This paper argues that considering economic benefits from another approach would be helpful to the practices of sustainable development when ethical practices are invalid. This, first, aims to draw a line pointing out the relevance among the notion of ecological footprint measure, cradle to cradle design, and the idea of de-developing the rich countries. Moreover, the paper examines the dilemma of benefits and ethics in practicing sustainable development, which causes the struggle of sustainability practices worldwide. Furthermore, it indicates how the benefit can be seen from another point of view, in order to encourage productive actions for sustainability.
From ecological footprint to the de-development of rich countries
Being mentioned in 1992 by William Rees, ecological footprint (EF) refers to a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems, the amount of natural capital used each year. This has become one of the main indicators of the sustainable development, especially with the participation of Mathis Wackernagel in developing the concept and calculation method. Theoretically, EF of a population is estimated by “calculating how much land and water area is required on a continuous basis to produce all the goods consumed and to assimilate all the waste generated, by that population” (Wackernagel and Rees, 1998, p.61). This indicator has recently emerged as one of the global leading indicators for sustainability. However, there are some critiques that the EF may lead to the misperception about densely populated areas, which are a city or small country with a comparatively large population (Graz, Van den Bergh and Rietveld, 2007). Even so, these criticisms are not considered as the main causes of the contentment that the EF seems not to be the “Noah’s Ark” of the sustainable development on Earth.
To take environmental footprint into considerations of sustainability, McDonough and Braungart (2002) in Cradle to cradle (C2C) indicated that all designs need to be moved from “eco- efficiency” to “eco- effectiveness”, which means the designs of all products need to think to do “good” to the sustainability instead of being “less bad”. The author content that to reach the model of C2C, there is no such a thing as waste in the production and consumption, in another word, “zero ecological footprints”. However, there is the fact that the regulations force companies often “require one-size-fits-all end-off-pipe solutions rather than a deeper design response, they do not directly encourage creative problem solving” (p.61). In the chapter 6 “Putting Eco-effectiveness into Practice”, McDonough and Braungart pointed out that there are five main steps to Eco-effectiveness regardless of (1) get “free of” known culprits, (2) follow informed personal preferences, (3) creating a “passive positive”, (4) active the positive list and (5) reinvent. But the authors did not directly examine what convinces people to follow these steps. Consequently, the new design has not been globally applied so far.
Hickel (2015) raises an outstanding opinion about the unchanged essence so-called “the business- as- usual- approach” of the sustainable development goals in comparison with millennium development goals: growth. He contents that the orthodox economist insists the need of more growth while the more progressive ones maintain the need to “shift more of yields of growth from the richer segment of the population to the poorer ones”. But both approaches are likely to be inadequate. The de-development is likely to be the new and uncontroversial concept of the development studies.
Nevertheless, it seems that the process of applying these concepts has been faced with a wide range of challenges, such as the gaps of knowledge and awareness, the gaps of different opinions towards sustainability and the gaps of benefits and ethical practices. The question is that why it likely to be too complicated to create sustainability as a global phenomenon and what the way forward is.
The dilemma of benefits and ethic in sustainability practices
Ecocentrism, according to Jower (1994) is emphasized in the belief that “compared to the undoubted importance of the human part, the whole ecosphere is even more significant and consequential: more inclusive, more complex, more integrated, more creative, more beautiful, more mysterious, and older than time”. Nevertheless, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defined anthropocentrism as “the belief that human beings are the central or most significant species on the planet (in the sense that they are considered to have a moral status or value higher than that of all other organisms), or the assessment of reality through an exclusively human perspective”.
The debate of ecocentrism, anthropocentrism, and environmental ethic have been emerged as the specific philosophical discipline since 1970s thanks to the increasing awareness in the 1960s of the effects that technology, industry, economic expansion and population growth were having on the environment (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (EIP), n.d.). The job of environmental ethics, according to IEP, is to “outline our moral obligations in the face of such concerns”. Moreover, there are two fundamental questions need to be addressed by environmental ethic, regardless of (1) what duties humans have with respects to the environment and (2) why human have these duties.
To me, this set of questions leads to another concern that “can environmental ethic address the issues of sustainable development?”
On the one hand, there is no statistic of how many cases environmental ethic results in the environmental protection activities. The root causes of these activities, on the other hand, can be generated by a wider range of motivations. Besides, there is the fact that the environmental movements often use environmental ethic as pressure to advocate the authorities and business and mobilize the people. But, the actions for environmental protection seems to be caused by the pressure of such movements, not the idea of ethic. The ethical environment is, thus, apparently used as rhetoric in the public relation or advertisement strategies rather than from the bottom of someone’s heart.
For example, in “Putting Eco-effectiveness into Practice”, McDonough and Braungart (2002) explain the process of transform the Ford Rive Rough complex into “an icon of the next”, which is call “a sedum” by the New York Times (2002). The authors, however, did not indicate that “the River Rouge plans are a notable exception to the deep retrenchments that were caused by the company’s money troubles” as said by a Ford officer (New York Times, 2002). Furthermore, the article also places importance on “saving” and “reducing cost” as one of most important motivations as well as benefits of the motor company. Fundamentally, benefits drive the decision of Ford’s members in this case. Moreover, it goes without saying that “companies aren’t in business to solve the world’s problem, nor they should be” Forest Reinhardt (as cited by Willard, 2002, p.139).
Alternative approach: Adequate development
I believe that the environment ethic does exist. However, ethical practices cannot be the only method for sustainable development, especially in the modern world of business, competitiveness and self-benefits. In order to actualize sustainable development, humankind, hence, needs looking at environmental ethic from another approach.
According to Hickel (2015), 70% of people in the middle- and high-income countries believe overconsumption is putting our planet and society at risk. Therefore, in the international celebration of the world of “post-2015” thanks to the adoption of the sustainable development goals, the author argues that “instead of pushing poor countries to ‘catch up’ with rich ones, we should be getting rich countries to ‘catch down’”. He takes over-consuming in the developed countries, overusing our planet’s bio-capacity by more than 50% each year and blowing past planetary boundaries at breakneck speed into accounts of this contentment. Furthermore, the author said that the use of the ecological capacity is inadequate for different groups of the human kind.
The dilemma of “benefit” and “ethic” has not ever been completely resolved. Fundamentally, such dilemma is the way of inner struggling of each person as well as a group. However, it seems that the benefit would win, or at least, people choose to be in the “win-win” situation for numerous cases. Obviously, rising environmental ethic practices is such a productive method for many cases. But it is not likely that the ethical approach can help to address all the issues of sustainable development, which fundamentally relates to economic and political benefits. Moreover, there are many interconnections among people themselves and the environment. People, thus, always need to take into account these connections to balance among them, and maintain the own adequate position and benefit in the group but avoid violating others. Hence, in the development process, especially economic development, people also consider an “adequate development” for all. The next question is that how to develop adequately but maintain benefits for all, which is known as the fundamental desire of the human beings.
There is a Vietnamese well-known anonymous quotation that “Lùi một bước trời cao biển rộng” (Take a step back to see a wider vision), which can be interpreted as the motto for sustainable development. It means to get long term benefits, sometimes people need to delay enjoying the shorter ones. Applying to sustainable development, the quotation can be interpreted that humankind would not need scarifying their “benefits” to practice “ethic”. They can enjoy the economic benefits later on, and in other shades such as environmental, reputed or well-being benefits. Nevertheless, the fact here is that the human beings need to take the relationships with ecological sustainability into considerations for an appropriate development model. Thus, the main requirement is looking at environment ethical practices under the approach of adequate development and benefit for all.
Furthermore, sustainable development is not limited to “green” policies. This is much broader. The adequated development calls for “a fundamental re-assessment in theory and practice of the independences between economy and ecology” (Schmandt and Ward, 2000). From my point of view, hence, it is necessary to consider sustainable development practices not only under ecology/environment ethical angle but also under economic benefits angle. Moreover, it is necessary to consider environmental ethic not only under ethic itself but also under the angle of economic benefits, especially in sustainable development practices.
References
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) (n.d). Environmental ethic. Retrieved October 17, 2015, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/envi-eth/#SH1a
Hickel, J. (2015, Sep 23). Forget ‘developing’ poor countries, it’s time to ‘de-develop’ rich countries. The Guardian, retrieved October 16, 2015 from http://www.theguardian.com/ global-development-professionals- network/ 2015/sep/23/developing-poor-countries-de-develop-rich-countries-sdgs?CMP=share_btn_fb
Grazi, F., Van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. and Rietveld, P. (2007). “Welfare economics versus ecological footprint: modeling agglomeration, externalities, and trade”. Environmental and Resource Economics 38 (1): 135–153.
Schmandt, J. and Ward, C.H. (Eds.) (2000). The role of policy. In Sustainable Development: the challenge of transition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Schneider, K. (2002, Oct 23). Ford Gives River Rouge a Green Coat. The New York Times. Retrieved October 15, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/ 2002/10/23/automobiles/the-environment-ford-gives-river-rouge-a-green-coat.html?pagewanted=all
Wackernagel, M. (1994). Ecological Footprint and Appropriated Carrying Capacity: A Tool for Planning Toward Sustainability,(Ph.D. thesis, Vancouver, Canada: School of Community and Regional Planning. The University of British Columbia, 2004).
Wackernagel, M., and Rees, W. (1998). Our ecological footprint: Reducing human impact on the earth. Gabriola Island (Ca.): New Society Publisher.
Willard, B. (2002). Sustainability Advantage. British Columbia (Ca.): New Society Publishers.
Nhung Nguyen 
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