Improving governance – the key to sustainable development

“Governance for sustainability development involves difficult choices to be made, as not all social goods are commensurate and do not necessarily translate into win-win scenarios for all stakeholders”, writes Sachin Sandhir, MD & Country Head – RICS India
 

Over the course of the twentieth century, mankind across nations has become aware of the acute problems associated with global development. In the quest for economic supremacy driven by industrialisation, most countries have often neglected the corresponding effects on one’s natural habitat, which has invariably translated into innumerable challenges of food security, fresh water shortage, forest and land degradation, soaring pollution levels, extinction of flora and fauna species and depletion of natural resources.
 
Human societies today are therefore confronted by major choices in relation to their development goals – choices that will not only determine the future outcome of our actions but also of our planet. Thus the concepts of ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ have been beneficial in providing assistance in relation to articulating concerns about existing practices, especially with respect to global climate change and the destruction of natural habitat. To this end, sustainable development which is founded on the basis of ‘green’ and ‘natural’ principles definitely represents an alternative path where development is regarded as a means to meet the needs of the present without compromising on the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
 
Sustainable development has also emerged as a growing international norm which has been helpful in threading together ideas and initiatives of preserving natural resources while creating green infrastructure which reduces its impact on the environment, thereby promoting the concept of living buildings which embody architectural design and technological aspects that promote the protection of the biosphere without compromising on the ability to cater to development needs.
 
However, considering the level of damage that has already been inflicted upon our natural ecosystems, the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development have been widely discussed, debated and researched and in spite of the positive outcomes that are extended through such initiatives, the acceptance and responsiveness of governments, organisations and society at large have remained sluggish at best to rapidly adapt to the challenges posed by exponential population growth, increasing consumption and resource depletion on a scale much larger than has been witnessed in human history thus far.
 
In order to address these pressing concerns, an approach which encompasses strategic planning towards sustainability is required which will ultimately result in profound change. For such change to commence it is imperative to have a buy-in from all industry stakeholders and a paradigm shift in peoples’ values, aspirations, and behaviours that are usually guided by perception. This re-evaluation will also need to be accompanied by a shift in processes, strategies and practices towards sustainable development and governance. Therefore both these components need to be assessed and evaluated in conjunction with each other to address the numerous global challenges that have emerged as a consequence of development. 
 
Understanding the importance of sustainable development – the built environment’s perspective
A growing awareness of environmental, social and economic problems associated with contemporary architecture and industry have led business leaders, corporations and nations across the world to adopt practices that are deemed to be more sustainable over the long term. While at present most of these practices have been aimed at reducing resource consumption, energy use and emissions, there really hasn’t been a drastic or fundamental redesign of the entire approach to visualising and creating the built environment.
 
Sustainable design and architecture is not just about certain energy saving features or technologies, it needs to encompass all aspects of society including agriculture, transportation, industry and commerce and of course the environment and ecology. Thus, sustainable development as a rapidly growing phenomenon needs to not only redefine the responsibility of the built environment towards natural habitat, but also its responsiveness towards its inhabitants.
 
Purely from a design perspective, we still seem to be in a transition phase, between discussion/evaluation and adoption. While just a few years ago the attitude towards sustainability was sceptical, it is no longer considered as a ‘passing fad’, especially in the present scenario. Today, the sustainable design approach has produced better, less damaging and more efficient buildings. However, in the overall scheme of things such structures can only be termed as ‘green’ and not ‘sustainable’ until they have no negative operational impacts on the environment.
 
Therefore, in the bigger picture of the built environment, design and architecture is a mode of communication that actually conceptualises, plans, links and shapes ecosystems. The decision to create a building has the implication to destruct some part of the natural universe. Therefore, conservation and urban design should not be seen as autonomous activities separate from development control and forward planning as they are dynamically linked in their common role in facilitating an effective way forward for the creation of a sustainable built environment.
 
The Issue of Governance
Sustainable development has undoubtedly represented a major governance challenge for the twenty first century. In order to realign development trajectories for societies it is essential to alter existing processes and practices that affect governance. The very idea of governance for sustainable development embodies a commitment to ensure that various available choices respond to the urgent development priorities without undermining perspectives for future growth and inhabitation. However, this concept is also confronted by several issues which affect the delivery of social welfare, innovation, public participation and democratic decision making.
 
This trend is highlighted by the fact that even though ‘sustainability’ is exponentially growing in use and presence in policy-making, financial markets, organisational reporting and strategic planning, it is quite abstract and provides room for multiple interpretations. Thus for those industry stakeholders launching sustainable development initiatives it is absolutely essential to overcome the various kinds of broad and horizontal challenges associated with ‘going green’. A complete revamp of governance solutions is required to address both the ‘diffusion of sustainability’ into stakeholder practices and ‘sustainability collaboration’ across stakeholders in order to establish synergies such as the sharing of best practices, resources, tools, policy implementation and administration etc.
 
Governments across the world have already taken some initial steps to engage with issues central to sustainable development such as climate change, resource use, bio-diversity loss, and poverty alleviation. Over the last few decades there have also been attempts to adopt more long term and strategic approaches to managing environmental burdens through national and international plans and strategies. These help draw stakeholders into constructive dialogue across nations and governments to broaden the range of environmental policy instruments and integrate environmental considerations into economic decision making.
 
However, unlike modes of governance prevalent in the more developed nations, governing relationships in developing countries are quite different; considering they are dominated by bureaucrats, who more often than not have a major stake or relate more to the private sector, primarily on account of financial gains. Additionally in such set-ups, civil societies tend to play a more limited role in influencing growth directions. Therefore, unlike developed nations which suggest a three-way partnership of public, private and other sectors in formulating sustainability governance, developing nations continue to struggle for buy-in across stakeholders.
 
Characteristically, there has been a general lack of political commitment from government, institutions and civil society that encourage the implementation of sustainable development. The negligence and failure to adequately protect environmental integrity and support social welfare at the most basic level is primarily a consequence of lack of coherent, forward looking and integrated global and local frameworks for sustainable development. Intellectuals, scholars, policy makers and individuals have rightly observed the continuing trend of environmental governance regimes to insufficiently address the weaknesses, imbalances and inequities of governance systems, which have typically been developed in an ad hoc manner and possess innumerable gaps. Thus most governance regimes come across as narrow mandates with limited budgets and a lack of legal authority, staffing and political support.
 
However, India’s commitment to the climate change policy is evident at the national level, with the implementation of the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) introduced by the Prime Minister in 2008. This initiative attempts to address not only issues related to climate change but also energy security in the country. The action plan which comprises of 8 missions under its purview encompasses the use of renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind and hydro power and concentrates on the creation of an energy efficient sustainable habitat for a ‘Green India’.
 
Even on the international playing field, India’s commitment has not staggered. While countries across the globe negotiated at Copenhagen to arrive at some conclusion on carbon emissions and climate change challenges, India solidified its opinion for the creation of a fair and equitable multilateral framework that would help developing countries, especially India transition into a low-carbon economy, with the new global regime providing sufficient financial and technical support for mitigation and adaptation efforts.
 
This approach is all the more commendable as international environmental laws and policy making regimes are increasingly coming into effect. Thus the global community needs to reconsider how existing institutional machinery must be strengthened and better coordinated to ensure that it can confront sustainable development challenges that will continue to be posed in the coming years. The debate on international environmental programmes such as the Kyoto Protocol, Copenhagen Communiqué and others that have been initiated, offer the opportunity for all nations to seriously assess and analyse the global framework for sustainable development that we are striving to create.
 
This take on sustainable development is all the more important for developing countries, which are often marginalised as a result of multi-lateral negotiations and policy making. Given the numerous deficiencies that are prevalent in negotiating regimes and the lack of support for capacity building and access to technical, human and financial resources. Achieving appropriate governance reforms can therefore be an uphill task, especially as environmental negotiation processes are typically carried out without any due regard to the larger equity and social justice concerns projected by emerging nations, thereby disregarding the development dimension of the sustainable development agenda. Thus logically it comes as no surprise that prerogatives of the more developed nations continue to take precedence in international environmental debates.
 
Consequently, there has been widespread failure to integrate environmental consideration on various policy areas across governments and international institutions. So while there have been efforts to formulate and participate in collaborative action plans between governments, institutions and groups at different levels of the sustainability chain, the basic principles of bottom-up decision making and ownership have not effectively been applied at the international level.
 
Having said this, action by governments alone will not solve the problems underlying the global failure to implement sustainable development. In order to overcome political conflicts and vested interests, multi-stakeholder participation and partnerships need to be established and developed in decision-making and implementation. Through this medium the responsibility for arriving at good governance and the ethics behind sustainable development stewardship are more likely to be achieved. To this end it also imperative that local and national participation are key ingredients in the policy implementation approach to sustainable development. Additionally, there is a growing to encourage and facilitate wider public awareness, education and capacity building to help empower individuals and communities to take direct action towards sustainability and environmental protection.
 
Initiating a reform process across institutions and stakeholders
As a roadmap to implementing and initiating reform for cleaner and greener development there is an urgent need for improving institutional accountability. However, this reform has its own set of unique challenges and would entail the adoption of new governance mechanisms that can avert the existing issues and concerns centred on non-compliance. Therefore, the evolution of a model governance system which embodies tenets of independent self regulation, analysis and assessment and monitoring can definitely play a crucial role in the development of an international governance mechanism that exhibits transparency in decision making and compliance across governments and institutions. To facilitate this change, transformation and enhancement of institutions will allow greater coherence between global, regional, national and local frameworks which will consequently enable the shift towards sustainable development.
 
Additionally, private governance for environmental and social performance of organisations, processes and products is also gaining prominence in market and policy arenas. With multiple green initiatives and products such as carbon offset standards, carbon and energy credits, green building rating systems, sustainable development certifications etc. which are available to organisations, several competing mechanisms have emerged which can definitely provide innovative, legitimate and dynamically evolving governance for sustainability, while presenting new challenges for public and private sector stakeholders.
 
Organisations which are responsive to this global need, in order for sustainability to be completely integrated into the corporation are increasingly looking at individuals across operations to participate in green initiatives. To enable this change, corporations are encouraging employees to generate new ideas and ways of doing things, in order to be primary drivers in implementing such changes. This is resulting in governance models to be more inclusive and consensus-based, rather than hierarchy-based. At the same time, sustainability needs to integrate into the rest of the business and include existing governance principles and not just address single-issue solutions such as waste management or energy efficiency programs.
 
An overview of all these parallel developments across institutions and markets are indicative of the need for global governance tools to be more participatory, transparent and accountable. Additionally, it is imperative that civil society which possesses the knowledge, intellect and power to make a difference be more actively engaged in decision making forums to represent the views of the public at large and create a more effective and systematic mechanism that propagates acceptance, responsiveness, adherence and compliance to sustainability criteria.
 
Therefore, participation at this level needs to be founded on clearly defined principles comprising of transparency, collaboration, learning, equity and flexibility. To achieve these principles it is essential to establish certain ground rules for communication, procedures, agenda and issues, facilitation and reporting criteria. Only when these two components fall into place will clear objectives emerge in the form of outputs and action plans on the impact of key policy initiatives. To support this approach, participation at each level will also require active and continued support from institutions and stakeholders who have to ensure equitable access to information in the form of policy, technical and scientific data, funds, improved awareness and education on the subject matter, legal considerations etc., that will facilitate in the decision-making and implementation process.
 
Implementation of sustainability governance has varied implications
Governance for sustainability development involves difficult choices to be made, as not all social goods are commensurate and do not necessarily translate into win-win scenarios for all stakeholders. The implementation and establishment of such mechanism are often riddled with set-backs, disappointments and even failures, given that these processes involve a high degree of uncertainty. Also knowledge and the ability to use this information remain limited as resistance against adoption continues; given the perceived differences that different societies’ and institutions derive from such mechanisms.
 
While realising that governance can have inherent setbacks, a good starting point is to re-evaluate how we think about sustainability and ensure that our approach is well-aligned with how we run our businesses and how governments respond to environmental triggers. We have to ensure that all international, national and local businesses understand how sustainability can and should be integrated into core business strategies. Therefore, it is essential that we learn about our markets in relation to regulation, compliance and expectations and then benchmark one’s risks that can be impacted by processes, performance and policies. Only when these aspects are collectively realised and rationalised, will a distinctive adoption of sustainability tools be accepted to integrate products, resources and operations.
 
Governance systems must also ensure the existence of visionary leadership which will inspire nations to overcome their preoccupation with national interests and recognise that national security is indivisible from global security and requires sustained commitments to long-term ecological and human needs. Therefore, mandates and functions of global governance architecture must be realigned, based on principles of importance with well defined linkages amongst them so that they can cooperate more systematically, effectively and cohesively.
 
Also more attention needs to be directed towards understanding how economic globalisation is fundamentally changing the nature of environmental management, and what measures are necessary to mitigate adverse impacts. This aspect is crucial as globalisation not only heightens the influence of market forces, most importantly competition on the making and enforcement of environmental policy but also subjects’ national environmental policy to the action and reaction of international institutions.

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