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| Home | Canadian Values, Sustainable Development and Behaviour Change:An Investigation of Canadian Values and their Influence on Sustainable Development Decision Making and Behavioural Choices, and of Related Techniques to Influence Behaviour Change Towards Sustainable DevelopmentIntroductionSubstantial attention has been devoted to the issues of sustainable development since the release of the Brundtland report in 1987 (WCED, 1987). In general, this pivotal report defined sustainable development as decisions, activities and behaviour which meet the needs of the present generation without compromising those of future generations.Conventional decisions, tools and strategies to achieve sustainable development objectives have relied on technical, economic, regulatory, political and educational opportunities and have focussed on the production or supply side of the equation. Many factors influence our decisions, activities, and behaviours. It is now recognized that, in order to achieve sustainable development, effecting change from the demand side of the equation will be essential. The Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has identified that “Social learning and behavioural change are fundamental to achieving sustainability.” (CESD, 2001) Changing behaviour has therefore been identified as essential to sustainable development. However, conventional technical, economic, regulatory, political and educational approaches have achieved limited success. That is often because of the intractable and complex nature of human behaviour and lifestyles, and the intransigence of belief and value structures. These structures profoundly influence behaviours through socialization and cultural conditioning. Thus it has become evident that changing behaviours will necessitate confronting complex human factors, deeply held beliefs and social pressures, institutions and goals. Yet it is these factors which define conventional tools and strategies, and how they are employed, to achieve more sustainable development. In other words, conventional sustainable development activities may implicitly embody the very values and social forces which produce unsustainable decisions, lifestyles and behaviours. Therefore, understanding the factors responsible for these forces is an essential and often ignored step to identify appropriate tools and strategies to achieve sustainable development. More importantly, understanding key driving forces will be essential to elicit the required decisions for, and to identify techniques to effect behaviour change towards, sustainable development. Therefore it was appropriate to investigate the influence values exert on our decisions and behaviours, and the driving forces these values establish to do so, as they relate to sustainable development objectives. Many social pursuits include those of utility maximisation, competition, individualism, material growth and others. They reflect the values embedded within the predominant economic worldview (PEW). Modern scientific discourse about ecology, complexity, global processes, and anthropology, sociology and behavioural psychology, however, refutes many of the assumptions underlying these values. (Milbrath, 1995), (Erdal and Whiten, 1996), (Whiten, 1998), (Sahlins, 1972), (Clark, 1995), (Naiman, 1997), (Power, 1991) and (Eisler, 1987) Yet their potential as a principal driver of many social and environmental challenges to sustainable development has remained largely unchallenged. This is not surprising given the ethnocentric nature of culture. Conventional strategies and tools are unable to bridge the cultural barrier of the predominant economic worldview, and are thus bound to its shortcomings. (Clark, 1995), (Princen, 1999) If we are to achieve sustainable development, we must overcome this barrier. The predominant economic worldview embodies the many values attributed to market-based capitalism. This is a mode of production which consists of the private appropriation of surplus through the private ownership of the means of production. The motive force is provided by individual maximization of profit by firms and maximization of satisfaction (utility) by consumers. Thus utility maximization through competition forms the famous invisible hand which should lead to an aggregate of private interests serving the public welfare. The market may be one effective means to solve the allocation problem, but it cannot solve the scale and distribution problems (Daly, 1996), which are key to sustainable development. In fact, in order to move towards sustainable development, questions of distribution and scale must be settled before allocation can be considered. Economics is a subset of the social systems we construct. Society, in turn, is a subset of the environment, and subject to the same laws, opportunities and constraints. (Prugh et al, 1995) Although primary consumers (manufacturing) and secondary consumers (services) may become more efficient, they can never become independent of the producers (agriculture/extraction). Furthermore, there is a limit to the proportion of consumers to producers due to the laws of thermodynamics. (Georgescu-Roegen, 1993) Ultimately, there are limits to growth; as natural capital becomes depleted, the entire process from producers to secondary consumers must contract. Historical evidence demonstrates the reality of this process. (McDaniel and Gowdy, 2000) These offer important lessons - not the least of which is that the ecosystem upon which we depend for survival must not be compromised. For the most part, our historical reliance on conventional strategies to help achieve sustainable development, including those of behaviour change, have overlooked the potential inherent risks associated with the predominant economic worldview. There remains today firm insistence production approaches, such as the application of new technologies, will solve sustainable development problems. (Ausubel, 1996), (Simon, 1995) Although these approaches may offer some opportunities, since their emphasis is on increased production, they can only form part of the solution. (Adams, 1996) (Rees, 1995), (Schnaiberg, 1980) The fundamental nature of increased production necessitates increased entropy (Georgescu-Roegen, 1993) and (Vitousek et al, 198 ) has demonstrated the undeniable unsustainability of this action. Reducing demand is therefore essential. Behaviour change has been identified as crucial to strategies to reduce absolute demand and achieve sustainable development. However, putting this realisation into practice has proven extremely difficult. (Stern, 2000) It therefore seems reasonable to posit the values of the predominant economic worldview establish powerful motivational forces compelling certain unsustainable behaviours and militating against behaviours which might help move towards sustainable development objectives. Thus the contextual nature of conventional decisions, tools and strategies to achieve sustainable development might instead simply be a reflection of an inherently unsustainable worldview. This underscores the importance of better understanding the influence socialisation and cultural conditioning exert on shaping our decisions and behaviour choices. People hold many different ideas and experiences, and these cannot simply be laid aside to study or convey information. Although unbiased or value-free information is desirable, all information has implicit values, beliefs, biases and assumptions attributed to it. The reason most biases are not noticeable is that they usually match our own, and accordingly simply seem natural. Biases are most commonly noticed only when they differ from our own views. When sustainable development policies, goals or actions are established, they are inherently influenced by information, and consequently a diverse set of values and epistemologies drawn from different cultural traditions and social experiences. Decisions in support of sustainable development objectives and behaviour change towards sustainable development must ensure the values promoted are consistent with those objectives. Therefore there is an urgent need to investigate the values of the predominant economic worldview. Similarly, the driving forces they establish which shape our decisions and behavioural choices need to be identified and articulated. |
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