciences. The study adapts the theory of justice to post-socialist and Hungarian specificities and forms of environmental injustice, and examines decision-making processes and the perception of risks. In Hungary social problems and differences have been increasing in recent decades, and marginalisation and polarisation processes have added new spatial patterns to existing inequalities, directly and indirectly affecting environmental processes as well. Attempts at eliminating environmental injustices have resulted in new injustices, or deepened existing ones, due to the lack of a complex socio-environmental spatial approach of interventions. The solution to these injustices presupposes the effective and meaningful involvement of the affected people in policy-making and implementation processes, regardless of gender, age, origin, identity, or income. Otherwise, the unjust situation will persist and crisis areas affected by environmental injustices may develop.
... The importance lies in the development of inclusive environmental decision-making and policy implementation processes. Distributive justice is concerned with the allocation of resources to ensure that natural resources are distributed equally and equitably to different citizens and stakeholders (Pelletier, 2010). Discussions on distributive justice and the environment have become the focus of gender, race, class, environmental 'bad' effects and access to environmental 'goods' ...
Large hydropower projects are commonly correlated with negative environmental effects, negative social consequences and inequalities. This study examines the negative social ramification that can be mitigated by careful planning of large hydropower projects, which involves incorporating ideas from theories of environmental justice and evaluating its relationship with social sustainability. A conceptual framework was designed based on the theory of environmental justice, and the findings were interpreted by a statistical hypothesis test from 235 sample questionnaires. The results of this study demonstrate that Environmental Justice and Social Sustainability have a positive relationship. The conceptual framework was tested on the residents being displaced in Nepal by the largest hydropower project. The model tests the social sustainability on the four different aspects of Environmental Justice; Substantive Justice, Procedural Justice, Distributive Justice, and Recognition Justice. The research concludes, the mitigation strategies taken by the Nepalese government in the construction of Nepal’s biggest hydropower project, ‘Budi Gandaki Hydropower’ to meet the social sustainable aspect of development to be satisfactory.
... Dieser Ressourcenansatz geht weit über den Stakeholderansatz hinaus, weil er neben Personen und Gruppen (die das Erreichen der Unternehmensziele beeinflussen oder selbst beeinflusst werden)(Freeman, 2010;Mitchell et al., 1997) auch öffentliche, private und Markt-Ressourcen berücksichtigt(Lusch & Vargo, 2014). Die nachhaltige Entwicklung ist von ihrem Grundgedanken aus eher ein Anliegen der Gemeinschaft, denn des Individuums(Pelletier, 2010). Für die Vermittlung bedarf es einer normativen Ordnung auf die im Folgenenden eingegangen wird.2.3.2 ...
The purpose of this cumulative dissertation is to introduce service, conceptualized by service-dominant logic, as a new explanatory framework to improve the understanding of sustainable development. Sustainability is a megatrend that challenges business and marketers to act upon and respond to global social and environmental problems. Even after over more than five decades of research related to sustainability there is a gap in the transformation to sustainable development of firms and society in large. Specifically, there appears to be a significant gap between sustainable awareness and the actual sustainable behavior of actors and organizations. A systematic approach to the topic of greenwashing is provided, including relevant approaches for its avoidance. Furthermore, the dissertation urges the need of a systematic and more general theoretic framework to connect marketing as a social science with sustainable development instead of fragmenting marketing in sub-disciplines (e.g., sustainable marketing, societal marketing, marketing ethics, etc.). S-D logic is proposed as model of marketing covering three dichotomies: (1) micro/macro, (2) positive (questioning what is?) / normative (questioning what ought to be), and (3) profit sector/nonprofit sector. S-D logic´s narrative is the continuing story of actors interacting, resource integrating and exchanging service, and co-creating value through service ecosystems, governed and evaluated through their institutional arrangements. Though with regards to sustainable development the reflection on conceptualizing value co-destruction is critical. For instance, through the value co-creation process negative value might be created for one actor, both actors, third parties, society, or nature. A strong conceptual link between the process of co-creation of value and the process of value co destruction is ascertainable in the sense of contra indication. In addition, the findings of a literature review indicate that further attention should be paid to imbalance, conflict and power relations between actors and the service ecosystem. Furthermore, the concept of service is extended beyond the human-created phenomenon, by observing that ecosystem services exist in the natural world. A change of perspective on nature is proposed to see nature no longer as a source of resource or a simple resource but as a services provider. Thus, the underlying human-nature relationships may improve.
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... Given that the meaning and application of fair distribution must be based on the interpretation of what is right or good for the involved subjects, the marketing system must be operationalized from the best ethical-moral content of a society (Pelletier 2010;Seiders and Berry 1998;Laczniak and Murphy 2008;Laczniak 2017). Thus, Proposition 1 states a fair marketing system develops a view of its structures, policies and practices, distributing benefits and penalties in the exchange process and considering the nature and adequacy of the procedures of the system activities. ...
The purpose of this paper is to make progress on the theoretical discussions about marketing systems in relation to the construction of the concept of equilibrium. An argumentative basis was developed in relation to the service-dominant logic, as well as propositions based on the theory of stakeholders, on distributive justice and on the discussion of externalities to consider the product as an agent of the marketing system. In addition, a product typology that sees life as a material basis for delivering a performance developed, arguing that systems based on this kind of materiality require a different moral consideration.
... It should also be noted that backcasting involves a much stronger normative element than does exploratory scenario building. After all, the choice of a suitable characterization of sustainability is an inherently normative exercise which requires, or at least implicitly presupposes, a notion of distributive justice (Pelletier, 2010). Without such a notion, and arguably other normative predispositions, e.g. ...
... Here, incorporating principles of distributive justice -normative principles designed to guide the allocation of the benefits and burdens of economic activity based on fair distribution (Lamont and Favor 2008) -can help to construct a development agenda based on principles of equity and equality. Such an equality-based and equity-focussed framework can help to account for the disparate developmental conditions of the global South and global North (Rosales 2008;Pelletier 2010;Nagendra et al. 2018). This process can provide more equitable options for where and how to implement the solutions with the most transformative potential to achieve sustainable development; for example, in reforming consumption and production patterns or in instituting market mechanisms such as caps in emission-trading schemes, carbon taxes and offsetting schemes. ...
The challenge of sustainable development offers the opportunity for more effective integration of global and local scenario approaches in environmental assessments and outlooks to support decision-making for all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at all levels (i.e. local, national, regional and global) (established, but incomplete). A bottom-up perspective on the future, which is based on local scenarios and practices offers potential benefits for exploring alternative futures that are grounded in local realities and start with existing practical action that can be appropriately scaled. Linking top-down and bottom-up approaches to multilevel scenario development provides an opportunity for global processes to inform local actions and for taking account of local actions in global agreements. Co-developing approaches with diverse stakeholders will help to overcome the current limitations in scaling innovations up, out and deep, and in transferring valuable lessons and results from local to both regional and global levels, and vice versa.
... Explicating both biophysical limits and social choice, in relation to each other, signals a promising first step toward incorporating justice issues in a sustainable economic framework (Wironen and Erickson, 2017). Additional calls for ecological economics to move its understanding of distributive justice toward a communitarian normative approach, focusing on actors as community members rather than as independent individuals, suggests that there may be some interest now in moving away from an individualist perspective (see Brown (2015), Brown andGarver (2009) andPelletier (2010)). Other movements in the field toward socio-ecological perspectives are characterized by realist perspectives on ecological economic theories, particularly with respect to social construction and relativism, which are seen as oversimplified reductions of society from its whole to its individual parts (Spash, 2013). ...
Ecological economics has long claimed distributive justice as a central tenet, yet discussions of equity and justice have received relatively little attention over the history of the field. While ecological economics has aspired to be transdisciplinary, its framing of justice is hardly pluralistic. Feminist perspectives and justice frameworks offer a structure for appraising the human condition that bridges social and ecological issues. Through a brief overview of the uptake of feminist perspectives in other social sciences, this paper outlines an initial justice-integration strategy for ecological economics by providing both a point of entry for readers to the vast and diverse field of feminist economic thought, as well as a context for the process of disciplinary evolution in social sciences. We also critique ecological economics' toleration of neoclassical mainstays such as individualism that run counter to justice goals. The paper concludes with a call for ecological economics practitioners and theorists to learn from other social sciences and elevate their attention to justice, to open possibilities for more dynamic, interdisciplinary, community-oriented, and pluralistic analysis.
... Rawls [29] argued that "[s]ocial and economic inequalities… are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society". Rawls' conception of moral equality and the right to resources lends support to the Bruntland definition of sustainable development, which emphasizes the need to equitably satisfy human needs across generations [30]. ...
... Dieser Ressourcenansatz geht weit über den Stakeholder-Ansatz hinaus, weil er neben Personen und Gruppen, die das Erreichen der Unternehmensziele beeinflussen oder selbst beeinflusst werden (Freeman 1984, S. 46;Mitchell et al. 1997, S. 854) auch öffentliche, private und Marktressourcen berücksichtigt (Lusch und Vargo 2014, S. 74 f.). Die nachhaltige Entwicklung ist von ihrem Grundgedanken aus eher ein Anliegen der Gemeinschaft denn des Individuums (Pelletier 2010(Pelletier , S. 1893. Für die Vermittlung bedarf es einer normativen Ordnung auf die im Folgenden eingegangen wird. ...
In einem vielbeachteten Gutachten des Wissenschaftlichen Beirats der Bundesregierung (WBGU) im Jahr 2011 wird ein notwendiger Transformationsprozess zu einer klimafreundlicheren Gesellschaft angemahnt (WBGU 2011). Im Jahr 2014 wird diese Forderung im Sondergutachten Klimaschutz als Weltbürgerbewegung aktualisiert (WBGU 2014). Studien verdeutlichen, dass viele Unternehmen in den letzten Jahren diesem geforderten Transformationsprozess nur sehr langsam und einseitig nachgehen. Danach sind nachhaltige Verhaltensweisen scheinbar nur dann relevant, wenn sie dem Unternehmen einen strategischen Wettbewerbsvorteil ermöglichen (Corporate Responsibility Index 2013). Werte und Normen von Unternehmensvertretern sowie deren gesellschaftlich verantwortungsvolles Handeln, verändern sich nur sehr strategisch. Das mag u. a. daran liegen, dass in der Vergangenheit primär technische Innovationen, z. B. effizientere Motoren, im Mittelpunkt standen, um den Transformationsprozess zu unterstützen und weniger die Veränderung von Einstellungen und Verhalten der Individuen (Stengel 2011). In den letzten Jahren haben jedoch soziale Innovationen (z. B. Sharing‐Economy) mit dem Ziel an Bedeutung gewonnen, die Ressourceneffizienz zu erhöhen. Ergänzend zeigen sich vielfältige Potenziale, wie sich gesellschaftliche Veränderungen durch innovative Formen der Kooperation, z. B. Reallabore, voranbringen lassen.
... Una corriente de la literatura que apela al uso de métodos deliberativos parte de una justificación normativa y ontológica que enfatiza la dimensión ética de las decisiones colectivas en relación al ambiente y rechaza la idea de que los fenómenos sociales son la simple agregación de los actos de individuos auto-gobernados y auto-determinados (Vatn 2009a, Pelletier 2010. ...
p> Resumen
En el campo de la valoración y decisión ambiental hay un interés creciente por el uso de métodos deliberativos.Con la deliberación se espera que las decisiones colectivas sean informadas por preferencias que tienen unamayor orientación al bien común, al tiempo que estas dichas decisiones se invisten de la legitimidad que ofrece lamayor participación ciudadana. Utilizando datos de un ejercicio de valoración monetaria deliberativa, VMD,realizado en Colombia se examina: (i) la influencia de la deliberación sobre las preferencias, y (ii) la relación entrelas condiciones socio-económicas de los individuos y su participación en deliberación. La evidencia presentadasugiere que: i) la deliberación produce preferencias que reflejan una mayor preocupación social, y ii) lasdesigualdades de estatus y educación están asociadas con mayores niveles de participación en deliberación. Losresultados sugieren que si bien los procesos deliberativos tienen la capacidad de transformar las preferencias eincorporar otros aspectos (ej. equidad) en la toma de decisiones, también pueden generar fenómenos de exclusiónsi da mayor influencia a un grupo privilegiado de participantes.
Palabras claves: Democracia deliberativa, Legitimidad, Disponibilidad a pagar, Bosque seco tropical.</p
... Consideration must also be given to the capacity of towns to redesign their coastal area to keep it attractive. Several authors stress the need to evaluate all gains and losses (Eiser et al., 2012) and to switch scale in order to understand the whole community concerned in an approach that would go beyond independent utilitarian motivation and favour common good regulation (Cooper and McKenna, 2008;Pelletier, 2010;Hampicke, 2011;Clément et al., 2015). In addition to the need to go beyond cost-benefit approaches, that do not adequately value future gains, this discussion highlights the need for adapted governance arrangements (Rupp-Armstrong and Abel et al., 2011) that would allow improved coordination between actors in an integrated territorial approach and a dialogue with the populace consistent with a participatory governance approach and stronger information and awareness measures. ...
This paper aims to inform forward-planning policies in the face of sea-level rise due to climate change,
focussing on the choice of reducing the vulnerability of property at risk through managed retreat or
protection behind seawalls. This adaptation is important not only to reduce the cost of future damage but
also to maintain the beaches which are an attractive feature for tourism, of vital importance for coastal
areas. Some 421 residents with main and secondary homes were surveyed in Hyères-les-palmiers in the
Var department (Southeast France). The survey sought to compare the willingness of residents to
contribute
financially to building a seawall or to relocating sea-front property. Preferences depend both
on common variables and variables specific to the proposed arrangement. They reveal common concerns
focused on effectiveness and the determining factor of property ownership. The results also show some
awareness of the long-term advantages of managed retreat, despite some opposition from older people,
who are also more sceptical about the reality of the risk incurred.
... It has already been pointed that the narrow definition of being (or "what it means to be human") as an individual guided only by self-interest and utility maximization is in conflict with the need to promote altruism and responsibility towards others and future generations. It is therefore in conflict with the notions of distributive justice [141,142]. The importance of individual and collective capacities, cultural attributes, rules and local institutions, as well as the creative and entrepreneurial capacity of the rural population have been recognized by sociologists [143,144], historians [145,146] and economists [136,[147][148][149]. Instead of following Machiavellian and Hobbesian philosophies, perhaps is time to go back to Aristotelian ideas, in which every individual is also political and, as such, has to take responsibility for a common cause, such as fighting for our species survival. ...
Through different policies and measures reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation and enhancing conservation (REDD+) has grown into a way to induce behavior change of forest managers and landowners in tropical countries. We argue that debates around REDD+ in Brazil have typically highlighted rewards and punishments, obscuring other core interventions and strategies that are also critically important to reach the goal of reducing deforestation, supporting livelihoods, and promoting conservation (i.e., technology transfer and capacity building). We adopt Foucault's concepts of governmentality and technologies of governance to provide a reading of the REDD+ discourse in Brazil and to offer an historical genealogy of the rewards and punishments approach. By analyzing practical elements from REDD+ implementation in the Brazilian Amazon, our research provides insights on the different dimensions in which smallholders react to rewards and punishments. In doing so, we add to the debate on governmentality, supplementing its focus on rationalities of governance with attention to the social practices in which such rationalities are embedded. Our research also suggests that the techniques of remuneration and coercion on which a rewards and punishments approach relies are only supporting limited behavioral changes on the ground, generating negative adaptations of deforestation practices, reducing positive feedbacks and, perhaps as importantly, producing only short-term outcomes at the expense of positive long-term land use changes. Furthermore, the approach ignores local heterogeneities and the differences between the agents engaging in forest clearing in the Amazon. The practical elements of the REDD+ discourse in Brazil suggest the rewards and punishments approach profoundly limits our understanding of human behavior by reducing the complex and multi-dimensional to a linear and rational simplicity. Such simplification leads to an underestimation of smallholders' capacity to play a key role in climate mitigation and adaptation. We conclude by highlighting the importance of looking at local heterogeneities and capacities and the need to promote trust, altruism and responsibility towards others and future generations.
... In ecological economics intra and intergenerational distributive justice is analysed, from an anthropocentric view, in terms of how changes in the allocation of resources over time and space may frustrate the potential needs satisfaction of human economic agents. Non-anthropocentric distributive justice instead refers to the concern for nature independently from the impacts on human welfare (van den Bergh, 1997;Pelletier, 2010). According to Daly, 1992 when speaking about sustainability, efficient distribution of natural resources is usually not determined by prices, and socially-just distribution is better achieved upon a social decision. ...
... Discussions should generate targets and benchmarks but also well-researched choices that drive community decision making. Sustainability is a community concern, not an individual one (Pelletier, 2010). Healthy human and natural ecosystems require that a multidimensional set of a community's interests be expressed and actions are intentional to mediate those interests (see also Box 3-2). ...
... Discussions should generate targets and benchmarks but also well-researched choices that drive community decision making. Sustainability is a community concern, not an individual one (Pelletier, 2010). Healthy human and natural ecosystems require that a multidimensional set of a community's interests be expressed and actions are intentional to mediate those interests (see also Box 3-2). ...
Cities have experienced an unprecedented rate of growth in the last decade. More than half the world’s population lives in urban areas, with the U.S. percentage at 80 percent. Cities have captured more than 80 percent of the globe’s economic activity and offered social mobility and economic prosperity to millions by clustering creative, innovative, and educated individuals and organizations. Clustering populations, however, can compound both positive and negative conditions, with many modern urban areas experiencing growing inequality, debility, and environmental degradation.
The spread and continued growth of urban areas presents a number of concerns for a sustainable future, particularly if cities cannot adequately address the rise of poverty, hunger, resource consumption, and biodiversity loss in their borders. Intended as a comparative illustration of the types of urban sustainability pathways and subsequent lessons learned existing in urban areas, this study examines specific examples that cut across geographies and scales and that feature a range of urban sustainability challenges and opportunities for collaborative learning across metropolitan regions. It focuses on nine cities across the United States and Canada (Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY, Philadelphia, PA, Pittsburgh, PA, Grand Rapids, MI, Flint, MI, Cedar Rapids, IA, Chattanooga, TN, and Vancouver, Canada), chosen to represent a variety of metropolitan regions, with consideration given to city size, proximity to coastal and other waterways, susceptibility to hazards, primary industry, and several other factors.
... Una corriente de la literatura que apela al uso de métodos deliberativos parte de una justificación normativa y ontológica que enfatiza la dimensión ética de las decisiones colectivas en relación al ambiente y rechaza la idea de que los fenómenos sociales son la simple agregación de los actos de individuos auto-gobernados y auto-determinados (Vatn 2009a, Pelletier 2010. ...
Resumen En el campo de la valoración y decisión ambiental hay un interés creciente por el uso de métodos deliberativos. Con la deliberación se espera que las decisiones colectivas sean informadas por preferencias que tienen una mayor orientación al bien común, al tiempo que estas dichas decisiones se invisten de la legitimidad que ofrece la mayor participación ciudadana. Utilizando datos de un ejercicio de valoración monetaria deliberativa, VMD, realizado en Colombia se examina: (i) la influencia de la deliberación sobre las preferencias, y (ii) la relación entre las condiciones socio-económicas de los individuos y su participación en deliberación. La evidencia presentada sugiere que: i) la deliberación produce preferencias que reflejan una mayor preocupación social, y ii) las desigualdades de estatus y educación están asociadas con mayores niveles de participación en deliberación. Los resultados sugieren que si bien los procesos deliberativos tienen la capacidad de transformar las preferencias e incorporar otros aspectos (ej. equidad) en la toma de decisiones, también pueden generar fenómenos de exclusión si da mayor influencia a un grupo privilegiado de participantes. Palabras claves: Democracia deliberativa, Legitimidad, Disponibilidad a pagar, Bosque seco tropical. Abstract Deliberative methods for environmental valuation have recently gained support for environmental decision making. Proponents argue that deliberation leads to the expression of more public oriented preferences, and given its participatory character produces more legitimate decisions. Using the results of a deliberative workshop applied to a forest conservation policy in Colombia this study analyses: (i) the influence of deliberation on preferences; and (ii) the relationship between participant's background conditions and their participatory activity in deliberation. It is found that: (i) after deliberation participants expressed preferences more concerned with the social aspects of the policy; and (ii) that those more educated and occupying a recognized position of leadership were more participative than their peers. Results point to the capacity of deliberation to transform preferences and to incorporate other dimensions (e.g. equity) into decision-making, and suggest that deliberative procedures may be exclusive if they are not neutral but favor those participants who are more educated, and that occupy a privileged social position
... While, traditionally, heterodox economists have not focussed sufficiently on the environment (Mearman 2005;Spash and Schandl 2009: 13;Perry 2013), an ecological dimension can -and should -be added to current heterodox approaches to economic activity and policy. Following Aldo Leopold's (1949) Land Ethic, this ecological constraint could be framed as follows: humans must always maintain the resilience and integrity of ecosystems (see also Pelletier 2010Pelletier : 1888. Heterodox economics embraces fundamental uncertainty, which results from an acceptance of open systems and historical time. ...
... This contrasts with a more narrow understanding of the human being that works on the assumptions of the "homo oeconomicus" model and considers the relation between humans and nonhumans in terms of instrumentality only [50,58]. Nature may be seen as "the other" and contrasted with the essence of human being, or humans may be seen as part of nature [59,60]. There are different assumptions about the vulnerability of nature to human influence. ...
We discuss how the normative dimension of sustainability can be captured in terms of justice. We (i) identify the core characteristics of the concept of sustainability and discuss underlying ethical, ontological and epistemological assumptions; (ii) introduce a general conceptual structure of justice for the analysis and comparison of different conceptions of justice; and (iii) employ this conceptual structure to determine the specific characteristics and challenges of justice in the context of sustainability. We demonstrate that sustainability raises specific and partly new challenges of justice regarding the community of justice, the judicandum, the informational base, the principles, and the instruments of justice.
... The basis for this distinction can be found in the literature in the communitarian critique of Rawls and distributive justice. Authors such as Pelletier (2010), Sandel (1990) and Walzer (1983) argue that justice is a situated phenomenon, i.e. that principles of justice must be understood within the context of the culture in question, with reference to beliefs, practices and institutions that guide actors. ...
Concern over social equity dominates current debates about payments for ecosystem services and reduced deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). Yet, despite the apprehension that these initiatives may undermine equity, the term is generally left undefined. This paper presents a systematic framework for the analysis of equity that can be used to examine how local equity is affected as the global value of ecosystem services changes. Our framework identifies three dimensions that form the content (the what) of equity. The first, distributive equity, addresses the distribution of benefits and costs. The second, procedural equity, refers to decision-making. These are linked by the third dimension, contextual equity, which incorporates the pre-existing conditions that limit or facilitate people's access to decision-making procedures, resources and, thereby, benefits. The framework then asks how these dimensions are shaped by the scale and target group of concern (who), the framing of goals with respect to equity (why), and, crucially, how the decisions about the content, target and aims of equity are taken. By spurring debate around the fundamental ethical values at stake, this framework can guide analysts, policymakers and planners towards more open and inclusive processes for defining equity, along with affirmative efforts to engage marginalised people.
... Human activities that release large amount of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere are known as part of the main contributors of global warming . Currently, the greenhouse effect receives plenty of attention from researchers, which can be seen by the increasing amount of research that has been published on the impact of human activities towards the environment (Pelletier, 2010;McBride et al., 2011;Laurent et al., 2012; and many more). For instance, the impact of greenhouse gases on the environmental concern has emerged as a result of rapid economic growth and excessive consumption of natural resources (Tong, 2000). ...
Air pollution as a result of production processes has a great impact on the environment and contributes directly to global warming, which is linked to climate change. This paper evaluates the eco-efficiency of the manufacturing sector in Malaysia by taking into account both economic and ecological factors (i.e. air pollution). Manufacturing activities produce pollutants that can contribute to poor environmental performance and are regarded as undesirable outputs. Thus, it would be incomplete to measure the efficiency of manufacturing activities without considering the undesirable outputs. This study employs the Range Adjusted Measure (RAM) model which accounts for both desirable and undesirable outputs in the production process. The results show that the Malaysian manufacturing industry as a whole has an average unified eco-efficiency score of 94% (category 1) in 2010 which indicates scope for reduction of inputs and pollutants as much as 6%. The results also reveal that, on average, the eco-efficiency score of the free industrial or free trade zone states are higher than non-free industrial zone states. This may be due to two reasons, first, manufacturers in the free industrial zones are export orientated and learning effects are gained from export participation which help firms improve their efficiency over time. Second, the firms enjoy duty free imports of raw materials as well as are exempt from various taxes and duties that help reduce production costs. The empirical evidence in this study may provide some directions in formulating policies, laws, regulations and strategies pertaining to any environmental performance issue particularly concerning environmental damage caused by industrial pollutants so that the productivity growth is in balance with environmental performance.
... The scale issue has since become recognised as a core focus for the Ecological Economics discipline in general, strongly related to the concept of resilience in that the greater the scale of the economy, the greater the risk of closing welfare opportunities for future generations, or even destroying the conditions for human life in the long run (Costanza, 1991;Rockström et al., 2009;Røpke, 2005). Recently Pelletier (2010Pelletier ( , p.1892, states "the necessity of constraining the scale of economic activity relative to biocapacity has normative weight in informing the structuring of economic activities in aggregate precisely because it is a prerequisite to socio-ecological sustainabilityboth in the local-scale contexts of specific ecosystems and for the macroscale context of the biosphere as a whole". ...
The global biogeochemical cycles are recognised as extremely important processes operating within the Earth's (geo)biosphere. However, there are currently few methods available through which we can understand and communicate humanity's dependence on these cycles. This paper presents a novel method, based on input–output analysis, for deriving a suite of indicators describing the level at which the global economy, through its transformation of useful resources (i.e. raw materials) into residuals (i.e. wastes, pollutants, emissions), is appropriating biogeochemical processes. Furthermore, significant insight into the scale of the global economic system is gained by comparing the rate of human appropriation of biogeochemical cycling with that of the biosphere's regenerative capacity. In order to calculate these indicators, we create a new concept of ‘ecotime’, defined as the average biogeochemical cycling time available for matter held within differing types of environmental commodities (e.g. carbon dioxide, plants, fossil fuels) to reach biogeochemical processes under consideration. Resources used by the global economy generally have long ecotimes, while the residuals produced by economic activities generally have short ecotimes. Applying our method to an extensive database encompassing the key biogeochemical cycles, it is found that humans are placing significant pressure on these cycles.
... An additional challenge will be to identify the normative premises necessary to legitimize particular distributive strategies that might be implemented in response to information derived from ESF studies. Pelletier (2010b) proposes ecological communitarianism as the appropriate ethical foundation for sustainability on the basis that environmental sustainability is prerequisite to sustainability in any other domain and, as such, must be considered as the first principle of distributive justice. This perspective points toward the need for strong environmental governance institutions which set the context in which distributive solutions are entertained. ...
Sustainability is central to the policy objectives of the European Commission (EC), but a widely accepted integrated sustainability assessment framework in support of policy analysis and development is currently lacking. Here, we sketch the conceptual basis for the proposed European Sustainability Footprint (ESF) - an integrated sustainability assessment framework for establishing a baseline and tracking trends with respect to the sustainability of European production and consumption (at both micro- and macro-scales). Specifically, it is proposed that the European Sustainability Footprint be comprised of a selection of life-cycle based indicators (environmental, social, and economic) for production and consumption at product, sector and economy-scales. The indicators will subsequently be assessed against defined sustainability targets or thresholds in each domain. Such an approach is necessary for monitoring the relationship between, as well as progress with respect to, the twin EC policy objectives of (1) green growth and (2) ensuring that the EU economy develops so as to respect planetary boundaries and resource constraints.
... A characteristic considered vital in sustainability initiatives is 'integration'; coupling environmental, social, and economic policy dimensions. 'Integration' can be achieved in the pursuit of two conditions, inter-and intra-generational equities (Padilla, 2002;Pelletier, 2010;Vojnovic, 1995). Inter-generational equity is concerned with ensuring the survival of future generations and environmental well-being by maintaining the quality of natural resources and their services over time. ...
... The basis for this distinction can be found in the literature in the communitarian critique of Rawls and distributive justice. Authors such as Pelletier (2010), Sandel (1990) and Walzer (1983) argue that justice is a situated phenomenon, i.e. that principles of justice must be understood within the context of the culture in question, with reference to beliefs, practices and institutions that guide actors. Capability theory similarly questions liberal notions of justice founded on individuals with their autonomous preferences and rights. ...
Concern over social equity dominates current debates about payments for ecosystem services and reduced deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). Yet, despite the apprehension that these initiatives may undermine equity, the term is generally left undefined. This paper presents a systematic framework for the analysis of equity that can be used to examine how local equity is affected as the global value of ecosystem services changes. Our framework identifies three dimensions that form the content (the what) of equity. The first, distributive equity, addresses the distribution of benefits and costs. The second, procedural equity, refers to decision-making. These are linked by the third dimension, contextual equity, which incorporates the pre-existing conditions that limit or facilitate people’s access to decision-making procedures, resources and, thereby, benefits. The framework then asks how these dimensions are shaped by the scale and target group of concern (who), the framing of goals with respect to equity (why), and, crucially, how the decisions about the content, target and aims of equity are taken. By spurring debate around the fundamental ethical values at stake, this framework can guide analysts, policymakers and planners towards more open and inclusive processes for defining equity, along with affirmative efforts to engage marginalised people.
Climate change is a paramount problem for humanity, representing a substantial danger to all living organisms. Industrialization, a vital factor for economic progress, has resulted in global warming, posing a threat to the long-term viability of our ecosystem. Currently, a wide range of techniques and technologies are being used to guarantee the preservation of the environment for future generations. This study employed data from the Scopus database to do topic modeling. Authors used latent Dirichlet allocation to extract research themes related to environmental sustainability from a corpus of 4023 research articles published between 1976 and 2022. By utilizing clustering methodologies to analyze the collection of words, Authors successfully forecasted two, five, and ten study subjects, emphasizing specific domains that necessitate additional investigation by scholars. Based on coherence ratings, five subjects have been identified as prospective study areas requiring further scientific exploration. The results of our research emphasize the significance of incorporating environmentally-friendly technologies in different industries to promote a long-lasting and eco-friendly ecosystem. In addition, authors recommend prioritizing implementing sustainable and environmentally friendly technologies, improving the management of ecosystems, encouraging water conservation, promoting agricultural advancements, and advancing renewable energy resources as crucial strategies for protecting the environment and enhancing ecological conditions. This analysis illuminates current research trends in environmental sustainability and potential pathways for future investigation and intervention.
A crise civilizatória atual envolve as relações entre humanos e não-humanos. Estas relações são influenciadas pela racionalidade moderna antropocêntrica e fazem parte da educação em ciências. Este trabalho entende o Giro Biocêntrico, os movimentos de reconhecimento dos direitos da natureza, e os movimentos de construção de alternativas ao modelo capitalista como contexto produtor de demandas educativas. O objetivo é identificar os sentidos do conceito do biocentrismo no campo da educação em ciências e especificamente traçar contribuições da ética biocêntrica para um pluralismo epistemológico não antropocêntrico. Através de um levantamento bibliográfico identificamos a influência da articulação com o campo da educação ambiental, a abordagem de questões sociocientíficas, a inclusão das dimensões estéticas e propostas didáticas que vão além dos animais como caminhos para a emergência de posturas éticas biocêntricas e ecocêntricas.
Palavras chave: ética biocêntrica, educação ambiental, ecologia política.
Abstract The current civilizational crisis involves relations between humans and non-humans. These relationships are influenced by modern anthropocentric rationality and are part of science education. This work understands the Biocentric Giro, the movements for the recognition of the rights of nature, and the movements for the construction of alternatives to the capitalist model as a context that produces educational demands. The objective is to identify the meanings of the concept of biocentrism in the field of science education and specifically to trace contributions from biocentric ethics to a non-anthropocentric epistemological pluralism. Through a bibliographic survey, we identified the influence of the articulation with the field of environmental education, the approach of socio-scientific issues, the inclusion of aesthetic dimensions and didactic proposals that go beyond animals as paths for the emergence of biocentric and ecocentric ethical postures.
Since the industrial revolution, the predominant model of economic development hasinvolved economies of scale and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources,leading to environmental degradation and the ongoing mass extinction of species. The environmental impacts of this development-for(the sake of)-development model led to biodiversity conservation efforts that can be described as conservation-for (the sake of)-conservation approach involving protected areas maintained free of humans. This approach subsequently expanded to include development-for-conservation efforts that integrated local community welfare into conservation programs. These conservation approaches helped make socio-ecological gains, but have failed to address planetary environmental degradation. Here, we outline a development approach for the earth’s last-remaining biodiversity rich areas, focusing on economies of value rather than scale, and relying on conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of ecosystem services. This conservation-for-development model is an attempt to bring humanity and nature closer, and move away from nature–people dualism that has characterized economic development and biodiversity conservation so far.
The study of planetary justice is an emerging research field that explores questions of justice on a planetary scale, particularly in the context of the profound global environmental and systemic challenges our earth system is facing. The connection between environmental conditions, human well-being, and justice and equity has been established over the past decades through both academic research, and advocacy and campaigning. However, despite the growing attention and priority of this concept, divergences exist between what is meant by ‘justice’ by different actors in all arenas, including academia. This article uses a framework first developed by Biermann & Kalfagianni (2016, 2018) for empirically analysing what concepts of justice are present in global change research, how this has changed over time, and what patterns or contradictions can be observed. By exploring what concepts, principles and mechanisms of justice emerge from global change research, the paper supports the further development of a ‘planetary justice’ research agenda in the study of earth system governance.
Bien que l’allocation et la distribution des ressources rares soient les objets traditionnels de l’analyse économique, ressources naturelles et environnement ont longtemps été négligés en raison de leur nature souvent non marchande. En outre, l’horizon normatif de l’économie étant généralement l’efficacité, la question de la répartition des ressources naturelles et de la qualité environnementale peine encore à trouver sa place. L’économie de l’environnement et des ressources naturelles, qui s’intéresse aux problèmes de pollution et à l’exploitation optimale des ressources, raisonne dans un cadre qui permet difficilement de penser les inégalités d’environnement pour elles-mêmes. Mais les enjeux de justice font trop souvent irruption dans les débats environnementaux pour n’être pas traités, et les économistes en sont de plus en plus conscients. De son côté, le courant de l’économie écologique porte un intérêt particulier à la justice sociale dans le cadre de limites écologiques du développement. De nombreux travaux en relevant interrogent les disparités socio-économiques dans la relation à l’environnement. La question de la justice environnementale et des conflits socio-environnementaux y a d’ailleurs une place importante. Nous proposons dans cet article un tour d’horizon critique et non exhaustif des apports de l’économie à l’étude des inégalités sociales d’environnement.
For indicators to assess a society’s sustainability it is necessary that the understanding of what type of sustainability one wishes to measure is clear. The hypothesis tested in the present study is that solid waste management indicators, used in city sustainability assessments, do not represent the concept of strong sustainability. To test the hypothesis, the article initially identifies the perspectives of solid waste management from the strong sustainability’s point of view, under Ecological Economy perspective. The hypothesis was tested in thirteen sustainability assessment tools, covering approximately 400 cities. Two, out of five perspectives identified, had indicators selected represent them. Only one system presented three perspectives, and eight presented two. To represent the theme’s complexity, all perspectives should be considered, so the hypothesis formulated was accepted.
The quality and functions of the current landscape are being reduced by building-up areas, implementing line traffic constructions, noise stress, emissions, excessive use of production services of areas, degradation of soil, surface and underground water contamination, breaching the water regime of areas, and by reducing its esthetic function. The assessment of landscape in terms of its functions constitutes an essential tool and basis for landscape care, including its protection and sustainable use of its components. Both scientific literature and topical professional debates show that the sustainability of mankind within the biosphere may be jeopardized by neglecting a full integration of landscape services into economics and politics. This paper introduces environmental economical aspects of the published and discussed approaches as well as the proposed integrative assessment methods, as a tool for stepping up pressure on improving environment.
In an encyclical released in June of 2015, Pope Francis cast the need to address climate change as a moral imperative. Using nationally-representative surveys with supplemental samples of Catholics, we investigate changes in the U.S. public’s post-encyclical attitudes about climate change and the Catholic pontiff. People who were aware of the encyclical held more polarized attitudes toward climate change than those who were unaware of it. Whereas encyclical-aware liberals expressed heightened concerns about climate change, encyclical-aware conservatives expressed lower levels. Cross-pressured by the inconsistency between the pontiff’s views and those of their political allies, conservative Catholics devalued the Pope’s credibility on climate change. These findings have important implications for communication about climate change in polarized opinion environments.
Sustainability is about meeting present needs without compromising the needs of future generations. Achieving sustainability is thus bound to have distributional consequences. But to what extent is it possible to correct the ex-post distribution via transfers between generations? Starting from a numerical example, the analysis uses a stock-flow-consistent model with a view to investigate the limitations and consequences of such transfers. It shows that inter-generational transfers face significant limitations which render compensation payments practically impossible. Moreover, the analysis allows some conclusions regarding the effects of introducing a pension systems and/or a more explicit role of public investment in capital accumulation.
Despite the rapid rise in public expenditure on clean energy infrastructure, there has been little discussion about what constitutes a fair distribution of this new spending burden. We examine four ethical principles that speak to different notions of fairness in the way this burden can and should be shared, and use them to produce three normative criteria for pursuing fairness in the clean energy fiscal policy context. We use these criteria to examine the extent to which fairness is being achieved in large clean energy roll-out programs in Australia, California and the United Kingdom. Maintaining a close focus on providing practical guidance for decision makers in similar policy contexts, we find that fairness is more achievable when program design explicitly considers which households should pay for the program and which should be exempt; when the idea of proportionality guides the distribution of the cost across paying households, and when the interests of low-income households are protected, by ensuring that they share in the benefits of the program, for example.
This paper identifies the duty to care for the public interest in the commonly valued ecological goods of the Gulf as one of the basic essential features of the moral significance of the federal policies that govern the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. I argue that the Clean Water Act and the Oil Protection Act implicitly provide for a communitarian interpretation of the public and ecological goods of this event that warrants a virtue ethical account of normativity that is ultimately expressed in the duty to care, a duty that is one of the central moral principles that underlies the punitive damages doctrine.
This paper takes a first step in comparing and synthesising the emerging concept of energy justice with extant ethical consumption literatures as two complementary theoretical approaches to ethics and consumption. To date, theories of ethical consumption and energy justice remain somewhat disconnected, so while they have some areas of potential comparability, these have not yet been fleshed out or developed. To address this lacuna, this paper explores areas where research into ethical consumption might be useful for furthering concepts of energy justice. More specifically the discussion draws on the philosophical foundations, the relationship between consumption and development, and the role of transparency and visibility in reconnecting consumption and production practices as the main areas of overlap in these literatures. The conclusion points to some lessons for emerging energy justice literatures that can be drawn from this task of comparison and synthesis.
Methodological pluralism advocates balanced consideration of multiple research methods. The concept rests upon the necessity of choice in the absence of conclusive principles to guide the preference of method. Ecological economics, however, appears to be engaging in a different conception creating confusion as to the scope for intellectual openness. This paper offers clarifications for this concept and a critique. Ecological economics advances a coherent theory crafted along its biophysical worldview and moral commitments. These imperatives guide the choice of method and favour a reduced range of methodological possibilities to the exclusion of neoclassical economic options. If ecological economics is seen as an ideological opposite of neoclassical economics, it would need a selective methodological strategy rather than maintaining methodological diversity. Maintaining diversity may erode the basis of its heterodox criticisms by requiring openness to the orthodox alternatives. Ecological economics has shown difficulty in sustaining its long-standing pluralist commitments while increasingly seeking clear differentiation from its monolithic “enemy”.
This paper articulates and applies frameworks for examining whether consumption is excessive. We consider two criteria for the possible excessiveness (or insufficiency) of current consumption. One is an intertemporal utility-maximization criterion: actual current consumption is deemed excessive if it is higher than the level of current consumption on the consumption path that maximizes the present discounted value of utility. The other is a sustainability criterion, which requires that current consumption be consistent with non-declining living standards over time. We extend previous theoretical approaches by offering a formula for the sustainability criterion that accounts for population growth and technological change. In applying this formula, we find that some poor regions of the world are failing to meet the sustainability criterion: in these regions, genuine wealth per capita is falling as investments in human and manufactured capital are not sufficient to offset the depletion of natural capital.
This article makes two arguments. First, that social justice constitutes an inherent part of the conception of sustainable development that the World Commission on Environment and Development outlined in Our Common Future (1987). The primary goal of the Commission was to reconcile physical sustainability, need satisfaction and equal opportunities, within and between generations. Sustainable development is what defines this reconciliation.
Second, it is argued that this conception of sustainable development is broadly compatible with liberal theories of justice. Sustainable development, however, goes beyond liberal theories of justice in many respects. It is based on three assumptions, which are for the most part ignored in liberal theories: an accelerating ecological interdependence, historical inequality in past resource use, and the 'growth of limits'. These assumptions create a conflict between intra- and intergenerational justice, which is ignored in liberal theories, but which sustainable development tries to solve. It does so by imposing duties on developed countries that goes beyond liberal demands, and by abandoning the focus 'solely on protection' that dominates non-anthropocentric approaches to environmental sustainability.
With specific focus on two environmental regimes (the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and the Climate Change Convention), this paper seeks to indicate the prospects and limitations of the aspirations for distributive justice by the political South within the context of sustainability in general, and the institutions for global environmental governance in particular. It is argued that while these aspirations have produced important normative shifts in the rule-structure of global environmental management, they have not proved momentous enough to generate policies outside of what the prevailing neoliberal socio-economic regime might permit. Hence, although the texts of global environmental agreements accommodate concepts that express egalitarian notions of justice, core policies remain firmly rooted in market-based neoliberal interpretations of justice, which mainly serve to sustain the status quo.
In recent years there has been a renewal of interest in the liberal tradition in international thought, with particular attention being paid to liberal conceptions of international distributive justice. This article describes and criticizes three different approaches to international distributive justice represented in the recent literature: (1) social liberalism, which takes the nation-state as basic and argues for international transfers to the extent necessary to sustain just domestic institutions; (2) laisser-faire liberalism, which, in its redistributivist variant, aims to rectify injustices arising from the unequal appropriation of natural resources; and (3) cosmopolitan liberalism, which takes each individual's interests as equally deserving of concern in the design of global (and sectional) institutions.
When god-like Odysseus returned from the wars in Troy, he hanged all on one rope a dozen slave-girls of his household whom he suspected of misbehavior during his absence.
In standard economics, Homo economicus was celebrated to be the most promising conception of human behavior given the formalization this model allows. But it exhibits severe analytical and normative shortcomings. In ecological economics rather little attention has been given to the underlying conception of humans. This article puts forward a different conception of humans that is based on the concept of sustainability. In contrast to the individualistic, self-interested and rational economic man, the social dimension of human existence will be considered as well as emotional and evolutionary aspects. Moreover, moral responsibility appears to be an important determinant of human action due to humans' history as a being in community. This conception provides policy conclusions that stress individual and social learning for sustainable development.
Description d'un systeme d'ethique environnementale, fonde sur une attitude morale de respect pour la nature, impliquant un ensemble de croyances ethiques et de conduites pratiques. Une cosmologie biocentrique prenant le monde naturel comme un systeme organique rend possible cette definition d'une ethique a l'egard de la nature, parallele a l'ethique humaine.
I regard myself as an advocate of animal rights—as part of the animal rights movement. That movement, as I conceive it, is committed to a number of goals, including:
the total abolition of the use of animals in science;
the total dissolution of commercial animal agriculture;
the total elimination of commercial and sport hunting and trapping.
First published in 1949 and praised in The New York Times Book Review as "a trenchant book, full of vigor and bite," A Sand County Almanac combines some of the finest nature writing since Thoreau with an outspoken and highly ethical regard for America's relationship to the land. Written with an unparalleled understanding of the ways of nature, the book includes a section on the monthly changes of the Wisconsin countryside; another part that gathers informal pieces written by Leopold over a forty-year period as he traveled through the woodlands of Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, Sonora, Oregon, Manitoba, and elsewhere; and a final section in which Leopold addresses the philosophical issues involved in wildlife conservation. As the forerunner of such important books as Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek , Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire , and Robert Finch's The Primal Place , this classic work remains as relevant today as it was forty years ago.
Recent research has examined the hypothesis of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC)—the notion that environmental impact increases in the early stages of development followed by declines in the later stages. These studies have focused on the relationship between per capita income and a variety of environmental indicators. Results imply that EKCs may exist for a number of cases. However, the measures of environmental impact used generally focus on production processes and reflect environmental impacts that are local in nature and for which abatement is relatively inexpensive in terms of monetary costs and/or lifestyle changes. Significantly, more consumption-based measures, such CO2 emissions and municipal waste, for which impacts are relatively easy to externalize or costly to control, show no tendency to decline with increasing per capita income. By considering consumption and trade patterns, the author re-examines the concept of the EKC and proposes the use of alternative, consumption-based measures of environmental impact. The author speculates that what appear to be improvements in environmental quality may in reality be indicators of increased ability of consumers in wealthy nations to distance themselves from the environmental degradation associated with their consumption.
This text book was originally published in 1963. It is now in its 12rth edition and re-titled Economics and co-authored with Alec Chrystal. It was originally written to promote the Poppperian view that empirically interesting proposition must be potentially testable i.e., capable of being confronted with conflicting evidence. This in contrast to the then-prevailing view in the UK that was stated by Robbins in the Nature and Significance that theories are tested by examining the intuitive plausibility of their assumptions. Greatly changed over the decades, the 4th edition is be best one to catch the thrust and content of the original.. .
Ecologically responsible policies are concerned only in part with pollution and resource depletion. There are deeper concerns which touch upon principles of diversity, complexity, autonomy, decentralization, symbiosis, egalitarianism, and classlessness.
In his previous papers written on the topic of animal rights, Tom Regan argued that on the assumption that certain human beings have moral rights then so do certain animals. Here the argument is carried a stage further; Regan argues that some animals have certain moral rights. For the most part the book is taken up with criticizing alternative views concerning our moral obligations to animals and explaining and defending “The Rights View”. In the final chapter, Regan draws out the implications ofthe rights view. These include arguing for an obligation to be a vegetarian, moral condemnation of hunting and trapping of wild animals as well as of most of the uses of animals for scientific purposes. Animals are not to be used for toxicity tests, in education contexts or in scientific research even though this may produce beneficial consequences for humans and other animals. The book is very clearly written and well argued. It covers all important positions and arguments related t o the question of our moral obligations to animals. It is, I believe, the best book to appear on this subject to date.
John Rawls is the most influential English-language political philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century – indeed, perhaps since John Stuart Mill. His influence rests partly on the very format of his masterwork, A Theory of Justice. But Theory is a flawed and incomplete masterpiece, and the “Rawls industry” that has developed around his work has been stimulated by these imperfections. Indeed, Rawls himself has corrected and elaborated upon his original formulations in a series of essays compiled in Political Liberalism and his recent Collected Papers. One of the most controversial features of Theory concerns its handling of international issues; Rawls turned to this question explicitly in an Amnesty International Lecture of 1993, “The Law of Peoples” (published in his Collected Papers), which he has now extended into a monograph with the same title. The latter is the main focus of this essay, which also includes a sketch of Rawls's project as a whole as a necessary preliminary.
Neoclassical economic theory in its pretensions to scientific status is founded on one of the variants of a now discredited positivism. Neoclassical economic theory claims that there are two distinct areas of economic research: positive economics and normative economics. The former is assumed to deal with the cognitive as scientific content of economics while the later focuses on welfare or equity issues. I argue that the reliance of the whole theoretical structure of economics on the normative postulate of rationality renders neoclassical economics a normative discipline. I also argue that neoclassical economics should thus be viewed as an instance of applied ethics rather than as applied mathematics, say. Finally, it is suggested that neoclassical economics, if its scientific pretensions are to be taken seriously, should be absorbed theoretically into general anthropology.
This article examines Rawls's and Scanlon's surprisingly undemanding contractualist accounts of global moral principles. Scanlon's Principle of Rescue requires too little of the world's rich unless the causal links between them and the poor are unreliable. Rawls's principle of legitimacy leads him to theorize in terms of a law of peoples instead of persons, and his conception of a people leads him to spurn global distributive equality. Rawls's approach has advantages over the cosmopolitan egalitarianism of Beitz and Pogge. But it cannot generate principles to regulate the entire global economic order. The article proposes a new cosmopolitan economic original position argument to make up for this lack in Rawls's Law of Peoples.
Global economic and political inequalities are in most respects greater today than they have been for decades. From one point of view inequality is a bad thing simply because it involves a deviation from equality, which is thought to have value for its own sake. But it is controversial whether this position can be defended, and if it can, whether the egalitarian ideal on which the defense may depend applies at the global level as in individual societies. Setting aside directly egalitarian reasons for concern about global inequality, this paper explores several reasons for concern that derive from nonegalitarian values – primarily those associated with poverty and material deprivation, humiliation, the impact of inequality on the capacity for self-control and self-government, and the unfairness of political decision-making procedures with large economic inequalities in the background.
In essence, the concept of a person's ecological footprint is simple: it is the area of land needed to support permanently a specified lifestyle. But in practice eco-footprinting is more complex. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate the most important aspects of that complexity. We avoid discussion of a recent elaboration of eco-footprinting, namely including the sea as a component of the ecological footprint and the use of equivalence factors. The reason is that we see those changes as being less fundamental, and intend to cover them in a separate paper. The current paper—concentrating on the fundamentals—concludes that eco-footprinting is the best method available for making a quantitative assessment of the extent to which consumption, by a specified human population, is exceeding biocapacity.
This article identifies social justice dilemmas associated with the necessity to adapt to climate change, examines how they are currently addressed by the climate change regime, and proposes solutions to overcome prevailing gaps and ambiguities. We argue that the key justice dilemmas of adaptation include responsibility for climate change impacts, the level and burden sharing of assistance to vulnerable countries for adaptation, distribution of assistance between recipient countries and adaptation measures, and fair participation in planning and making decisions on adaptation. We demonstrate how the climate change regime largely omits responsibility but makes a general commitment to assistance. However, the regime has so far failed to operationalise assistance and has made only minor progress towards eliminating obstacles for fair participation. We propose the adoption of four principles for fair adaptation in the climate change regime. These include avoiding dangerous climate change, forward-looking responsibility, putting the most vulnerable first and equal participation of all. We argue that a safe maximum standard of 400–500 ppm of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and a carbon tax of $20–50 per carbon equivalent ton could provide the initial instruments for operationalising the principles.
Through a thought experiment in which members of different generations trade with each other in a virtual market, we examine the effects of alternative assignments of global environmental rights on prices, interest rates, and the global distribution of income. The model is “semi-calibrated” to current and projected levels of the output of produced goods and to present and future quantities of global environmental goods. Income classes in each country are disaggregated to the quintile level. Multiple equilibria are possible for some rights assignments, with implications for intergenerational equity. The model projects bounds on the degree of future economic inequality depending on how the environmental rights are assigned. A policy that assigns the environmental rights in such a way as to leave the present-day distribution of income unchanged while moving in the direction of equal per capita endowments of environmental rights can result in future inequality comparable to today's average within-country inequality.
The environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis asserts that pollution follows an inverted-U path with respect to economic growth. The EKC has been explained in terms of structural changes in the composition of economic output and increased environmental regulation at higher income levels. While some authors have incorporated the impact of trade policy orientation on the EKC, the impact of the actual movement between countries of goods that embody pollution has not been considered. This paper attempts to econometrically quantify the effect using pooled cross-country and time-series data. The EKC hypothesis is examined with respect to commercial energy consumption, the source of many serious environmental problems. It was found that while both industrializing and industrialized countries have added to their energy requirements by exporting manufactured goods, the growth has been substantially higher in the former. At the same time, industrialized countries have been able to reduce their energy requirements by importing manufactured goods. Exports of manufactured goods by industrialized countries has thus been an important factor in generating the upward sloping portion of the EKC and imports by industrialized countries have contributed to the downward slope.
Starting from a distinction between Kantian (principle-based) and utilitarian (preference-based) approaches in political theory, this essay argues that we may understand normative judgments individuals make about policy to express principled views of the public interest or purpose not private preferences about their own consumption opportunities. These judgments, in other words, state opinions about what we ought to do as a society rather than report preferences about what I want as a utility-maximizer. This essay then argues that contingent valuation can take into account these kinds of judgments—which dominate public discourse about the environment—only if it moves toward a deliberative, discursive, jury-like research method emphasizing informed discussion leading toward a consensus based on an argument about the public interest.
This paper contributes to the discussion about an adequate understanding of the human actor in ecological economics. It provides a philosophical approach by defining three fundamental relations of the human being: its relation (i) with itself, (ii) the community and (iii) nature. I reflect on previous discussions within ecological economics and argue that especially the relevance of the third sphere has not fully been recognized, yet. For this reason, I present the concept of homo ecologicus, which describes the relation of the human being with nature as an inherent principle of human excellence and is not based on mere self-interest or the striving for biological survival. Homo ecologicus is characterized by (a) sympathy with and respect for nature, (b) an orientation of its own creativity upon the creativity found in nature, and (c) a relation with nature, which is especially based on personal experience and encounter with it. I draw conclusions of the relevance of this concept for ecological economics and finally, I suggest a sensible integration of a variety of concepts of the human actor in order to explore the different relationships and characteristics of human existence, which are all important for the subject area and the aims of ecological economics.
The scientific basis for understanding the economic issues involved in the greenhouse effect is outlined. Four important aspects of the problem are identified and discussed: irreversibility, international and institutional constraints, uncertainty and intergenerational equity. Attention is focused upon the intertemporal choice problem. A model describing the potential for intergenerational transfers under the uncertainty of climatic change due to fossil fuel combustion is presented. We conclude intergenerational compensation can be achieved by investment in capital or technology, or by bequest, and is ethically required regardless of any other action.