Dimensions of Sustainable Development: Social, Economic, Technological, and Environmental Sustainability

Sustainable development is a unique opportunity to create markets, open the field of work, integrate marginalized people into society, and give everyone the freedom and ability to choose the path of their future.
Read here dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic, technological, and environmental sustainability.
dimensions of sustainable development
Understanding the four dimensions of sustainable development

Dimensions of Sustainable Development: Social, Economic, Technological, and Environmental Sustainability

Sustainable Development and Human Welfare

Development in general terms is the drawing up of plans and strategies for the development of various productive sectors in a specific area; in order to achieve social and health development of the society and improve its standard of living.

Sustainable development is the use of means to exploit natural resources while preserving their sustainability and preventing depletion of these resources.

Today, human development is recognized as critical to economic development and to the early stabilization of populations. 

According to the Human Development Report (HDR) published by the office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) "Men, women and children should focus on such development policy that the development is about people, not people about development."

 The definitions of sustainable development increasingly emphasize that development should be participatory so that people participate democratically in decision-making that affects their lives politically, economically, socially and environmentally.


Biodiversity and Natural Resources

The survival of biodiversity depends primarily on the sustainability and survival of natural resources.
The depletion of renewable and non-renewable natural resources has undermined biodiversity on the ground.
To maintain biodiversity as much as possible, several ways must be taken to reduce this severe depletion of natural resources such as:

1. Working on finding new energy sources.

2. Mitigating the consumption of non-renewable sources currently available, by developing specific technologies capable of using available sources with high efficiency and reducing pollution resulting from their use.

One of the central problems in addressing relations between urbanization and environmental issues is that economic development raises many environmental problems (eg, solid waste and automobile pollution) as the amount of waste produced by the individual is steadily increasing as per capita income increases. 

In addition, the "ecological effects" on cities have widened in recent decades with rising incomes and lower transport costs in many countries.

Consumers have resorted and industries in cities have increasingly relied on the absorptive capacity of rural areas.
As a result of separating the environmental impact of the city's natural resources, it is necessary from the city to the extent that its residents and businesses are unaware of their environmental impact.

Economic Growth and the Environment

There is a constant debate on the relationship between economic growth and the environment.

Some may believe that as long as there is economic growth, people will consume more resources.

Others argue that "the richest means cleaner" and this only happens when the life of society becomes above a certain standard of living and reaches a certain amount of wealth that enables them to have technology that can reduce emissions and cleanse the environment from waste.

Moreover, in developing countries, people are desperately trying to improve their quality of life.

Clean Cities can provide their populations with healthy, safe and encouraging environmental conditions without creating unsustainable requirements for natural resources and ecosystems.

The successful city, in this sense, is the city that meets multiple objectives, including the provision of healthy living and professional environments for the population, water supply, repair services, and solid waste collection; sanitation, paved roads, pedestrian corridors and other forms of infrastructure essential for health; Ecologically sustainable between the requirements of consumers, businesses, resources, and waste disposal units and the ecosystems on which they depend.

Dimensions of Sustainable Development

The basic idea on which agenda 21 is based, is the idea of sustainable development. The concept of sustainable development is multi-use and diverse.

Some deal with sustainable development as an ethical vision that suits the interests of the new world order.

Some see sustainable development as a developmental model and a different alternative to the capitalist industrial model.

The World Resources Report, published in 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, dedicated entirely to the topic of sustainable development, has been the focal point of its 21st-century Plan of Action. 

Circulation distributed in four groups is social, economic, environmental, technical and administrative and there are new dimensions associated with technical instruments, which depend on people related to efforts and economic methods of people's development; industry, agriculture, and others.

The process of sustainable development includes human development aimed at improving the level of education and health care, as well as the participation of societies in development decision-making that affects equality and equity.


 Social Dimensions of Sustainable Development

Dimensions of sustainable development
 Social Dimensions of Sustainable Development

Social Dimensions:

At the humanitarian and social level, sustainable development seeks to stabilize population growth and stop the flow of individuals into urban areas by improving the level of rural health and education services and maximizing public participation in development planning.

In the area of social means, the idea of sustainable development is a key element in the rejection of poverty, unemployment, discrimination that oppresses women and leads to the extreme inequality between the rich and the poor.
Social justice is the foundation of sustainability and this requires several things that society should find such as:

1. Population control: The population increase is about 80 million people every year, an increase that does not expand the prevailing economic and social conditions and most of the increase (85%) in the third world countries, which is characterized by overcrowding, poverty, and underdevelopment.

2.  Social justice: The idea of social justice includes justice between people and the introduction of vulnerable groups, and justice between generations to say that the hand of natural wealth is the property of children and grandchildren and should be written to inherit the sound of fertile tender.


3. Human development: The idea of human development has expanded the meaning of education and its goals. Every year, UNDP issues a report on "human development" which is measured by developmental, economic and social criteria.
The report classifies the countries of the world according to their success in achieving human development.
Are educational institutions able to make a positive contribution to development and social progress? Or do social burdens go to the fields of unemployment rather than to the labor market?
Continued development requires us to reconsider the approach, methods, and institutions of education.

4. Active Participation: The main pillars of the success of sustainable development are the participation of people, active participation in the planning and implementation stages of national development.
Such participation depends on social acceptance, which is the essence of democracy. The absence of the latter deprives people of participation as if absolving them of responsibility.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the tools of public participation, the right information and guidance programs, to enlighten people about their roles and guide them to the tasks of beneficial action and positive contribution to achieving sustainable development.

5. Limits to Rationality: The social means complement the control of the consumer behavior of the people, and accept the limits of rationality away from the extent of waste and not deprived of adult food, the current situation, especially in the communities of abundance, closer to the limits of irrational waste, where the increase in consumption and the consequent increase in the amount of waste.

Economic Dimensions of Sustainable Development
Dimensions of sustainable development
Economic Dimensions of Sustainable Development

Economic Dimensions: 
Sustainable development requires the rationalization of economic approaches, foremost of which is the idea of ​​"environmental accounting of natural resources".

The value of the elements of the environment stored in oil and gas fields, coal deposits, mining, and others have not been included in the calculation of cost.

To include the value of fish money in the value of the fish stock, the crop of agricultural areas in the value of the lack of fertility of the land, and in many cases does not count the cost of irrigation water in agricultural accounting works.

There is a lack of necessary elements in other economic calculations; The calculation of the agricultural output (crop) of the water unit, the calculation of the industrial output of the unit of energy, the tools of the economic calculation, the taxes and the financial incentives.
These tools should be used to maximize production efficiency and serve continuous development purposes.

• Share the personal consumption of natural resources:
For industrialized countries in the North, sustainable development means a deep and sustained reduction in their consumption of energy and natural resources, radical transformations in prevailing lifestyles, their conviction of exporting their industrial development model globally.

 And for poor countries sustainable development means the use of resources to raise living standards of the poorest population in the South.
With regard to the economic dimensions of sustainable development, we note that the population of the industrialized countries is more than twice as many as the population of the developing countries.

For example, energy consumption from oil, gas, and coal is 33 times higher in the United States than in India, and in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries it is 10 times higher than in developing countries.

• Stop wasting natural resources:
The sustainable development of the rich countries consists of sustained reductions in the levels of energy and natural resource consumption by improving efficiency and radically changing the way of life.

In this process, it is essential to ensure that environmental pressures are not exported to developing countries. Sustainable development also means changing consumption patterns that unnecessarily threaten biodiversity in other countries, such as consumption by developed countries of endangered animal products.


• Responsibilities of developed countries for pollution and its treatment:
Industrial countries have a special responsibility to lead sustainable development, because of their past accumulated consumption of natural resources such as fuel - and thus their contribution to global pollution problems - has been disproportionately large.

In addition, rich countries have the financial, technical and human resources to take the lead in the use of cleaner and less resource-intensive technologies, to transform their economies towards protecting and working with natural systems, and to create causes for equality and socialism for access to opportunities.

Economic and social services within their communities. The top priority is also the provision of technical and financial resources to promote sustainable development in other countries - as an investment in the future of the globe.

In the United States and in response to environmental incidents involving landfills, President Bill Clinton issued 364 executive orders to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for dealing with issues ranging from environmental to immigration. On 11-February, 1994, under which he established an Environmental Justice Office.

In April 1998, the EPA defined the term "environmental justice" as "fair treatment," meaning: "No group of people, regardless of their racial or ethnic characteristics or socio-economic status has the potential to have an unequal share of the negative environmental consequences of any industrial process, municipal or commercial, or those resulting from the implementation of federal, state, tribal or local policies or projects.”

 According to this definition, it is not necessary to include and mention intentional discrimination, and therefore any site that causes damage to protected groups is politically located in violation of the EPA.

Here is the difficulty in trying to define what should be measured.  As a first step in identifying an overly affected group, political decision-makers must take into account the actual victims.

Another difficulty arises when determining whether some groups will be affected and how?

Plants, chemical plants, and other industrial activities bring benefits to some groups, and on the other, bring damage to other groups. In terms of interest, these businesses create jobs and change the value of the land (possibly raising prices).

These interlocking returns must take into account the health risks of such facilities as compared to the total health returns that can be considered as jobs Entry-level?
What can be concluded is that decisions regarding the location of industrial facilities and waste treatment facilities generate inevitable differences?

• Equal distribution of resources:
An effective means of alleviating the burden of poverty and improving living standards have become the responsibility of both rich and poor countries.
This is an end in itself, which is to make access to resources, products and services among all individuals within society closer to equality.

Unequal access to education, social services, land and other natural resources, freedom of choice and other political rights constitute an important barrier to development.
Such equality helps to stimulate the development and economic growth necessary to improve living standards.

• Reduction of income inequality:
Sustainable development, therefore, means reducing the growing disparity in income and access to health care in industrialized countries such as the United States and making large and unproductive land holdings available to the landless poor in regions such as South America or unemployed agricultural engineers, as is the case for our country; Lending to and sustaining informal economic sectors, and improving access to education and health care for women everywhere.

It should be noted that the policy of improving access to land, education and other social services have played a crucial role in stimulating the rapid development and the growth of Asian tiger economies such as Malaysia, South Korea, and Taiwan.

• Reduction of military spending:
In all countries, sustainable development must mean the transfer of funds from expenditures for military purposes and State security to expenditure on development needs.
A reallocation of even a small portion of the resources now devoted to military purposes would accelerate development significantly.

Technological Dimensions of Sustainable Development

 Dimensions of sustainable development
Technological Dimensions of Sustainable Development

Technological Dimensions:
• Use of cleaner technologies in industrial facilities:

Industrial facilities often pollute the surrounding air, water, and land.
In developed countries, waste flow is reduced and pollution is cleaned up at considerable expense; in developing countries, waste flowing in many is largely uncontrolled.
However, pollution is not an inevitable consequence of industrial activity.
Such effluents are the result of inefficient or wasteful technologies and are also the result of neglect and lack of economic sanctions.

Sustainable development here means the transition to cleaner, more efficient technologies and a reduction in energy consumption and other natural resources to a minimum.

The objective should be for technological processes or systems that cause lower waste or pollutants in the first place, recycle waste internally and work with or support natural systems.
In some cases, traditional technologies meet these criteria and should be maintained.

• Adoption of improved technologies and legal texts:

Technologies currently used in developing countries are often less efficient and more polluting than technologies available in industrialized countries.

Sustainable development means accelerating the introduction of improved technologies, as well as the legal provisions on the imposition and application of sanctions in this area.

Technological cooperation - whether by developing or adapting cleaner and more efficient technologies to local needs - aimed at bridging the gap between industrialized and developing countries would increase economic productivity and also prevent further deterioration of the quality of the environment.
For these efforts to succeed, they also require substantial investment in education and human development, particularly in the poorest countries.

Technology cooperation illustrates the interaction between economic, human, environmental and technological dimensions for sustainable development.


• Fuel and global warming:

The use of hydrocarbons also requires special attention because it is a clear example of non-enclosed industrial processes.

Fuel is being extracted, burned and disposed of in the environment, becoming a major source of air pollution in urban areas, acid rain in large areas, and global warming that threatens climate change.

The current levels of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities exceed the Earth's capacity to absorb them; if the effect of the last decade of the twentieth century is clear; most scientists agree that such emissions cannot continue indefinitely at current levels or at increasing levels, without causing global warming.

The consequent changes in temperature, rainfall patterns and sea levels later - especially if changes rapidly occur - will have devastating effects on ecosystems, people's well-being and pensions, especially for those directly dependent on natural systems.

• Reduce emissions:

Sustainable development in this area aims to reduce the global rate of increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
By significantly reducing the use of hydrocarbons and finding other sources of energy to supply industrial communities.

Industrial countries will have to take the first steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, develop new technologies for more efficient use of thermal energy, and provide non-thermal energy supplies that are safe and cost-effective.
However, until such technologies are available, sustainable development means that fuels are used as efficiently as possible in all countries.

• Administration of technical progress:

On the technical and administrative level, sustainable development is the development that moves society to the era of clean industries and technologies that use the least amount of energy and resources, and produce the minimum gases and pollutants that lead to a rise in the surface temperature and ozone layer.

• Prevention of degradation of the ozone layer:

Sustainable development also means preventing the degradation of the protective ozone layer of the Earth.

The actions taken to address this problem are an encouraging precedent: the Kyoto Protocol came to call for the phasing out of ozone-destroying chemicals and demonstrates that international cooperation to address the risks of the global environment is possible.
But the intransigence of the United States of America and its recognition that its power has become beyond the will of the international community has made it reluctant to sign this Convention as long as no one can force it to do so.

Environmental Dimensions of Sustainable Development

Dimensions of sustainable development
Environmental Dimensions of Sustainable Development

Environmental Dimensions: 
At the environmental level, sustainable development is the optimal use of agricultural land and water resources in the world, leading to a doubling of the green area on the Earth's surface.

In general, countries with the greatest single rate of depletion of the world's natural resources (eg, the highest levels of resource use, waste production and greenhouse gas emissions) are also the countries with the largest proportion of their urban population.
Moreover, the greatest use of resources and waste production in the world is concentrated within urban areas.

Urban policies have very important implications for future levels of greenhouse gas emissions and the use of most resources in the State, given their role in the design and construction of buildings in urban areas and in the spatial shape of cities and urban systems.

Urbanization policies that encourage the construction of energy-efficient buildings and production units, which also provide building forms that do not rely on increasingly on high levels of private car use, play a key role in separating high living standards and high greenhouse gas emissions.
Urban policies, plans, and regulations should, therefore, play a central role in any national strategy to promote sustainable development.
Municipal governments are important actors in any strategy that is hoped for success.

Read more: 

Conclusion
The Natural Resources Report emphasizes that the common denominator of these social, economic, technological and environmental definitions is that development in order to be a sustainable must:

First: do not ignore environmental controls and limitations.

Second: Do not lead to destruction and/or depletion of natural resources.

Third: lead to the development of human resources (housing, health, the standard of living, women's situation, democracy, human rights implementation).

Fourth: Changes occur in the prevailing industrial base.

Join us on Facebook 

The Scientific World

The Scientific World is a Scientific and Technical Information Network that provides readers with informative & educational blogs and articles. Site Admin: Mahtab Alam Quddusi - Blogger, writer and digital publisher.

Previous Post Next Post

نموذج الاتصال