Chapter One Why do we need Sustainable Research
Dictionary of Terms
What is Sustainable-research and why use the Term
By ‘Sustainable-research’ in this book I do not simply mean what is normally meant when people mash the word sustainable with another. Sustainable chocolate is just chocolate that manufactures claim to be sustainable in some way most often environmentally. Sustainable-research is not typical research conducted using recycled paper and using carbon offsetting.
Sustainable-research is unlike typical research not a one off process but a continuous one. An institution that uses its existing knowledge to gather data and then analyse regularly applying the findings of this process to all its policies is one that conducts Sustainable-research. Sustainable-research is to institutions like sonar to bats, it is the way they see the world around them and act accordingly.
Why use the term Sustainable-research
In Globlalisation: a critical introduction Jan Aart Scholte (2000:49-84) sets out why we need the term globalisation. Although some authors misunderstand the term and use Globalisation when they mean internationalisation, liberalisation, universalisation and westernisation he argues globalisation is something new and different from all these concepts. ‘Sustainable-research’ is different from existing forms of research in 3 important ways.
1. It is a continuous process with no foreseeable end unless the institution conducting the research also has a foreseeable end.
2. It is not a hidden process open to and understood by only a select few experts but wholly transparent and visible.
Why is sustainable-research necessary
Choices need to be made, constantly and the happiness and well being of all conscious life depends on the outcomes of these choices. So as these choices have to be made, it is better to choose the ones with the most desirable outcomes; however this is very hard to establish. Even once the most desirable outcome has been established it is often even harder to establish which Choices will lead to this desirable outcome. The adoption of sustainable-research by all institutions in society this book argues is the only way that the most desirable outcomes can be established and then the choices that lead to them be made.
The Economic Need for Sustainable-Research
In Elements of environmental macro economics Herman Daly (1991) provides a wonderful metaphor using the loading of a boat to illustrate many of the current environmental challenges we face like CO2 and pollution. Daly asks us to think of the ecosystem as a boat and the load it carries the human impact on the ecosystem or economy. Each boat has a maximum weight it can carry before it falls below its plimsoll line and risks sinking. As the objects are be loaded they can be placed optimally onto the boat to generate the least downward force on the boat, however no amount of optimisation will increase the maximum load the boat will carry. Environmental-Microeconomics is concerned only with optimal loading of the boat, and as Daly points out optimally loaded boats sink, they just sink optimally. It is only Environmental-Macroeconomics that looks at the maximum weight the boat can carry. This clearly demonstrates the problem of scale we now face, how do we keep human activity (The Economy) to a scale that is sustainable in regards to how much the ecosystem can take.
However Daly’s metaphor is flawed in that it is possible in that it oversimplifies the relationship between the Economy and the Ecosystem. Giddens’ argues “Nature only becomes a beneficent force once it has been largely subjected to human control; for many who live close to it, nature maybe hostile and feared” (1994:209). Also he argues mastery over nature is not the same as harming it, in fact in some ways ‘mastery’ over nature can be as much about caring for it as destroying it and actually about maintaining harmony (1994:209). We cannot simply reduce the amount we take from the ecosystem or dump into it, indeed even if it were possible without condemning the majority of the world’s population to underdevelopment the political will to do so is non-existent. However this does not make the problem go away and the relationship between the economy and the ecosystem may well not be sustainable in any way.
Perhaps a more valid metaphor for the relationship between the economy and the ecosystem is relationship of endosymbiosis between two animals, with the ecosystem as the host and humans as the symbiote. This relationship can be either mutualistic positive for both, commensal positive for one and neutral for the other or parasitic beneficial for one and negative for the other. Environmental-macroeconomics, the exchange between the ecosystem and the human macroeconomy (1991) is the relationship between the host and symbiote. Lovelock’s Gaia theory provides an interesting insight here, if the ecosystem is harmed by a parasite economy, feedback systems will simply create a hostile environment killing the parasite (2006).
Regardless of how far this metaphor can be developed or alternative ones more appropriate there a problem undeniably exists with the relationship between the economy and the ecosystem.
While there are a number of solutions to this problem that have already been put forward such as ETR, Carbon Trading and endless summits they for the most part do not fully address the problem as they very much approach the problem from the Daly point of view that a simple reduction on the amount of cargo loaded onto the boat will solve the problem.
From here I’m going to go into Norgaar (sic?) on the complexity of local ecosystems and economies and how to simply take less is not an option but instead we need to solve the information problem.
The Moral Need for Sustainable-Research
One worrying thing to consider is that maybe there is no problem in the relationship between the economy and the ecosystem. Maybe the consequences of this relationship will be catastrophic as many scientists think but are acceptable. We currently live in a world with a moral system that allows so much suffering to go on it seems possible a global environmental disaster like climate change could be acceptable to the society we live in if it happened mainly to the right people who already bear the brunt of the hardships of the world. I feel even if this is not the case then society is still in need of a new alternative system of morality.
God is of no importance when it comes to morality and has certainly not been even since there ceased to be any evidence for his hand in creation. This is clear to see if you recognise these 2 points.
1. If we could see god's hand at work in this world giving some indication of what he wanted or did not want from this we could derive Aristotle’s Forth-Cause and build a system of morality around these conclusions. Dawkins and other similar authors have torn this argument apart however. The only place the hand of god can be seen is in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final and can no longer be a source of morality.
2. If god is simply a law giver then his laws are unimportant even if he gives punishment and reward for such things. Imagine if god clearly communicated to us that to wear red on a Tuesday was a sin and we would be sent to hell if we did not wear it and that to wear blue on a Friday was good and we would be sent to heaven if we did. This clearly does not make it wrong to wear red on a Tuesday or right to wear blue on a Friday. God saying something is right should not make it right, indeed a god who’s commands can not be shown to be right or wrong in this world but only in light of his reward or punishment is not worthy of worship or obedience. Even if god has clearly set out his commands in some text to us (which is highly questionable) this alone is not enough build a system of morality on.
So without the option of drawing morality from the natural world or a command giving god where can we find a system of morality? Ultimately like all things morality is a social construction as explained by Berger and Luckmann’s //The Social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge (1966) and thus relative to the parties that are involved. As such any attempt to find a universal system of morality is impossible especially for the individual who exists in a constantly changing world.
Sustainable research a way of determining morality and success?
However for the institution or formal-role it does not exist in a world that is as fluid as that of the individual. Indeed the world of the institution is much more concrete, and when it deals mainly or even solely with other institutions and individuals in formal-roles its world becomes comparatively much easier to understand than that of the individual.
For example while it is much easier to reach a conclusion to the moral conundrum of weather it is right for someone to intervene when someone is being mugged if that someone is in the formal-role of policeman at the time and not simply just the informal-role of emo music fan. Again it is much easier to decided if it is moral or not for an organisation to explain its funding if organisation is the formal-institution that is running for seats in parliament that year than an informal-institution like Katrina’s pub quiz team.
Already in our society we have set out what the most moral thing for many of our institutions is in the aims and objectives of our government bodies. For example the Policing Pledge (DirectGov 2010) and aims and objectives of the department for work and pensions (Department of work and pensions 2010) give us a clear idea of what we think it is moral for these organisations to do in given circumstances.
However simply because these are the aims and objectives of certain public bodies does not mean that they are the desired aims and objectives of the society within which they function. Often they may be out of step or misunderstood by wider society and shaped by the prejudices of the political elite. By conducting sustainable research in which the opinions of those effected by the policy shaped aims and objectives of such bodies we can see if these aims and objectives are considered moral within society and to what degree. This process can also measure the success of these bodies policies at meeting these objectives as an institution with aims and objectives that our considered sound and moral by the population but whose policies fail to achieve their goals is still not acting morally.
References for this Section
Berger, P. & Luckmann, T. (1966) // The Social construction of reality: a treatise in the sociology of knowledge// London: Penguin Books
Daly, H. (1991) ‘Elements of Environmental-macroeconomics.’ in Ecological Economics: The science and Management of Sustainability ed. By Costanza, R. New York: Columbia University press 32-46
Department for Work and Pensions (2010) Vision, aims and values [online] available from
DirectGov (2010) The policing pledge [online] available from
Giddens, A. (1994) Beyond Left and Right: The future of radical politics Cambridge: Polity Press
Lovelock, J. (2006) The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity London: Allen Lane
Scholte, J. A. (2000) Globalisation: a critical introduction. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan
Wikipedia (2009) Sustainability [online] available from
Introduction Page
Chapter One Why do we need Sustainable Research
Dictionary of Terms
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