Photo Credit: RSIS NTS Insight
Responses to the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20; also known as the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro have ranged from tepid acceptance to considerable criticism. Relative optimists have noted as positive developments the commitment to specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the strengthening of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the encouragement of sustainability reporting and growth measurements, and the bolstering of science in policymaking.
With many of its outcomes still to be solidified in subsequent meetings, Rio+20 is being framed by some, including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, as the beginning, rather than the realisation, of a pathway towards more sustainable economic and social systems (Rio+20 a "failure of leadership", 2012). Twenty years on from the first global Earth Summit, this is a curious slant; and many see the meetings as little more than a hollow shell.
Over 1,000 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), institutions and individuals have signed a petition calling the outcome of the meetings "The Future We Don't Want" (a pointed reference to Rio+20's outcome document,The Future We Want). They cite failures to remove fossil fuel subsidies, adequately protect oceans, and address women's reproductive health among others. A delegation of youth organisations dramatically walked out of the Rio+20 conference in protest and elder statespersons of the environmental movement, from Fernando Cardoso to Gro Harlem Brundtland, have decried the conference's shortcomings.
However, despite an overall lack of enthusiastic responses, as well as widespread exasperation from environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) and frustration on the part of many countries, Rio+20 may yet leave its mark as the tipping point for private sector action on sustainable development. Non-state, particularly private sector, involvement has been largely heralded following Rio+20, and there is evidence to suggest that the conference's most compelling stories took place outside the main negotiating halls.
Business as (un)usual"can only be achieved with a broad alliance of people, governments, civil society and private sector".
The document goes on to recognise the "important tool of public-private partnerships", support "national regulatory and policy frameworks that enable business and industry to advance sustainable development initiatives", and "urge governments to create enabling environments that facilitate public and private-sector investment in relevant and needed cleaner energy technologies".
Such platitudinous official statements about private-sector engagement notwithstanding, there was also a palpable sense in Rio that the private sector has the capacity to take action, and is doing so, in the absence of momentous diplomatic accords. The perceived poor track record of officially negotiated strategies during preceding decades gave oxygen to these sentiments. Tom Bigg (2012) of the International Institute for Environment and Development juxtaposes diplomatic shortcomings with the emergent private sector:
If anything, the Summit constituted a step back in the decades-long effort that started with the Brundtland Commission in the late 1980s, to place equity, sufficiency and international collaboration at the heart of global and national policy… By contrast, heads of corporations such as Unilever, Puma, and the biggest Brazilian companies were ubiquitous in Rio, some bullishly asserting that if governments won't take steps to fix global problems, then they will step into the gap.
Frances Beinecke of the US-based National Resources Defense Council was even more explicit about the need for private sector and civil society actors to overcome diplomatic quagmires when she stated that Rio+20 outcomes show that "we can't rely only on the slow wheels of bureaucracy and government negotiators to address the urgent problems facing our planet. We must start doing it ourselves, and Rio proved that we are".
To buttress these so-called bullish assertions, private-sector actors cited independent actions that have had tangible implications for sustainability. Tensie Whelan and Paul Polman (2012), respectively President of the Rainbow Alliance and CEO of Unilever, declared in a joint editorial that "[i]n the years since the first Earth Summit, businesses and NGOs like ours have been working to scale up sustainable resource use and engage producers and communities worldwide", a process which is "quietly transforming global markets" and has led to "3 percent of the world's working forests, 10 percent of the world's tea production and 15 percent of the world's bananas" coming under sustainable management.
They claim that Unilever and hundreds of other global businesses are "committed to sourcing 100 percent of the commodities they use" from certified sustainable sources, and conclude that Rio processes have thus "sensibly evolved away from government decree and turned toward the private sector to build a green economy that can implement sustainability on a global scale".
Despite such claims of parallel progress, however, private-sector voices at Rio+20 were unambiguous in their calls for clear signals from policymaking communities. Whelan and Polman (2012), for example, urged delegates "to provide a framework to design and fund incentives for sustainable production and consumption--one that supports investments in environmental and social improvements", stating that such a framework could mobilise billions in private investment.
Bruno Berthon, Global Managing Director for Accenture Sustainability Services, extended this sentiment beyond Rio+20 by calling for delegates to create a more efficient and impactful global environmental organisation, citing the six currently operating international conventions on biodiversity as an example of the convolution and disorganisation that can be crippling for private-sector action.
In sum, it was thepositioningof the private sector vis-à-vis the negotiation process that came to realise greater maturity at Rio+20. If the 1992 Earth Summit was about governments calling on non-state actors to alter their behaviour, Rio+20 saw many private-sector players calling on governments to join them in creating further progress. Despite this maturation, however, it is clear that entrenched private-sector dynamics, including those that are anathema to sustainable development, will not dissipate quietly.
What's in it for the private sector"[m]any of the businesses [at Rio+20] are recognising that environmental degradation can be a major business risk if they don't deal with it".
By couching issues in terms of "risk", businesses are placing environmental concerns in familiar territory. Given that private-sector resource extraction for short-term economic gains has long been criticised as environmentally untenable, movements towards longer-term strategic environmental considerations are a boon for sustainable development. Conversely, however, perverse incentives for rapidly and unsustainably exploiting resources and environmental systems remain entrenched.
Many companies will continue to subjugate environmental and social factors to bottom-line interests, a reality that contrasts directly with the integrative principles of sustainability.
A thread running through these factors impelling private-sector action is the rejection of notions that slower growth and lower consumption should feature in the push for sustainability. A report published by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, which was chaired by the CEOs of DuPont and Procter & Gamble, encapsulates this sentiment, arguing that a model based on no-growth and low-consumption cannot improve the quality of life for citizens around the world.
Such contentions promote expanding consumer choice to include more sustainable products, but have little to no truck with asking people to get by with less. The doing well (making profit) by doing good (being environmentally and socially progressive) model implicitly emphasises economic growth and profit seeking. Such approaches are met with trepidation by those who argue that reining in consumption and exorbitant lifestyles are imperative for achieving sustainability.
Given that sustainable productionandconsumption featured heavily in Rio+20 discussions, this important debate over whether sustainability can be achieved by relying on consumption-promoting approaches (favoured by private-sector interests) will certainly continue.
Conclusion
The 1992 Earth Summit sought to shift the priorities of governments and peoples by fully integrating environmental dimensions into decision-making in every sphere of activity. This arguably did not happen. At Rio+20, it was again apparent that there are clear limitations to official high-level diplomacy, yet signs of action were visible in more pluralistic, inclusive and unbound parallel channels.
The official negotiations at Rio+20 made modest contributions to more sustainable social and economic systems for the future, but they also converged on a relatively low common denominator to reach compromise among parties with widely diverging interests. This process echoes that of the 2010 Cancun and 2011 Durban climate change negotiations, which avoided "failure" by mitigating expectations, moving incrementally and delaying highly contentious decisions.
Such approaches should not be lamented outright. International diplomacy that addresses issues as fundamental to the organisation of societies as sustainability is bound to experience discord. The inherent limits to the negotiation process are not set to wane--despite the sometimes vitriolic criticisms from the ENGO community and frustration from state and non-state voices calling for stronger action.
This reality fuels the sense that private-sector actions can and must supplement, extend and at times circumvent and usurp official negotiating platforms for true shifts towards sustainability to take hold. There are reasons for cautious optimism along these fronts, as the presence of influential business leaders at Rio+20 and the wealth of agreements reached and connections made demonstrate.
However, this does not mean that the quest for internationally-recognised norms and regulations is antiquated or irrelevant. The motivations of private-sector actors in investing in sustainable development initiatives are varied, and questions exist as to the extent to which their interests converge with public goals. Governments should therefore send clear signals to these actors, and there must exist enforceable statutes to effectively guide and modify their actions.
Such structural forces are essential for nudging countries, organisations and peoples, which are at the same time interconnected and disparate, towards broadly constructed common development goals.
This is an extract from the original article first published in August 2012, and reposted with permission by the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies, S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).
BY: J.Jackson Ewing & Tarun Gopalakrishnan, RSIS