Process and outcome: an introduction

The concept of sustainable development commands wide, almost universal, support. The idea of sustaining human development resonates with strongly held convictions in every society about the present and the future. It does so, in large part, because as individuals we tend to be instinctively averse to losing anything. Indeed, social scientists tell us that most people are much more averse to losing than they are open to the possibility of gaining. Hence we do not wish, either collectively or individually, to lose what we already have in our environment and society. But ever since the principle of sustainable development was first articulated (for example in Our Common Future by the Brundtland Commission in 1987), promoting human wellbeing while simultaneously conserving the natural environment has proven to be highly elusive.

In fact, the more that society has sought to develop more sustainably, the more it has come to realise the immensity of the change it implies for human societies. Sustainable development – or sustainability (we regard the two as being synonymous) – challenges us to understand the nature of the natural resources on which we ultimately depend. But it also challenges us to articulate and act on the values that are inherent in our relationship with nature. We meet both these challenges through the institutions that allow collective action in governing the environment and our relationship to it. Both the processes and outcomes of these relationships are critical.