This is THE Landmark:

THE REFERENCE

 The World Commission on Environment & Development [1987, but commissioned in 1983]

Just imagine the call….

‘Hello.  Mme Brundtland ….This is the World Present & Future calling….

We have a problem.

We need your help….

… If you can’t solve it,

That’s it:

We’re all screwed…’

[OK, that’s not a quote, but someone – in actual fact the UN President – had to pick up the phone to Gro Harlem Brundtland – a Norwegian Prime Minister and ask her to do the impossible… How would you have broken the enormity – impossibility (?) – of the task to her?]

What was the core of the problem to be solved…?

Despite human ingenuity [like digging deeper and further and laterally for oil which seemed to extend the known limits of quantities available by decades and inventions like photovoltaic panels and sand batteries], it was obvious that there was a crisis point looming not far over the horizon: a point at which needs for everything from food, water and energy were likely to become difficult, far more difficult or potentially impossible in the face of relatively fixed natural and renewable resources and a growing world population [presently almost 8 billion and – so best estimates predict – heading for 10-11 billion by the turn of the century … others, it has to be said, are predicting a contraction to nearer 5 billion as the birthrate in many nations is falling below ‘replacement level’ ].

The ‘crunch‘ scenario was:

• global population heading up
• genuine needs for resources heading up
• wants (as distinct from needs) heading up (everyone wants the ‘American Dream’ – which, incidentally, would cost way more than 10 x Planet Earths if we could all have it)
• resources fixed and being more rapidly depleted
• renewables technologies and recycling only in their infancy.
• a lack of general scientific and political consensus that something had to be / should be done

OK… so we have been working miracles through science [especially in the last couple of centuries] to increase crop productivity/yield dramatically, in the production of synthetic ammonia-based fertilisers, in drilling, mining and atomic (fission) and renewable energies’ production and even in recycling, but who can give us a guarantee that this rate of improvement will more than compensate for the forecasted likely increase in population in the context of:-

1. potentially runaway climate change [TJ cue: this yr. 1/3 of Pakistan under water , Haut-Rhin water ban!]
2. limits to natural resources [TJ cue: glaciers’ and polar ice-caps melt rate]
3. slow and limited energy transition from fossil to renewables (84% fossil fuels), Production-Promise Gap
4. limits to energy storage [TJ cue: the Sand Battery poem , Polar Night Energy ] , Interview
5. our increasingly heavy impacts upon the environment in the Anthropocene and our seeming unwillingness to rein this in [We need to reduce total pollution / CO2 production , but for the moment we don’t seem to be capable of lowering the RATE of INCREASE in annual CO2 production: the gap is growing.  Our agreed promises at successive COP meetings aren’t being met … and even if they were it would be way less than the planet needs – i.e. producing NO MORE new CO2 at all and beginning to suck CO2 produced in the past OUT of the atmosphere and sequester it.]
6. feedback mechanisms that we don’t yet know about that might accelerate the warming and make things more difficult to deal with… to LIVE with.

TJ Aside.  When I started University teaching in 1988, I wrote a future scenario that I thought then was possibly a bit ‘far-fetched‘, in which I spoke of people and whole populations: ‘Walking for Water & Fighting for Food‘. [I missed ‘energy’ I am ashamed to say!]. I could see it coming, but I didn’t imagine that I would live to see it during my teaching career…. maybe at the end of my life, perhaps….].  Approaching 1,000 people per day – if they survived the journey – arriving by inflatible boats on the shores of the UK last year (Now – rentrée ’23 almost 7000 in just one day in just one tiny place: Lampedusa)…. and those are the ones we know about…. and that figure doesn’t include refugees from war zones like Syria and Ukraine….  Can any of us imagine what that might be like: to risk death in search of a hope of life…?

OK, Back to the storyline.  Brundtland was charged with reconciling the ‘rock‘ with the ‘hard place‘, the impossible with the possible.

Her Commission came up with the concept of ‘Sustainability‘: living in such a way in the present that we can meet our own needs without prejudicing the ability of future generations to meet theirs.  [TJ Paraphrase]   Do read this – it is in English: ‘Our Common Future‘, in French: ‘Notre Avenir à Tous’ and in just about every other world language.

TJ Aside.

1. The Brundtland definition is ‘nice’ and ‘heartwarmingly cosy’ – thinking about handing the world on to our children in as good a state as we received it from our parents, but it doesn’t tell us what to DO in any given situation: ‘I’m a university lecturer / student – what does this mean to me’… ‘I’m a Town Planner – should we approve this development or not?‘
2. Translation is an issue!   If sustainability = durabilité, then why have the French translated it as ‘Développement Durable’?   Terminology causes confusions and problems.  In English, sustainability can encompass a decision of NO to Development…. whereas the French term implies that ‘development is always good, but let’s try to make it sustainable‘.  Not the same.  James Lovelock, in his book the Revenge of Gaia, said that we should not just engage in lower levels of development, but that we should beat a full-scale retreat from development to have any hope of saving mankind and the planet.  Interesting that French academics have taken him up on this to flesh out a concept for ‘De-Growth’  (Décriossance)…  It could be a potential solution, but how are we going to get the capitalist owners of the system of production to agree…?  It would entail them being somehow ‘happier‘ but with less money.  How will we ‘sell‘ that or enforce it?

NB. The Brundtland definition was expressed in terms of NEEDS not WANTS, because if, today, we all have everything we WANT, then in the present other people won’t have what they desperately need and our own children and grandchildren won’t be able to have the things they NEED.

We had better learn the difference and live by it.

Q. Is Marketing about making people NEED or WANT? [For me the Art of Marketing is to make people believe they need that which, in reality, they only want].  As Shakespeare put it: « Aye, there’s the rub..! »

Q. Is Fashion – and don’t let’s forget that France is the world capital of Fashion –  (esp. Fast Fashion) ‘fun‘ and ‘sexy‘ or is it Public Enemy N°1 when it comes to sustainability? Do we really need T shirts with red diagonal stripes in Spring – then plain white in summer – to look cool / fit in?

Here is a task for you all….

Brundtland and her Commission came up with FOUR PRECONDITIONS for Sustainability.  If these could be set in place and maintained, then a sustainable lifestyle should be possible for everyone on the surface of the planet.  … But can we meet the preconditions and what is the evidence so far?

Here are the four preconditions ... but do you see evidence for or against them….?  [The point is, that if these four (horsemen?) are not in evidence, then sustainability is likely to be a proverbial ‘dead duck‘].

1. Richer nations (like France, the EU, Japan, USA etc) must: ‘Live within the planet’s ecological means’.   Do we?  Have we even begun to almost 35 years after the report ‘Our Common Future / Notre Avenir à Tous‘ was published???  What factual or anecdotal evidence do you have….when you look at yourselves, society, business, politics, the nation, the global community…?
2. Companies should take upon themselves a moral/ethical responsibility for the life and the condition of the planet which goes beyond the mere requirements that the law imposes upon them.  Do they? What factual or anecdotal evidence do you have….?  [TJ cue: Milton Friedmann]
3. In personal, political or corporate decisions, the long-term view must be taken and favoured over the short-term. But does it work like this? What factual or anecdotal evidence do you have….?
4. The gap between the rich and poor nations must be reduced.  Do you see this in the world as you see it working…or not… [TJ Cue: Oxfam billionaires and inequality reports & summary, Govt aid budget trends (OECD: 0.5% GNI 1960  0.3% today), Gates’ ‘Giving Pledge‘]

… And if we are not measuring up to Brundtland’s conditions – what then?  What do we need to do, to change and how are we going to achieve this – and quickly!?

My Video on the subject….with some of my views …. but yours might be different … and you may well prove to be right and me wrong!  So I’ll ask you to pool your views and we’ll see where we are….

NB1. Remember the date of the publishing of the Brundtland Report 1987…  Brundtland was appointed Head of the Commission on Environment and Development in 1983. We are now as near as dammit 40 years on: have we advanced much?  One indicator: Education.  Here in France, do we have a high-co-eff unit in Sustainability, Citizenship and Professionalism which must be followed by ALL school and university students?  If we have then you should have done it!  … Look it up…

NB2. After the 1987 publication came the 1992 Rio Conference where the nations of the world solemnly signed up to the Sustainability challenge, since which date there have been COP Meetings, [COP = Conference of the Parties under the auspices of the UN] for example COP 21 Paris  (2015), COP 26 Glasgow (2021) and the last one at the end of 2022 in Sharm El Sheik.  Effectively these meetings have been updates/re-boots to RIO, reviewing, negotiating and target-(re)setting.  Here is my overview of the recent Glasgow COP and the (watered down) commitments made.

PS.  A profile of Gro Harlem Brundtland herself.  Some lady.  Some career.  Incredible contribution to Life.