WT51 – Toward a new development model and a sustainable and harmonious society

In partnership with :

IDDRI (Institut du développement durable et des relations internationales) : www.iddri.org
Association 4D (Dossiers et Débats pour le Développement Durable / Debates on the Do’s and Don’ts of Sustainable Development) : www.association4d.org

Workshop Presentation

In the middle of the 1980s as people became aware of the growing contradictions between economic development and the balance of ecosystems, between the search for the immediate wellbeing of societies and protecting the interests and opportunities of future generations, the concept of “sustainable development” emerged onto the international stage. Has this really changed our current forms of production and ways of life? We have no choice but to recognise that the very expression “sustainable development” is a contradiction in terms since the word development was introduced to embody a kind of endless material progress of our societies, with all that this implies in terms of impacts on the biosphere, while the term sustainable is there to remind us on the contrary of the limits and fragility of the planet and in particular of the precious nature of energy, water, biodiversity and fragile ecosystems.

We have no choice but to recognise that 20 years after the Brundtland Report, “Our Common Future”, nothing radical has changed in our conception of development and our societies are themselves less sustainable than ever.

The timidity and difficulties of the Kyoto accords on the greenhouse effect are highly symbolic of our collective impotence in making deep-rooted changes to our conceptions of society and our forms of development. On the one hand, the developed countries are afraid of damaging the basis of their own growth by imposing too big a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, while the developing countries do not see why they should impose disciplines and sacrifices equivalent to those of developed countries when their emissions per capita are significantly lower than those of countries that are aspiring to teach them lessons. It is more like a dialogue of the deaf than a real collective impetus inspired by a concern for foresight, solidarity and survival.

At business level, we see too the poor adaptation of the means to the objectives that we are supposed to be pursuing and the inadequacy of our very way of thinking. For instance, in the approaches to social and environmental responsibility fashionable in Europe, we apparently give the same importance to economic objectives as to social and environmental objectives. But, in reality, the economic objective and the satisfaction of shareholders remain primary, because on them depend the survival of the business and its management teams, and the social and environmental dimension comes but a poor second. But we should be doing the opposite: there is no economy without society and no society without environment. While we do not manage to really think about economic and social activity within the wider view of the functioning of ecosystems, sustainable development will seem more like a watchword than a strategy for deep-rooted change in societies and economies.

But awareness of the threats that our lack of foresight and rapaciousness pose to humanity and the future of our children and our grandchildren is becoming increasingly acute. Everything is happening as though we are aware of the changes we need to make but cannot find in ourselves the capacity and will to make them.

In this context, the futures of China and of Europe are closely involved. Contrary to some other regions of the world, China and Europe are old civilisations deeply rooted in a limited area, populous and with limited natural resources. The Chinese authorities, caught between a desire to rapidly catch up with the standard of living and consumption of the West and the mortal dangers that this race brings both to social equilibrium and to the integrity of the environment, are fully aware of the potentially fatal contradiction with which they are confronted. The search for a new model of development is therefore at the heart of the agenda for Europe and China and is without doubt one of the main areas of their cooperation in the coming decades.

The role of the workshop will be to take stock of the situation, look at current initiatives that offer the greatest potential for change and explore the ways China and Europe might cooperate in this sphere in the long term.