Environment & Sustainable
Development
Environment
• Environment is defined as the total planetary inheritance and
the totality of all resources.
• It includes all the biotic and abiotic factors that influence each
other.
• While all living elements—the birds, animals and plants,
forests, fisheries etc.—are biotic elements, abiotic elements
include air, water, land etc.
• Rocks and sunlight are examples of abiotic elements of the
environment.
• A study of the environment then calls for a study of the inter-
relationship between these biotic and abiotic components of
the environment.
Functions of the Environment
• The environment performs four vital functions
– (i) it supplies resources: resources here include both
renewable and non-renewable resources. Renewable
resources are those which can be used without the
possibility of the resource becoming depleted or exhausted.
That is, a continuous supply of the resource remains
available. Examples of renewable resources are the trees in
the forests and the fishes in the ocean. Non-renewable
resources, on the other hand, are those which get exhausted
with extraction and use, for example, fossil fuel
– (ii) it assimilates waste
– (iii) it sustains life by providing genetic and bio diversity and
– (iv) it also provides aesthetic services like scenery etc.
• The environment is able to perform these functions without any
interruption as long as the demand on these functions is within its
carrying capacity.
• This implies that the resource extraction is not above the rate of
regeneration of the resource and the wastes generated are within
the assimilating capacity of the environment.
• When this is not so, the environment fails to perform its third and
vital function of life sustenance and this results in an
environmental crisis.
• This is the situation today all over the world.
• The rising population of the developing countries and the affluent
consumption and production standards of the developed world
have placed a huge stress on the environment in terms of its first
two functions.
• Many resources have become extinct and the wastes generated
are beyond the absorptive capacity of the environment.
• Absorptive capacity means the ability of the environment to
absorb degradation.
• The result — we are today at the threshold of environmental
crisis.
• The past development has polluted and dried up rivers and
other aquifers making water an economic good.
• Besides, the intensive and extensive extraction of both
renewable and non-renewable resources has exhausted some of
these vital resources and we are compelled to spend huge
amounts on technology and research to explore new resources.
• Added to these are the health costs of degraded environmental quality —
decline in air and water quality have resulted in increased incidence of
respiratory and water-borne diseases.
• Hence the expenditure on health is also rising.
• To make matters worse, global environmental issues such as global warming
and ozone depletion also contribute to increased financial commitments for
the government.
• Thus, it is clear that the opportunity costs of negative environmental impacts
are high.
• The biggest question that arises is: are environmental problems new to this
century?
• If so, why? The answer to this question requires some elaboration.
• In the early days when civilisation just began, or before this phenomenal
increase in population, and before countries took to industrialisation, the
demand for environmental resources and services was much less than their
supply.
• This meant that pollution was within the absorptive capacity of the
environment and the rate of resource extraction was less than the rate of
regeneration of these resources. Hence environmental problems did not arise.
• But with population explosion and with the advent of industrial
revolution to meet the growing needs of the expanding population,
things changed.
• The result was that the demand for resources for both production
and consumption went beyond the rate of regeneration of the
resources; the pressure on the absorptive capacity of the
environment increased tremendously — this trend continues even
today.
• Thus what has happened is a reversal of supply-demand
relationship for environmental quality — we are now faced with
increased demand for environmental resources and services but
their supply is limited due to overuse and misuse.
• Hence the environmental issues of waste generation and pollution
have become critical today.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
• Environment and economy are interdependent and need each
other.
• Hence, development that ignores its repercussions on the
environment will destroy the environment that sustains life
forms.
• What is needed is sustainable development: development that
will allow all future generations to have a potential average
quality of life that is at least as high as that which is being enjoyed
by the current generation.
• The concept of sustainable development was emphasised by the
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED), which defined it as: ‘Development that meets the need
of the present generation without compromising the ability of the
future generation to meet their own needs’.
• Read the definition again.
• You will notice that the term ‘need’ and the phrase ‘future
generations’ in the definition are the catch phrases.
• The use of the concept ‘needs’ in the definition is linked to
distribution of resources.
• The seminal report—Our Common Future—that gave the
above definition explained sustainable development as
‘meeting the basic needs of all and extending to all the
opportunity to satisfy their aspirations for a better life’.
• Meeting the needs of all requires redistributing resources
and is hence a moral issue.
• Edward Barbier defined sustainable development as one which is
directly concerned with increasing the material standard of living of
the poor at the grass root level — this can be quantitatively
measured in terms of increased income, real income, educational
services, health care, sanitation, water supply etc.
• In more specific terms, sustainable development aims at decreasing
the absolute poverty of the poor by providing lasting and secure
livelihoods that minimise resource depletion, environmental
degradation, cultural disruption and social instability.
• Sustainable development is, in this sense, a development that meets
the basic needs of all, particularly the poor majority, for
employment, food, energy, water, housing, and ensures growth of
agriculture, manufacturing, power and services to meet these
needs.
• According to Herman Daly, a leading environmental economist, to
achieve sustainable development, the following needs to be done
– (i) limiting the human population to a level within the carrying capacity of
the environment. The carrying capacity of the environment is like
a‘plimsoll line’ of the ship which is its load limit mark. In the absence of
the plimsoll line for the economy, human scale grows beyond the carrying
capacity of the earth and deviates from sustainable development
– (ii) technological progress should be input efficient and not input
consuming
– (iii) renewable resources should be extracted on a sustainable basis, that
is, rate of extraction should not exceed rate of regeneration
– (iv) for non-renewable resources rate of depletion should not exceed the
rate of creation of renewable substitutes and
– (v) inefficiencies arising from pollution should be corrected. In 2015, the
UN formulated 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) intended to be
achieved by the year 2030.