J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
DOI 10.1007/s13412-016-0388-3
What is the story with sustainability? A narrative analysis
of diverse and contested understandings
Aliette K. Frank 1
Published online: 23 March 2016
# AESS 2016
Abstract Since the coining of the term Bsustainability/sustainable development,^ diverse and contested understandings
of sustainability theory and practice have circulated both within the academy and the public at large. For the most part,
sustainability has been approached from a very sciencedominated perspective. That is only part of the story: while
science is important for sustainability, science alone cannot
account for the many situated dimensions of life. In contrast
to science, story—or narrative—as both a mode of knowing
and process of knowledge construction, can account for life’s
place-, time-, and event-dependent dimensions. This paper
performs a narrative analysis of eight different conceptual
frameworks of sustainability—Deep Ecology, Social
Ecology, Ecofeminism, Environmental History and Human
Geography/Ecology, Complex Adaptive Systems, Political
Ecology, Ecological Economics, and Business and
Sustainability—to identify where these frameworks are commensurate and irreconcilable, with the aim of exploring a coherent alternative to current practice and conventional ways of
thinking.
Keywords Sustainability . Sustainable development .
Narrative analysis . Romantic critique . Social critique .
Western science
* Aliette K. Frank
aliettekf@gmail.com; http://aliettefrank.com
1
Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, 2329 West
Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T1Z4, Canada
Background and rationale: sustainability as story
What is sustainability? Why does it matter? Who believes it? Since the term Bsustainability^ was first used
to catalyze discussion over how to proceed in the face
of growing social, ecological, and economic pressures,
intense debate has given rise to diverse and contested
understandings. The academic literature burgeons with
contributions from scholars in a variety of disciplines,
from economics to psychology to botany to geology,
offering practical and theoretical approaches ranging
from living in green buildings in densely packed urban
centers, to drinking psychedelic ayahuasca infusions
with shamans in the jungle. The public arena also produces vast perspectives advocating for sustainability
from state carbon taxation and kayak protests of arctic
drilling rigs (Bernton 2015) to nature-based childhood
education. Recent debates about environmental sustainability are turning toward why we do not believe science (Achenbach 2015) and why climate change may be
making it harder for people to care about conservation
(Franzen 2015). Despite the prolific and sometimes
frenzied (see Wood and Peterson 2015) attention of current practice and conventional thought on sustainability,
devising more useful answers to what are often
disturbing, complex, and intractable problems can still
be a challenge (O’Riordan 2004; Kates et al. 2001;
Pezzoli 1997).
A very influential, and perhaps the most common
approach to decision-making on sustainability issues, is
founded on the view that such decisions should be
science-based (Pepper 1996; Mebratu 1998; Robinson
and Tansey 2006; World Commission on Environment
and Development 1987; Jasanoff 1990, 1999; Wynne
and Irwin 1996; Eckstein 2003). As in much of
J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
311
Western culture, in sustainability, Western science1 often
serves as political authority and epistemological arbiter
in justifying claims about truth. While science is one
essential component for achieving sustainability, solely
scientific approaches systematically undervalue important situated dimensions of life (such as place-, time-,
and event-dependent contexts) of sustainability. In one
country, for example, electric cars may be considered
Bsustainable,^ while in another country, electric cars
may be considered completely Bunsustainable^ because
of the transportation costs to import the cars. As another
example, recycling in the US may have been a sustainable action 10 years ago, but as the Chinese economy
slowed, shipping costs increased, and the cost of oil
decreased recycling is less profitable. Consider that establishing parks to provide wildlife viewing opportunities for educating children may be considered sustainable, but if bears are attacking people because the bears
are becoming more habituated to humans, is that
sustainable?
Since the 1970s, much scholarship in the social studies of
science (SSS) has applied constructivist theories to argue that
basing decisions only on science, and assuming science to be
itself place-, time-, and event-independent, leaves many questions unaddressed (Jasanoff and Wynne 1998; Robinson and
Tansey 2006; Rosa and Dietz 1998; Wynne and Irwin 1996;
Haraway 1991a, 1991b; Latour 1993; Kuhn 1962; Rayner and
Malone 1988). For example, Wynne and Irwin (1996) describe a situation in which scientists’ intellectualadministrative ethos of prediction, standardization, and control conflicted sharply with and penalized local hill-sheep
farmers near a nuclear fuel reprocessing complex in northern
England following Chernobyl. Wynne argues that the scientists, with their exaggerated sense of certainty, Bnaturally^
deleted and standardized the uncertainties of the farmers,
and the farmers’ ethos of adaptation and acceptance of intrinsic lack of control. Wynne’s study and many others indicate
that if environmental policies based purely on science are
adopted, they often unfairly penalize land users and may even
increase environmental degradation and poverty by threatening livelihoods (Forsyth 2003). Bocking (2004) describes how
forms of natural resource management, such as adaptive and
community-based management, which consider more place-,
time-, and event-specific circumstances, are more responsive
to alternative uses of resources, more flexible in allocating
these uses, and more prepared to address local circumstances
and priorities.
What is more, science itself tacitly reflects and reproduces place-, time-, and event-specific dimensions of social
relations and of cultural and moral identities (Jasanoff and
Wynne 1998; Bocking 2004; Forsyth 2003). Thomas
Kuhn’s famous work on revolutionary theory change in
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions offered initial critiques of the contextual circumstances in which science is
enmeshed. Kuhn (1962) argued that science does not progress toward ultimate objective truth because scientific theories can be neither directly compared nor proven. The conceptual paradigms in which scientific theories are embedded are incommensurable with one another because by their
very nature, their core values and assumptions cannot be
compared, and scientific theories are incapable of final empirical validation because facts are not independent of the
theories that they are used to test.
Two conclusions follow. First, science is essential and may
be able to inform conceptions and practices of sustainability,
but science alone cannot resolve many critically important
dimensions. Depending on one’s view of the human-nature
relationship, and of the role of science in that relationship,
one understanding of sustainability may be compelling while
another may not. Choosing which understanding of
sustainability is most compelling is at least partially a
political act. Second, the situated dimensions embedded in
and surrounding science itself in the context of sustainability
must be available for examination and discussion. Robinson
(2004) asserts that B…in the end, sustainability is ultimately
an issue of human behavior, and negotiation over preferred
futures, under conditions of deep contingency and uncertainty.
It is an inherently normative concept, rooted in real world
problems and very different sets of values and moral judgments… multiple conflicting views of sustainability exist
and cannot be reconciled in terms of each other^ (pp. 379–
380, 382).2 Based on such observations, many members of
academia, government, business, and the public (i.e.,
Robinson and Tansey 2006; Williams and Millington 2004;
Sharma et al. 2006; VanWynsberghe et al. 2003; Nadasdy
2007; Starhawk 2004) have recognized the need for an alternative form of knowledge and theoretical lens through which
to examine and incorporate the subjective dimensions of
sustainability.
Narrative approaches in contrast to science-based ones—
which are presumed by critics of science as not necessarily
having objective, rational, and socially independent goals—
can construct and reflect knowledge representative of the
place-, time-, and event-dependent dimensions of life.
1
The term Bscience^ here is used in reference to the social institution
made up of scientists plus the relations among them (Latour 1987, 1993;
Cozzens and Gieryn 1990), the total body of knowledge, and a methodology describing how to carry out investigation of the world (Pickering
1992; Clarke and Fujimura 1992).
2
For a more detailed discussion of the political implications of choosing
one view of sustainability over another, see Cronon’s (1992) description
of the social and environmental impacts of subscribing to one particular
narrative account of history over another.
312
BNarrative^ can be defined as the expression of a (human or
nonhuman) character’s experience in some particular place
and time, through events which rise in action and, through
some approach or instrument, reach a turning point that leads
to some resolution (Bal 1997; Aristotle 1996; Miller 1995;
Polkinghorne 1988; Gass 2002).3
Narrative as a mode of knowing is concrete, contextualized, specific, personally convincing, circular, imaginistic, interpersonal, and emotive (Lyotard 1984; Polkinghorne 1988).
BWhile science looks for universal truth conditions… the narrative mode looks for particular, concrete connections between events^ (Richardson 1990, p. 118). Whereas science
involves prediction, narrative involves retrodiction: Bit is the
end of the temporal series—how things eventually turned
out—that determines which event began it; we know it was
a beginning because of the end^ (Martin 1986, p. 74).
Narrative Bchallenge[s] the official claim to universality, document[s] resistance against official norms, and, most importantly, show[s] that the official claim to hold standards that are
abstract, universal, and hence neutral with respect to power is
false^ (Disch 1994, p. 6).
Narrative is the primary means through which humans
come to understand and express the subjective, value-laden
and a-rational experience of real life (Bruner 1986;
Polkinghorne 1988). In narrative, humans express the experience of creating identity and defining, or attempting to define,
what it means to be human, and what it means to be living
(Gass 2002; Rimmon-Kenan 1996, 2002; Epstein 1994).
Taylor (1989) states that Bin order to make minimal sense of
our lives, in order to have an identity,^ we need to Bgrasp our
lives in a narrative… In order to have a sense of who we are,
we have to have a notion of how we have become and where
we are going. We understand ourselves inescapably in
narrative^ (pp. 47–48, 51–52). Some see that the function of
narrative is the Baffirmation and reinforcement, even the creation, of the most basic assumptions of a culture about human
existence, about time, destiny, selfhood, where we come from,
what we ought to do while we are here, where we go—the
whole course of human life^ (Miller 1995, p. 71). Aristotle
3
The word Bnarrative^ is among the most versatile and plastic of all
words in the English language. Moving aside the human-centeredness
of Barthes’ (1977) following quotation about narrative, his famous statement does capture well narrative’s multivalency: BAble to be carried by
articulated language, spoken or written, fixed or moving images, gestures,
and the ordered mixture of all these substances; narrative is present in
myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy,
mime, painting… stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news items,
conversation. Moreover, under this almost infinite diversity of forms,
narrative is present in every age, in every location, in every society; it
begins with the very history of mankind and nowhere is nor has been a
people without narrative. All classes, all human groups, have their narratives… Narrative is international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply
there, like life itself^ (p. 79).
J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
(1996) reminds us that narrative is among our most supreme
ways of meeting life, evaluating how we act in it, and developing compassion for what life brings. As Van Frassen (1991)
argues, narratives allow us to comprehend the human experience of lived time. Polkinghorne (1988) believes that narrative
is Ba meaning structure that organizes events and human actions into a whole, thereby attributing significance to individual actions and events according to their effect on the whole^
(p. 18). Because narrative gives order and meaning to
events—Ba crucial aspect of understanding the future
possibilities^ (Myers and Kitsuse 2000, p. 227)—narrative
can explore the alternative choices that might lead to feared
or hoped for futures, claims Heidegger (1965). Narrative can
serve as our chief moral compass in the world; Bwe can use
narrative as a tool to explore what we do or do not wish to
become,^ echoes Cronon (1992, p. 1369). According to
Chamberlin (2003), because the narratives we tell can change
the way we act in the world, if we change narratives, we
change something fundamental in the moral and political constitution of a society; thus, it is in narrative that new visions of
sustainable living begin. Whatever may be the perspective of
the universe on the things going on around us, our human
perspective is that we inhabit an endlessly narrated world.
BWe live our lives as a tale that is told,^ says Psalm 90.4
The goal of this paper is to cross-analyze different sustainability stories circulating in the present-day academy and public at large, to bring some clarity within the sustainability
debate. The similarities and differences between stories,
through a narrative analysis, may provide a point of departure
for coherent alternatives to current practice and conventional
ways of thinking.
Methodology: narrative as theoretical lens
Narrative is not only a mode of knowing, but it is also a
process through which knowledge is constructed
(Czarniawska 2004). Since the Bnarrative turn^ in qualitative
inquiry, narrative as a process of knowledge construction—or
Bnarrativity^—has been widely employed in contemporary
political and social theory (Kreiswirth 1994; Ellis and
Flaherty 1992). Application of narrativity has ranged. Social
and behavioral scholars have establish community boundaries
based on notions of constructed identity (Eckstein 2003;
Sandercock 2003) (e.g., how each person, each individual
has a Bcore story^, and how we become our stories because
in telling and re-telling them we are also reproducing ourselves and our behaviors). Cultural theorists have investigated
4
For more arguments in support of narrative as a mode of knowing, see
Epstein (1983, 1990), Howard (1991), Mair (1988), McAdams (1985),
Sarbin (1986).
J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
historical narratives of the human-environment relationship in
biblical and religious contexts (Glacken 1967; Meeker 1997)
(e.g., in the 1st century, the Bible molded a notion of a
Bdesigned earth^ where man’s role was to dominate and modify the environment). Aboriginal scholars have studied how
oral narrative constructs the code of proper behavior toward
the environment and its resources (Basso 1996; Nelson 1983;
Cruikshank 2005) (e.g., many Apache believe, when people
do not learn to associate places and their names with historical
tales, people act counter to social norms and suffer a Blosing of
the land^). Political ecologists have demarcated how environmental orthodoxies, or Bfalse^ narratives about the environment have underpinned much of modern Western culture
(Forsyth 2003) (e.g., institutionalized Bfactual^ explanations
of environmental problems, such as desertification or tropical
deforestation, which are highly problematic and overlook both
biophysical uncertainties and how people value environmental changes in various ways). Literary theorists have critiqued
how the narratives of nature writers such as White, Marsh,
Muir, Leopold, Carson, Abbey, McKibbon, and Berry have
constructed modern notions of nature (e.g., how the storyline
of DDT in Silent Spring laid the groundwork for the modern
environmental movement).
This paper finds greatest inspiration in ethnographic accounts of narrative within feminist and critical theory, which
aim to offer greater representation or legitimacy to the construction of knowledge about place, time, and events within
hegemonic contexts or against dominating paradigms
(Kreiswirth 2000; Czarniawska 1997, 2004). This form of
n a r r a t i v i t y h a s b e e n b r o a d l y t e r m e d Bn a r r a t i v e
constructivism.^ Narrative constructivism critiques the processes in which knowledge of identity (place and character)
is created through a first lens called Bnarrative identification.^
Narrative constructivism also critiques the processes in which
knowledge of time is constructed, through a second lens called
Bnarrative temporalism.^ Finally, narrative constructivism critiques the processes in which different identities intersect with
different times, through a third lens called Bnarrative
sociocriticism.^
This paper applies narrative constructivism to bodies of
work in the sustainability literature that describe a very different combination of themes, conflicts and approaches to and
instruments for resolution (and are large enough so that assessments of their critical mass have been published). These
bodies include Deep Ecology, Social Ecology, Ecofeminism,
Environmental History and Human Geography/Ecology,
Political Ecology, Complex Adaptive Systems, Ecological
Economics, and Business and Sustainability. It is important
to note that the stories these schools of thought describe are
not fully mutually exclusive in all elements, nor are they exhaustive of all possible sustainability stories that could be
constructed based on the literature of current practice and conventional thought. These stories could also be further broken
313
down based on internal schisms, or even expanded (e.g.,
ecoreligion, postcolonialism, ecophilosophy, and environmental economics). For the purposes of this paper, to determine how sustainability stories may or may not be rendered
commensurable, this paper explores themes, sources of conflict, core approaches to resolution, and instruments for resolution of each story based on accounts from primary and secondary sources in the sustainability literature.
Outcomes: storytime
Table 1 depicts different sustainability stories of Deep
Ecology, Social Ecology, Ecofeminism, Environmental
History and Human Geography/Ecology, Political Ecology,
Complex Adaptive Systems, Ecological Economics, and
Business and Sustainability organized by (1) theme, (2) source
of conflict, (3) core approach to resolution, and (4) instrument
for resolution. Table 2 describes the intellectual roots of each
story. The divisions in these tables are not meant to be conclusive, merely suggested of commonalities and differences.
Deep Ecology
This Bgetting back to nature^ and Bthinking like a mountain^
story is among the best known in North America. Founded by
Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess (Naess 1986), Deep
Ecology has been propelled by academics including Fox,
Evernden, Sessions, and Devalue. This story has also been
taken up by the wilderness preservation movement, by people
such as Abbey (1985), Manes (1992), Skolimowski and
Foreman, who used Deep Ecology as a philosophical basis
to critique relations between individual values and the valuation of nature and wilderness. The origins of Deep Ecology
date to the 1960’s, with Leopold and Carson. It is the most
Romantically5 oriented story, taking a very ecocentered and
individualistic approach to the environment. Inspired by scientific ecology (Bocking, 2004), Deep Ecology’s basic argument is rooted in the distinction between shallow and deep
5
While both the Romantic and Social (Enlightenment) Critiques of modernism shared a support of humanism, this worldliness, Prometheanism,
and a focus on human consciousness, there were important differences.
Tarnas (1991) describes the differences between Romantic and Social
(Enlightenment) thinking as, respectively: viewing the world as a unitary
organism vs. as an atomistic machine; finding motivation from the ineffability of inspiration vs. the enlightenment of reason; prizing emotion,
imagination, spirituality, creativity, individual self-expression and selfcreation vs. reason; viewing nature as live vessel of spirit and source of
mystery and revelation vs. as an object for observation and experiment;
inquiring via theoretical explanation vs. via technological manipulation
viewing truth as transfiguring and sublime vs. as testable and objective;
seeking the goals of a new person, a new world vs. seeking understand
and control of the world andviewing reality a construct of the mind vs. as
independent of the mind (see Table 2).
Business and Sustainability
Complex Adaptive
Systems
Ecological Economics
Political Ecology
Environmental History
and Human
geography/Ecology
Ecofeminism
Supply Chain Management
Social Auditing
Natural Step
Ethical Investing
Triple Bottom Line
Corporate Social Responsibility
Energy Path
Factor X
Industrial Ecology
Environmental Governance
Antiglobalization
Environmental Justice and
Racism
Green Politics
Cultural
Material
Radical (cultural)
Liberal and Social
Bioregionalism
Utopianism
Anarchism
Science, society, and
policy
Science
Science
Environment, science,
society, policy
Environment, society
Environment, society
Environment
Environment
Primary theme(s)
Social Ecology
Versions
Stories and story structure of current practice and conventional thought
Deep Ecology
Story
Table 1
Weak business technology and
policy
Weak/absent scientific
understanding
Undervaluing of ecological
goods
Separation of ecology
and society
Competing ideas of
‘nature’ and ‘culture’
Androcentric (male-centered)
Domination of people and nature
Human domination over nature
Source of conflict
Resource/manufacturing
efficiency and social
responsibility
Internalization of externalities
Biological mapping of society
Linking ecological themes
with social struggles
Cultural-based natures
Gynocentric value
Coevolution of nature and
humanity
Reverence and respect for nature
Core approach to resolution
Technical and institutional
reform in the business sector
Socio-ecological systems
theory
Combined ecological/economic
instrument
Social and political reform
Revising the nature/culture
divide
Women’s movement
Rethinking of the social
hierarchy
Biocentric egalitarianism
Instrument for Resolution
314
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J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
Table 2
315
Intellectual roots of current stories
ecology. Instead of dealing with Btechnicalities,^ Deep
Ecology addresses Bbasic^ questions first, notably challenging the fundamental mechanical worldview of modern society.
In this story about a crisis of culture and character, materialism
and instrumental rationality need to be transformed by a new
spiritual and ethical paradigm— ecosophy. Rather than in production and reproduction, the resolution for sustainability lies
in the transformation of individual consciousness and a fundamental change of worldview (Pepper 1996). Instead of continuing Descartes’ dualism and its subsequent Renaissance
perspective, humanity should adopt a biocentric ethics
(Evernden 1993). (See Green Web 2012; Foundation for
Deep Ecology 2012; Center for Environmental Philosophy
2002 for more).
Social Ecology
Like Deep Ecology, the main theme in the Social Ecology
story is the environment, with a critical view of technocratic,
managerial approaches to nature. Social Ecology differs from
Deep Ecology, however, in the greater focus on human relations, history, and culture. The classic early 1970’s argument
between Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner clearly illustrates
this difference (Holden 1972). Ehrlich, coming from the Deep
Ecology perspective, believed that the key problems in the
environmental crisis were human overpopulation and overconsumption. These problems required fundamental changes
in underlying individual beliefs and behaviors. Commoner,
coming from the Social Ecology school, argued that the key
problem was technology (see Commoner 1991). Essentially
founded by Bookchin (1991) in the 1970’s, Social Ecology is
explicitly grounded in anarchistic political philosophy
(Phillips 1999). Anarchism advocates elimination of the state
and its replacement by voluntary groups of individuals who
can sustain social order without any external authority. So,
unlike the Romantic roots of Deep Ecology, the links of
Social Ecology are the New Left and Social Critics. Social
Ecology argues that the main conflict is the domination of
both nature and humans by humans and that their
domination is closely related. It is in this way that Social
Ecology unifies social and ecological concerns with a radical
ecological critique of hierarchy and domination. Eckersley
(1998) illustrates a typical path of resolution in the Social
Ecology story, arguing that people should replace
Banthropocentrism/nonanthropocentrism^ with Bhuman racism/ecocentrism.^ This manifests when a reconciliation of
human and nonhuman needs is possible but is nonetheless
concealed and/or denied (see Center for Disease Control and
Prevention 2015; McPhearson 2013; Angelstam et al. 2013
for more).
316
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is the third sustainability story to have dominated the 1970s and 1980s. This story combines the environmental and feminist arguments to offer a gender- and feministbased analysis of nature/social relations. Like Social
Ecology, Ecofeminism links to the Social and Green Critics
in its connection between the domination of nature and the
domination of women. Ecofeminism sees patriarchy as the
source of conflict for both ecology and gender problems
(Merchant 2003). In fact, the whole development of Western
culture is tied up with patriarchy: men have degraded the earth
just as they have used women’s sexuality and reproductive
capacity to control them (Hessing 1993). Ecofeminism can
be divided into radical (cultural), and liberal and socialist
(political, social, and institutional) versions. Radical
Ecofeminism links to the Romantic Critique, and therefore
to Deep Ecology. The liberal and socialist versions identify more strongly with the Social Critique, and therefore
the Greens and Social Ecology. Although the resolution in
all the versions of Ecofeminism lie in acknowledging and
practicing sustainability in the feminine, the instruments
slightly vary. Radical Ecofeminism describes a story about
an androcentric, patriarchal culture where gender is
viewed from an essentialist perspective. Females are subordinated because of their attributes (women’s reproductive capacity, emotional qualities, and nurturing activities), and hence the BEarth Mother^ symbolism. On the
other hand, the liberal and socialist versions of
Ecofeminism focus much more strongly on political, social, and institutional dimensions. In contrast to the more
spiritual/mystical approach of radical Ecofeminism
(Starhawk 2004), the more nonessentialist approach of
liberal and social Ecofeminism takes the form of social
construction of gender arguments: women’s affiliation
with nature is the product of social and institutional discrimination (Shiva 1993). A common claim is that Deep
Ecology fails to appreciate the material basis of nature and
society, so resolution to sustainability is sought more
through a dialectical materialist philosophy based on
Marx, Lewontin (as opposed to Darwin), and Gould
(Clark and York 2005) (see Dobscha 1993 for more).
Environmental History and Human Geography/Ecology
Environmental History and Human Geography/Ecology focus
on how people and their activities are distributed in the environment, how people use and perceive the environment, and
how people create and sustain places on the earth’s surface.
Like Ecofeminism, the main themes here are the environment
and society, but instead of a specific focus on gender, this story
attempts to more broadly historically, geographically, and ecologically link the separate disciplines and/or overcome the
J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
division between humans and nature (Schama 1996). This
story can be divided into two main versions: Cultural and
material. A cultural version of this story that somewhat links
to Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism, focuses on how ideas of
nature are constantly reformulated, signified, and used by different social agents (Cronon 1995). These ideas either bolster
claims of knowledge and power over other agents and attendant ecosystems, or defend access to and control over resources in the face of others’ knowledge and power claims
(Coates 1998). A material version of the Environmental
History and Human Geography/Ecology story combines ecological theory and scientific understandings of the environment (Cronon 1992, 1995; Worster 1977, 1993). This version
identifies much more with Social ideals than the cultural approach: It is more concerned with how, over geological and
historical time, tensions between normative and scientific
ecology influence spatial differentiation and organization of
human physical activity (i.e., patterns of development). In all
these stories, resolution to sustainability lies in a better understanding and reconciliation of deep divides based on ontological and epistemological differences in nature(s) and culture(s)
(see worldmapper.org n/a; Yale Project on Climate Change
Communication n/a; University of Alaska Fairbanks 2014;
Integration and Application Network 2007–present for more).
Political Ecology
Similar to the Environmental History and Human Geography/
Ecology story in that the challenge is to articulate the natural
as constitutive of the social, and vice versa, Political Ecology
more overtly emphasizes the political implications of different
epistemological issues resulting from interdisciplinarity in the
natural and social sciences (Agarwal 2005; Vayda and Walters
1999). A critical literature, Political Ecology, emerged from
ecosystems/cybernetics, ecological anthropology/cultural
ecology, and natural hazards/disaster research. Characterized
by marginality, pressure of production on resources, and a
plural approach (Peet and Watts 2004), Political Ecology
has taken three main lines in its latest inquiries of resolution: (1) theorizing environmental struggles as both material
and symbolic, (2) conceiving of discursive practices as embodying power relations, and (3) considering land use practices in the highly industrialized North. Pezzoli (1997) outlines a political ecology of sustainable development by articulating four key challenges concerning: (1) holism and
coevolution, (2) social justice and equity, (3) empowerment
and community building, and (4) sustainable production
and reproduction. The range of core approaches to and
instruments for resolution described by the Political
Ecology story are evident in its different versions: environmental governance, antiglobalization, environmental justice
and racism, and green politics. Environmental governance
(McCarthy and Prudham 2004) can be divided into
J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
traditional conservative (radical), market liberal (reformist),
welfare liberal (reformist), Democratic socialist (reformist),
and revolutionary socialist (radical). Antiglobalization argues that resolution will come through forms of social
and political organization to resist the damaging forces of
global capitalism (Adger et al. 2003). The environmental
justice and racism version links ecological with labor
and social justice and equity concerns (Agyeman
2005). Green politics challenges the dominance of anthropocentric, technocratic, patriarchal, colonialist, militarist perspectives through ecology, social responsibility,
grass-roots democracy, and nonviolence (Eckersley
1998) (see Warren and Mapping for Change, n/a;
Romanova, 2010; Andersson et al. 2011; Grossman
1998 for more).
Complex Adaptive Systems
This story marks a turn to a much greater thematic focus on
science and technical fixes in the sustainability stories of current practice and conventional thought. In the 1970s and early
1980s, an interest in the complex interrelationships among
species and their habitats led to a focus on the complex interactions among human and ecological systems. Complex
Adaptive Systems (CAS), with roots in the discipline of ecology (especially in applied ecological analysis of resource systems), uses microevolutionary and macroevolutionary theory
in biology to identify theories of change in socio-ecological
systems (Holling and Gunderson 2002). Folke et al. (2002)
argue that the main conflict of sustainability is fundamental
error in the understanding of natural resources, especially the
assumption that ecosystem responses to human use are linear,
predictable, and controllable, and that human and natural systems can be treated independently. In a complex world of
rapid transformations, the resolution for sustainability lies in
a new socio-scientific framework that sustains and enhances
adaptive capacity. The key to resolution is resilience, the capacity to buffer change, and learning to develop under conditions of overexploitation and resource collapse. Like the other
authors of CAS, Carl Walters, Collin Clark, George Francis,
Henry Ragier, and Gary Patterson subscribe to a hierarchical
understanding of the world, island biogeography, patch dynamics, food webs, connectivity, and spatial subsidies. From
a management perspective the key concepts on which they
focus are emergence, complexity, and surprise considered
along the two axes of uncertainty and controllability.
Depending on whether uncertainty and controllability are
low or high, the role of science should vary (e.g., traditional
science vs. experimental vs. unknown). CAS links to Political
Ecology in its focus on participatory processes, specifically
through Bpost-normal science^ (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1992,
1993; Ravetz 1999), which is a general methodology for managing complex science-policy issues. Through postnormal
317
science, Funtowitcz and Ravetz have sought to bring quality
assurance in the problem areas of value loading and uncertainty in science-policy interactions. More recently for example,
Benessia and Funtowicz (2015) apply postnormal science to
B…the normalising forces emerging from the modern framing
of sustainability and the strategies that standardise the
envisioning of our techno–scientific future, and the risks and
promises of innovation. Concentrating on two emergent technologies, along two main drivers of innovation: optimisation
(for new pathways of ‘sustainable’ competitiveness and consumption) in the field of smart technologies, and substitution
(for new resources) in the field of synthetic biology…. we
provide some suggestions about the role of complexity
and quality vs. efficiency and functionality, for reopening
the democratic debate about what is to be sustained and
for whom^ (p.1). In sum, like Political Ecology, CAS
has raised important issues about how to combine the
naturalism of ecology with the constructivism of social
and political analysis (see Nikolic 2010; Burgess and
Burgess (2003-2012); Rowe and Hogarth 2005 for
more).
Ecological Economics
Emerging in the 1970s from work in CAS and by Boulding
(1966), the project of Ecological Economics (EE) is to make
economics more ecological. EE emphasizes ecological sustainability through fair/just distribution and allocative efficiency. From the influence of CAS, EE argues that the conflict
with sustainability is the undervaluing of ecological goods: we
must see the human economy as both a social system and one
imbedded in larger ecological systems with biophysical
limits—total stock must be maintained. Human systems are
thus seen holistically, in terms derived ultimately from the
natural sciences (thermodynamics and energy/material flows).
In contrast to conventional neoclassical environmental economics (pillared on the theory of human behavior embodied
in the axioms of consumer choice, and the theory of production embodied in the notions of perfect competition and the
marginal productivity theory of distribution), major tenets of
EE include value pluralism, methodological pluralism, and
multicriteria policy assessment (Gowdy and Erickson 2005).
Another way of stating this, is the difference between Bweak^
and Bstrong^ sustainability: neoclassical environmental economics tries to be objective and favors a goal of weak sustainability (technology will lead to physical capital substituting
for natural capital), while EE does not try to be objective,
and favors a goal of strong sustainability (physical capital
cannot substitute for natural capital) (Ayers 2001). The focus
on the economics of more ecologically sound technological
advancement (Vollebergh and Kemfert 2005; Mani et al.
2005) often involves critiques of the single-minded,
318
efficiency-only focus of environmental economics (Lovins
and Lovins 2001).
The EE story prescribes a core approach to resolution
through internalizing externalities, but it is pessimistic about
the limits to growth and technological progress (Daly 1977;
O’Hara 1995): B…sustainability cannot be achieved unless
economics is [also] internalized into the social and environmental context within which all economic activity takes
place^ (O’Hara 1998). So, in addition to the physical context
in which economics take place, EE prescribes an awareness of
the ethical context which supports or undermines the sustaining of essential caring and ecosystems services. At times, social and equity issue (Sneddon 2000) considerations move EE
toward the Business and Sustainability story (see next).
Despite some Political Ecology frames, EE has not connected
very strongly with social and political arguments about power,
control, distribution, etc., nor with social science arguments
about the social construction of scientific knowledge, as in the
Political Ecology and Environmental History and Human
Geography/Ecology stories. Instead, resolutions in EE are
more often achieved through a combined ecological/
economic instrument. Industrial Ecology, for example, models
economic and industrial production systems on principles of
ecological organization derived from the study of natural processes (Ayres et al. 2001; Mani et al. 2005; Lambin 2005) (see
International Society for Ecological Economics n/a;
University of Vermont 2015 for more).
Business and Sustainability
This story incorporates some of the conflicts and resolutions
proposed by EE but is less academic and more pragmatic with
its focus on technical and institutional reform in social arenas
of the business sector. This story stems from the 1970s and
1980s, from social and political pressure on businesses to
address community support, the social impacts of industrial
activity, and democracy in the workplace. The Dow Jones
Sustainability indices launched in 1999 as Bthe first global
sustainability benchmarks^ (RobecoSAM n/a), tracks B…
the stock performance of the world’s leading companies in
terms of economic, environmental and social criteria. The indices serve as benchmarks for investors who integrate sustainability considerations into their portfolios, and provide an effective engagement platform for companies who want to
adopt sustainable best practices.^ Consultancy firm
Accenture LLP (2016) B…help[s] organizations leverage their
assets and capabilities to drive innovation and profitable
growth while delivering a positive economic, environmental,
and social impact.^ Accenture’s approach B…encompasses
strategy, design and execution to help increase revenue, reduce cost, manage risk and enhance brand, reputation and
intangible assets^ (AccentureStrategy). In general, some issues a Business and Sustainability advocate might address
J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
are reducing industrial contamination contributing to the
Gulf of Mexico Bdead zone,^ alternative practices to the conversion of forests to pasture in the Amazon Basin, or more
specifically, the banning of microbeads (Rochman et al. 2015)
or the prevention of another Exxon Valdez grounding or a
Montara oil spill off East Timor. Business and Sustainability
can thus be better distinguished from EE through its focus on
positive and negative incentives in human resources, as opposed to in markets and efficiency. Positive incentives are:
new markets, productivity gains, and recruitment, while negative incentives are license to operate, waste elimination, and
retention. These differences in incentives result in two strands
of activity. First is improving efficiencies of resource use and
manufacturing (as in EE), which is rooted strongly in alternative energy analyses and in related work that views the relationship between human and natural systems through the lens
of thermodynamics and energy/material flows. Second is social concern, which, for the purposes of this paper, describes
the bulk of Business and Sustainability. Business and
Sustainability story versions include natural step, which offers
resolution through combining ecologically derived principles
with a social principle of meeting human needs: corporate
social responsibility (Hawkins 2006), ethical investing, supply
chain management, social auditing, and triple bottom line
(Elkington 1994), which combines supply chain management
and social auditing. Comparing Business and Sustainability to
the antiglobalization version of the Political Ecology story,
Business and Sustainability provides an alternative in that it
suggests that challenging capitalism or markets at the fundamental level is not necessary (see McKinsey and Company
2011; US Small Business Administration n/a; Guardian News
and Media Ltd. 2015; Network for Business Sustainability
2015 for more).
Analysis and reflection
The above analysis suggests that the sustainability stories of
current practice and conventional thought span a spectrum of
views. In themes, these stories range from the environment
(nature) to the socio-political (people). The source of conflicts
ranges from spirituality to efficiency gains. The resolutions
range from revising values to technological improvements.
These themes, conflicts, and resolutions suggest that in contemporary sustainability, there exists both a critique of modern
science and an idealization of ecological and evolutionary
science. The range of content in these stories reflects the legacy of Romantic and Social Critiques prominent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Pepper 1996; O’Riordan
1981; Wall 1994).
Where can we go from here? Is there a coherent alternative
among the differences and similarities across the range of
Romantic and Social Critiques? Should we combine
J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
commonalities among existing stories, challenge core underlying assumptions, or merge all the stories into a Bmeta^ sustainability story?
Value Change/Technical Fix
A first alternative sustainability story could be constructed
based on some of the Bred threads^ drawn from intellectual
lineages identified in Table 2. While each story may contain
slight elements across the range of each theme, conflict, and
resolution, each story primarily describes either a theme of the
environment, or environment and society; a source of conflict
as inappropriate lifestyles, or weak technology and economy;
a core approach to resolution of revising individual values, or
establishing collective policies, and; an instrument for resolution as value change at the individual level, or efficiency improvements and technological innovation. Scholars have developed these distinctions along a variety of lines, from natural area management, to value positions, to proposed response.
Common typologies include Preservation and Conservation,
Arcadian and Imperialist (Wall 1994), Ecocentric and
Technocentric (Pepper 1996; O’Riordan 1981), or Value
Change and Technical Fix (Robinson 2004) typologies.
Commonalities in Deep Ecology, Social Ecology,
Ecofeminism, Environmental History and Human
Geography/Ecology (cultural), and Political Ecology (environmental justice and racism, and green politics versions)
could be termed BValue Change^ stories. Business and
Sustainability, Ecological Economics, Complex Adaptive
Systems, Political Ecology (environmental governance and
antiglobalization) and Environmental History and Human
Geography/Ecology (material) could be considered more as
BTechnical Fix^ stories. Thus, the conflict of this alternative
sustainability story could be reconciling the technical fix and
value change poles of the sustainability spectrum, and its resolution might lie in new tools and processes that speak to the
epistemological and metaphorical trends of sustainability at
the interface of Romantic and Social Critiques. A more historical version of this story could be constructed by tracing
Bred threads^ even farther back in time. Most contemporary
reviews of the conceptual history of sustainability end with
Romantic and Enlightenment thought, but Glacken’s (1967)
analysis of Western thought from ancient time to the end of the
eighteenth century suggests pre-eighteenth century trends.
This story would require reconciling the three main enduring
themes in the human-nature relationship (Glacken 1967).
These include humankind in harmony with nature, humankind
dominated by nature, and humankind dominating nature.
Internalism
A second alternative story might be based on the observation that all of the stories of current practice described in
319
this paper assume that the realm of ideology (fundamental
cultural paradigms, world views, myths), and the realm of
the biophysical (biophysical processes and natural systems)
do not directly affect each other. This implies that all traffic
between the two must be mediated through society, so that
ideology is seen to affect society, and society shapes nature,
or conversely that nature constrains society which
constrains ideology. However, scholars such as Berman
(1984) and Capra (1983) are adamant that Western culture’s
historic post-Cartesian disjuncture of the ideological realm
and biophysics (unlike in some non-Western cultures,
where this interaction is often central to cultural understanding, since cultural understanding is grounded overtly
in natural process, or vice versa) is the root of the sustainability conflict. BThe future of ‘nature’ itself thus depends
on the recognition of the relationship between our own
conscious and unconscious minds, and on what we do with
that recognition,^ states Berman (1984, p. 142). BWhen we
investigate the world ‘Out There’ we are exploring human
consciousness and vice-versa.^ A resolution for this story
would then draw from fields like psychology and Eastern
philosophy to marry the Bin-here^ and Bout-there^ through
a macrocosm-microcosm-like participatory consciousness.
This participatory epistemology, reflecting lines of thought
developed in different ways in part by Goethe, Hegel,
Steiner, and others, might involve the human spirit Bnot
merely prescribing nature’s phenomenal order; rather, the
spirit of nature brings forth its own order through the human mind when that mind is employing its full complement of faculties—intellectual, volitional, emotional, sensory, imaginative, aesthetic, and epiphanic. In such knowledge, the human mind lives into the creative activity of
nature. Then the world speaks its meaning through human
consciousness. Then human language can be recognized as
rooted in a deeper reality, reflecting the universe’s
unfolding meaning^ (Tarnas 1991, p. 435).
Communicative Place-Sensitivity
A third alternative sustainability story might argue that all
of the conflicts described by the stories of current practice
and conventional understanding (which include human
domination over nature, domination of people and nature,
androcentrism, competing ideas of nature and culture, separation of ecology and society, weak/absent scientific understanding, undervaluing of ecological goods, weak business technology, and policy), are conflicts for sustainability. Each of these conflicts work together and reinforce
one another to create a larger ecologically irrational response embedded in the very framework and structure of
rationalist human understanding of reason. This story
would draw on Deep Ecology, Ecofeminism, and anticolonial theory. However, this story would be different from
320
Deep Ecology’s criticism of dualistic thinking, in which
solidarity—standing with the other in a supportive relationship in a political sense—is based on identity and unity. Naess’s position stems from a kind of self-interest and
upon a form of fusion or expulsion of difference—taking
the form, as he explains in his reply to Reed (1989), of
identity of interests. BIdentification^ writes Naess, is a
process Bthrough which the supposed interests of another
being are spontaneously reacted to as our own interests^
(Naess 1990, p. 187). This story is also different from
Ecofeminist versions that call for kinds of spirituality that
are nondualist and immanent in orientation rather than
transcendent and rationalistic (Spretnak 1989; Griffen
1978), for they often subvert key aspects of the dominant
economic and political order to be complicit with it
(Plumwood 2002). Instead, a Communicative PlaceSensitivity story would be based on action that recognizes
the incommensurability of the nonhuman and does not
define the nonhuman world in hegemonic terms that
relate it always back to the human as conceptual center.
A core approach to resolution for this story would be
stressing the difference and divergent agency of the
nonhuman so that the nonhuman is not assimilated
and instrumentalized, but is recognized and valued
without being a part of self, alike to self, or as means
to self’s ends. This responds to Benjamin's (1990) acknowledgment that BWe need a concept of the other as
interconnected with self, but as also a separate being in
their own right, accepting the ‘uncontrollable, tenaciousness otherness’ of the non-human world^. An instrument for resolution could be changing the basis of democracy so that more fully egalitarian forms of democratic economy and culture can give the human and
non-human equal stake in benefits and an equal risk
of adverse consequences (p. 48).
The end
The value the ideas presented here bring to the sustainability
debate is the following:
1. An identification of the similarities and differences of diverse sustainability schools of thought and practice.
2. An exploration of the available space for alternative coherent sustainability stories.
3. A concrete direction to take sustainability in practice, given that there are foundational historic differences in
Romantic and Social Critic lines of thought (What if we
were to take a BOTH/AND approach, and say that one
approach to sustainability is not necessarily better than
another? What if we draw from the best of what each
school of thought has to offer?)
J Environ Stud Sci (2017) 7:310–323
4. A summary of contemporary sustainability approaches,
which provides students of sustainability a background
and framework to approach the range of literature.
5. Political choices: As Robinson (2004) says, perhaps in the
end, sustainability is less about who is right, and more
about political decisions we can make, and the freedom
we have to make them now and in the future.
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