When 25 high-level representatives from industry and government, as well as environmental, labor, and civil rights organizations, first sat down together in Washington in the fall of 1993, the event might have been compared to the lion sitting down with the lamb. Often adversaries over the years, these diverse and critical sectors of American society had been assigned the joint challenge of helping to craft realistic U.S. policies that simultaneously encourage economic growth, create jobs, and protect the environment.
|
David T. Buzzelli |
These leaders are members of the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), established in June 1993 for a two-year term. Creation of the unprecedented group was inspired by the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and the United Nation's follow-up naming of a Commission on Sustainable Development. The PCSD gradually took shape during talks between Vice President Albert Gore, World Resources Institute President Jonathan Lash, and Dow Chemical executive David T. Buzzelli. The members were selected through the Office of Environmental Policy to "determine the right mix," according to PCSD executive director, Molly Harriss Olson. Lash and Buzzelli now co-chair the council.
|
Jonathan Lash |
"The council is trying to bring to the table people from different agendas in the hope of very pro-actively creating solutions that work for each of the different interests," says Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, a council member and co-chair of the Citizens Network on Sustainable Development. "What we now realize is that if you start the process with all the vested interests, you don't have people later on who feel their interests were excluded. This is democracy. And I think the council really has the 21st century task of completing the agenda of democracy for the United States."
The PCSD has been primarily charged with developing and recommending to the president a national sustainable development action strategy that would foster economic vitality and raise public awareness of and participation in the issues of sustainable development. The goal is to develop a unified vision for economic and environmental policies that are often seen as conflicting or designed to respond to particular situations rather than having broad application. The council must submit a final report with recommendations by October 1995.
"I think that one of the real values of the PCSD is bringing people together to cross sector and disciplinary lines," says David Blockstein, a senior scientist with the Committee for a National Institute of the Environment and a member of the council's task force on Public Linkage, Dialogue and Education, "and then to have a national discussion on where we want to go and how we want to achieve it."
The PCSD holds such a national discussion quarterly when it convenes for public meetings, while its 8 task forces and nearly 400 task force members convene regularly behind the scenes to conduct specific research and draft interim reports that are presented for public response. Most council meetings are held in Washington, DC, but the group traveled to Seattle and Chicago in 1994 and will meet in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in January 1995. By visiting areas outside Washington and meeting with local citizens, elected officials, and community and business leaders, the council hopes to find out how individual regions are tackling their particular economic and environmental problems with an emphasis on sustainable development.
|
Molly Harris Olson--The council's development is a real window of opportunity. |
Billed as a multi-stakeholder partnership, the bipartisan PCSD looks like a Who's Who in American leadership, covering most of the sectors that make the country tick, including those who are more "used to suing each other," than cooperating, according to Harris Olson. Industry members include the CEOs of the Dow Chemical Company, Ciba-Geigy Corporation, the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Georgia-Pacific Corporation, Chevron Corporation, and the General Motors Corporation. From the federal government, the council features the U.S. Secretaries and Administrators of Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Representatives for the environment include the directors of America's best-known environmental organizations: the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Environmental Defense Fund. The AFL-CIO and the Citizens Network on Sustainable Development, as well as the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, also have high-level representatives on the council.
Assembling such a broad range of interests to agree on a single set of proposals has little historic precedent, and reviews on its progress have been mixed. "I think this is the first time the U.S. government has brought such disparate groups together," says Pat Waak, director of the Human Population and Resource Use Department for the National Audubon Society. "And I think developing such a council is in keeping with the spirit of this administration. But we all have to ask what they have accomplished so far, and I think it's hard to tell at this point. "
What Is Sustainable Development?
|
Diane Dillon-Ridgely--The council has the 21st century task of completing the agenda of democracy. |
The council adopted its definition of sustainable development from the United Nations' Bruntland Commission (1992) report: "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." In general, this means examining and reconsidering current policies related to energy, manufacturing, transportation, agriculture, natural resources management, population, consumption, and community development. When he established the council through executive order, President Clinton described sustainable development as "economic growth that will benefit present and future generations without detrimentally affecting the resources or biological systems of the planet . . ." The critical component within the definition is its "intergenerational aspect," says Dillon-Ridgley. Council member and National Wildlife Federation president Jay D. Hair also wrote in a 1993 issue of National Wildlife magazine that "the basic goal is long-term economic security. Sustainable development is the surest path to get there."
Arriving at this official definition has been a long process in itself. The term first came into the international policy lexicon in 1980 with the publication of World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development, authored by the World Conservation Union, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Wide Fund. This document focused on how to develop international and national laws that would protect nature and the use of natural resources, according to George Green, director general of policy development for the Canadian International Development Agency.
Seven years later, the publication of Conservation with Equity: Strategies for Sustainable Development introduced the concepts of economy, culture, and the social principle of "equity" into the term's definition. That same year, the World Commission on Environment and Development proposed the current Brundtland Commission definition in its document, Our Common Future. "Deceptively simple," wrote Green in a 1993 issue of Environment magazine, "this definition encompasses the notions of ecological sustainability and social equity."
At the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, delegates adopted the international treaty Agenda 21, a comprehensive program document that provides broad guidance on sustainable development. Written as a manual, the document addresses a number of key issues, such as combating desertification, protecting the atmosphere, managing toxic wastes, and fighting poverty. Agenda 21 covers the major steps a government should take "to integrate environmental concerns more thoroughly into development in certain sectors," according to Green. It also specifies the roles for nongovernmental groups as well, including industry and environmental organizations. As a springboard for the council's creation, Agenda 21 was a critical step in taking sustainable development from the theoretical to the practical.
|
David Blockstein--There is skepticism in the scientific community about sustainable development. |
"The way I look at sustainability is that you have your cake and you eat it, too," says Blockstein. "You maintain a high-quality environment, you provide jobs and real opportunities for people, and you do all this in a way that doesn't destroy options for future generations. But the problem is we don't know the recipe for the cake. We know some of the ingredients, but we don't know the appropriate amounts, or how to mix them together."
Public response to a draft vision statement and principles for sustainable development submitted by the council reflected some skepticism as to whether sustainable development is compatible with economic growth. A report that compiled the public responses highlighted some of the confusion surrounding the term. On the one hand, some respondents claimed the council's statement was "too supportive of growth" while others believed it to be "antigrowth."
When the council first met in the summer of 1993, one of the first issues on the agenda was the difficulty of making the term "sustainable development" tangible. They decided on the approach of finding or creating demonstration projects and case studies that would essentially illustrate the point. One example most often cited is that of Chattanooga, dubbed the dirtiest city in America in the 1960s, a place where drivers kept their headlights on at noon because of smog. Today, the council considers the city an example of the best aspects of sustainable development, with its "pro-active and innovative approach to integrating economic and environmental needs," according to Harris Olson.
For example, Chattanooga is creating the first zone for a zero-emissions industrial park in an area that was once a foundry. The park was developed based on meetings between city government leaders and representatives from all sectors of the community. They were asked to consider several key questions, such as, What do we want our community to look like? "By engaging in that dialogue," says Harris Olson, "they've been able to come up with very creative ideas."
For the Clinton administration, trying to realize the vision of sustainable development highlights an inherent contradiction between two separate visions of America's future, according to author Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, writing in a 1993 article in Tikkun magazine. While the administration is promoting a high-technology infrastructure and economy, it is also strongly in favor of building a sustainable society "rooted in community values and responsive to the carrying capacity of the Earth's biosphere," writes Rifkin.
Less than satisfied. Public response to the principles of the PCSD averaged 3.45 (slightly less than satisfied) on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being very dissatisfied and 5 being very satisfied. (NGO, nongovernmental organizations.)
One technique the council has used to guide its research is called "back-casting," in which researchers try to project a generation ahead, imagine the consequences of an agreement on renewable energy resources, for example, and then work backwards to the present points of contention. This approach has spurred some creative thinking, most notably a project by one industrial sector task force team to track cleaning chemicals from their origin at the refinery, through production and distribution, all the way into an office building. Another project looks at how environmental requirements imposed on painting at auto assembly plants might spur innovations in the pigment and painting industry.
This is also the process of determining the common ground between business and environmental concerns. "I think that corporations recognize it's in their own self-interest to help protect the environment," says Harris Olson. "In addition, some of the smaller businesses are on the cutting edge in their work with some of the regionally based environment groups. At the same time, the environmental community is just as concerned about jobs and employment."
Task Forces
Eco-efficiency. Each of the eight task forces is co-chaired by council members from the industrial, government, and environmental sectors, reflecting the multi-stakeholder profile of the council itself. Each task force is also assigned a core set of issues to consider. For example, the purpose of the eco-efficiency task force is to develop policies and programs affecting industry, manufacturing, and services that harmonize environmental, economic, and social goals. The task force is working to identify industries that would make pollution prevention and reduction standard business practices in their manufacturing processes. One step in that process is "to identify incentives and barriers" to sustainable development, such as regulations that are counterproductive.
In addition, the eco-efficiency task force plans to conduct demonstration projects, such as manufacturing cleaner and cheaper automobiles and paints and creating environmentally sound industrial parks. Leadership of the task force is divided between EPA Administrator Carol Browner, Georgia-Pacific Corporation Chairman and CEO Pete Correll, and Executive Director of the Environmental Defense Fund, Fred Krupp.
Energy and transportation. The energy and transportation task force is considering ways to develop short- and long-term national energy and transportation policies. Divided into three phases, its Sustainable Scenarios Project began by gathering existing research to understand the dynamics shaping the energy and transportation sectors. The second and third phases will apply the council's vision and principles to the scenarios and develop strategy recommendations as well as public incorporating and stakeholder feedback. Already, the administration is seeking ways to integrate the task force's short-term recommendations into the federal budgeting process for fiscal year 1996. Specifically, the Department of Energy plans to include the recommendations in the next National Energy Policy Plan. The energy and transportation task force is co-chaired by John Adams, executive director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Kenneth Derr, CEO of the Chevron Corporation, and Hazel O'Leary, secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Natural resources. The natural resources management and protection task force will develop an integrated vision of what constitutes sustainability for domestic resources, considering biodiversity, ecosystems, and watersheds, with a focus on wetlands, fisheries, agriculture, coastal resources, and forestry. Watersheds provide a natural integration in assessing and analyzing the social, environmental, and economic sustainability of human activities. In particular, the task force is looking at the upper Mississippi River ecosystem and all ecological, economic, and social measures connected with it, as well as the Chesapeake Bay, northern Florida, the Great Lakes, and western rivers. It is co-chaired by Richard Barth, CEO of the Ciba-Geigy Corporation, Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture, and Ted Strong, executive director for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Population and consumption. The population and consumption task force is looking at the various factors that influence trends in U.S. demographic consumption and waste generation. Issues being examined include fertility, migration, consumption, and technology, a focus for which Blockstein gives the PCSD "high marks." The task force is chaired by Tim Wirth, under-secretary for global affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
Principles, goals, and definitions. The principles, goals, and definitions task force is working to articulate sustainable development principles and goals and eventually integrate all of the council's initiatives into a single national action strategy. Last fall, the task force presented its Draft Vision Statement and Principles for Sustainable Development to the public; the responses were mixed. Criticisms include the omission of a global or international context as well as an inadequate discussion of preserving, conserving, or protecting resources such as wildlife or biological diversity. The task force is co-chaired by Hair and William Ruckelshaus, CEO of Browning-Ferris Industries.
Public linkage, dialogue, and education. The public linkage, dialogue and education task force was set up to promote public dialogue and develop educational outreach activities for primary and secondary schools as well as universities and colleges. Members of working groups within the task force regularly consult with their colleagues on their views of the process and its potential. The task force is co-chaired by Judith Espinosa, secretary of environment for the State of New Mexico, and Michele Perrault, co-chair and international vice president of the Sierra Club.
"Generally, the comments have been supportive, but there is a lot of skepticism within the scientific community about the concept of sustainable development," says Blockstein, co-chair of the science, engineering, and academia working group within the public linkage task force. "People wonder whether it can really be achieved. There's a certain component that doubts development within sustainability."
Sustainable agriculture. The sustainable agriculture task force is charged with developing an integrated vision of sustainable agriculture, focusing on production practices and systems. In the summer of 1994, the task force visited corn, soybean, and hog farms as part of its research to locate sites that illustrate sustainable agricultural practices. The task force is co-chaired by Adams and Barth.
Sustainable communities. Beginning with the premise that "flourishing communities are the foundation of a healthy society," the sustainable communities task force will articulate and emphasize the leadership role of communities in sustainable development. Its six working groups include 120 consultants from diverse sectors of society and areas of expertise. Among others areas, the working groups will focus on jobs, housing, land use, and transportation in many different types of communities, including border, coastal, indigenous, industrial, inner-city, rural, suburban, and urban. U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO Thomas Donahue co-chair the task force.
Money, Time, and the Future
Despite such challenging goals, funding for the task forces is limited. As federal funds only go to support administration of the task forces, each must raise its own working funds, setting up "an unequal relationship between sectors," according to Blockstein. "Since only the business sector generates wealth, corporate people are able to attend meetings, but many people from nongovernmental organizations cannot."
Voicing their opinions. A pie chart shows the breakdown by sector of the 618 public responses to the PCSD draft vision statement and principles.
Faced with the high expectations of many of its constituents, the council's progress is meeting with some disappointment. Although the definition of sustainable development has been generally hammered out, the council must still figure out how to use it to devise workable policies agreed upon by all involved. As Blockstein says, "There are so many expectations and it's such a huge task to get your arms around."
The PCSD is also criticized for not working fast enough. "On the one hand, I think it is moving slowly," says Barbara Mandula, a scientist with the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics at the EPA. "On the other hand, it is difficult because they are really trying to come to grips with what sustainable development means in day-to-day decision making."
Some observers such as Waak also argue that because the concept is so new and the council membership so diverse, it is natural that such "consensus making can be a slow and tedious process," says Waak. "The nature of the beast is that it will just take time."
Harris Olson also defends the council's progress, calling its development "a real window of opportunity." She continued, "What we've done so far is not going to get us all the way where we want to go. But we're basically trying to change the direction of the ship."
"There are two ways to look at it," says Blockstein. "One is to say the two-year process is too short to create any concrete steps. Or, you could say that to spend two years, almost three years, out of a four-year presidential term, the process has been too slow. I think the outcome of PCSD is geared for a second Clinton administration. If there is no second administration, the challenge is how to keep the dialogue going without the president's leadership."
The president's executive order to create the council would also extend its mandate for an additional two years. This next phase would take the final report and begin to work toward the next step, its implemention.
Rebecca Clay
Rebecca Clay is a freelance journalist in Boulder, Colorado.
Last Update: May 21, 1998