Is Sustainable Development and Oxymoron?

But, the term "sustainable development" itself can be ambiguous. Many identify with the "sustainable" part and hear a call for ecological and social transformation, a world of healthy environments and social justice. Others identify with "development" and interpret it to mean more sensitive economic growth, a significantly reformed version of the status quo.

The minute one equates growth with the word development, however, a deeper insight allows us to begin seeing immediate problems. Sustainable growth implies increasing endlessly, which can also mean the growing quantity will tend to become infinite in size. We all understand how this is not possible, especially when the term "sustainable growth" is composed of words that are truly contradictory to one another (an oxymoron).

To change the world we must meet head-on the differences between growth and development -- quantity verses quality. General failure to distinguish between true development and mere growth is the basis of much confusion in our efforts to operationalize ideas about sustainability. Clarifying this confusion is essential in understanding sustainable development's true definition.

Growth is an increase in physical size through quantitative material increase. In contrast, development is the realization of a fuller and greater potential -- qualitative change, realization of potentialities, and transition to a fuller or better state. In short, growth means getting bigger while development means getting better. Therefore, sustainable development is progressive social betterment without growing beyond ecological carrying capacity.

Even those at the center of the sustainable development debate often tend to forget the difference between growth and development. Having grown to the maximum, it is time that humanity began to concentrate on developing its full potential. In theory this should not be too difficult. Each of us does much the same thing in the course of our individual lives. We grow early in life and when we reach adult maturity we develop mentally, socially, and culturally, instead of continuing to physically grow. Growth during maturity is either obesity or cancer.

Additionally, in trying to get ahead, or as we say "grow," we often find ourselves in the unfortunate position of preventing our development from reaching its full potential by the discrimination we attach to gender, race, class, religion, or ideology. Because of these attributes, in essence half of the world's population is in one way or another excluded from taking initiatives to contribute their skills and work to the collective global society. If instead we could take full advantage of the potential co- development activities from all these different parts of humanity, we might not feel so pressured to "keep growing" our economies.

The planet Earth will not get larger. Earth is finite, one size, not growing. Thus, there is no such thing as "sustainable growth" because growth will inevitably hit physical limits. But development can continue endlessly as we seek to improve the quality of life for humans and for the other creatures with which we share the planet. To fulfill these aspirations, we must recognize that human development is not about having more, but about being more. Financial security does not necessarily correlate with happiness.

It seems then that "more is better" is an inherently frustrating game. A game that has been promoted by the fallacy of confusing the quantity of things with quality of life. A game that now has too many losers and so few winners. The idea of development must be separated from an economic and reductionist dimension of life. If we think of development as assuring a dignified level of existence -- that is serving human basic needs, such as food, clear water, shelter, clean air, cloth, friendship, diversity of tastes, beliefs, preferences, etc. -- we would offer a great step toward constructing a better world: healthier, happier and less unequal. Through the actions of sustainable development, a new win-win scenario is being born.