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Summary: The Age of Sustainable Development
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The role of the accountant in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals
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Book Summary Sachs (2015) "The Age of Sustainable Development"
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Grand Challenges for SustainabilityLecture 1 – What is sustainable development
17 sustainability goals
1. No poverty 10. Reduced inequalities
2. No hunger 11. Sustainable cities and
3. Good health communities
4. Quality education 12. Responsible consumption
5. Gender equality 13. Protect the planet
6. Clean water and sanitation 14. Life below water
7. Clean energy 15. Life on land
8. Good jobs and economic growth 16. Peace and justice
9. Innovation and infrastructure 17. Partnerships for the goals
Sustainability: Management and Innovation
- The minor Sustainability: Management and Innovation is rooted in business and
economics to explore how management and innovation can contribute to sustainable
development. In this minor you will learn to understand sustainability challenges and
implication for organizations, and learn how to design sustainable strategies, value
chains and innovations
A crowded, unequal and degraded planet
- Crowded
o 7.2 billion people
o Output of 90 trillion US$
o Both are projected to keep on going
- Unequal
o Billions are enjoying longevity and good health unimaginable in previous
generations
o More than a billion people live in abject poverty (with up to 50 times lower per
capita incomes)
- Degraded
o Anthropocene: human activity is the dominant influence on the natural
environment
o Humanity is threatening the Earth: climate, availability of fresh water, ocean
chemistry, habitats of other species
o Changes are dangerous and unprecedented
History of sustainable development
- 1972. UN conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm: maintaining
sustainability in the context of economic growth and development
- 1972. ‘Limits of Growth’ report by the ‘Club of Rome’
o “If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution,
food production and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to
growth on this planted will be reached sometime within the next 100 years.
, The most probable result will be a sudden and uncontrollable decline in both
population and industrial capacity.”
- 1980. ‘World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable
Development’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources
- 1987. United Nations Commission on Environment and Development: ‘Brundtland
report’ with widely adopted intergenerational concept
- 1992. Rio Earth Summit. ‘Rio Declaration’: development today should not threaten
the needs of present and future generations
- Modern definitions focus less on intergenerational needs and more on the holistic
approached linking economic development, social inclusion, and environmental
sustainability
o 2000. United Nations Millennium Declaration. MDGs: Eradicate extreme
poverty
o 2002. UN World Summit on SD: “integration of the three components of
sustainable development – economic development, social development and
environmental protection – as interdependent and mutually reinforcing pillars.”
o 2012. Rio+20 Summit ‘The Future We Want’. SDGs, which were adopted in
2015
Sustainable development – Development that meets the needs of the present generation
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs
Analytical approach Understanding the world
- Analytical approach to sustainable development
- Understand the world and find answers
o How does an economy of 7.2 billion people and 90 trillion US$ change over
time?
o What causes economic growth?
o Why does poverty persist?
o Can the poor escape their fate?
o Is there a way to combine economic development with environmental
sustainability?
System – A group of interacting components that together with the rules of their interaction
constitute an interconnected whole
Complex systems
- Embracing complexity: sustainable development as a science of complex systems
- Examples
o Brain: System of interaction neurons
o Human body: system of 10 trillion interacting cells
o Cell: system of interacting organelles
o Economy: system of interaction individuals and businesses
Complex systems – Interactions give rise to behaviors and patterns that are not easily
, discernible from the underlying components themselves
- The system is more than the sum of the parts
- Nonlinear responses to shocks: small changes may cause a large change in the
system as a whole
- Chain reactions, feedback effect...
o Failure of a single business can lead to financial panic and a global downturn
o Change in the Earth’s temperature can cause feedback effects (tipping points
in the climate system)
- Sustainable development involves four complex interacting systems
1. Economy 3. Environment
2. Society 4. Government
- The analytical approach to sustainable development is to understand the interaction
of these complex systems
Normative approach Good society
- Analytical approach: understand the world
- Normative approach: improve the world
- Four basic objectives of a ‘good society’
1. Economic prosperity
2. Social inclusion (intragenerational distribution)
3. Environmental sustainability (intergenerational distribution)
4. Good governance
- Governance is needed to achieve the economic, social, and environmental goals
o Government: provision of health care, education, infrastructure, protection
from crime and violence, promotion of basic science, implications of
regulations to protect the environment
o Multinationals: obeying the law, respecting the natural environment, helping
communities in which they operate
Gross Domestic Product – Market value of total production of goods and services within a
country in a given year
Measuring economic development
- Three corrections are needed
1. Divide by population (GDP per capita)
Comparing GDP of the Netherlands and India does not say much
about the difference in the standard of living
2. Correct of inflation (real versus nominal GDP)
Increase in the price level does not imply an improvement in the
standard of living
3. Correct for international differences in price levels (PPP)
Differences in prices do not imply differences in the standard of living
- Preferred measure: GDP per capita at PPP in constant prices
- Still: only a rough indicator of true ‘ wellbeing’ / ‘life satisfaction’ / ‘happiness’
o Neglects home production
o Neglects ‘bads’ like pollution
o Neglects inequality
, - The World Bank’s Human Development Index (HDI) gives a more holistic account
o Weighted average of years of schooling, life expectancy, and the logarithm of
income
- The HDI still misses a lot of wellbeing determinants
o Social capital (trust, networks of friends and colleagues)
o Physical and mental health
- Happiness research: ask people directly about their wellbeing
Gallup international survey
- Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top
- The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the
ladder represents the worst possible life for you
- On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?
Measuring the standard of living – Measuring economic development
- GDP per capita (at constant PPP prices) is only a rough indicator of wellbeing but it is
highly (though imperfectly) correlated with other measures. Hence, we will use GDP
per capita as a useful summary statistic for wellbeing
History of economic growth
- For most of human history, output was at a very low (subsistence) level
- Something fundamentally new started around 1750: sustained economic growth
- Industrial revolution
o Invention of the steam engine: applied in textiles, mines, steam-powered rail
and ships, steel production, and many other areas
o Started in England and spread (unequally) around the world
- Gross World Product (GWP) per capita increased by a factor 30 over 250 years
- Similarly: unprecedented, sustained population growth since the Industrial Revolution
o Until 10.000 B.C. population was well below 100 million
o In 1 AD around 225 million
o In 1820 around 1 billion
o Currently 7.2 billion
o Projection: 9 billion by the early 2040s
- The sustained economic growth since the Industrial Revolution has brought us
unimaginable prosperity, but also has become a threat to the Earth and to our future
wellbeing
- Large-scale economic activity is changing the earth
Lecture 2 – Why are we so rich and they so poor
Understanding the process of economic growth is a prerequisite to a better understanding of
‘sustainability’ problems
1. Sustainability is inherently a dynamic concept
2. Economic growth as cause and/or solution
3. Key role for innovation and technological change
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