We Know Enough: Achieving Action Through the Convergence of Sustainable Community Development and the Social Economy

Abstract

Ten years ago in Johannesburg, there were over 6,000 communities across the world that had taken tangible steps towards implementing sustainability. However, while many have conducted visioning exercises and hired consultants to draw-up sustainability plans, far too often those plans remain on the shelf. In short, we face an implementation gap. Barriers to implementation are less about our technical capacity – we know enough about viable alternatives and solutions – and more about the mobilization of citizens and their governments to enact structural change. In addition, communities are struggling to deliver on the holistic promise of sustainability. Sustainability suffers from policy inflation of increased expectations to deliver development that is economically, socially, and environmentally sound, yet has failed to acknowledge the increasing capacity gap for implementation. We have made great progress on both the economic and environmental dimensions, well encapsulated by the burgeoning green economy. However, Agyeman et al. (2003) and others remind us that the social aspects of sustainability are lagging. The purpose of this chapter is to address these two implementation gaps: mobilization and socializing sustainability. Our approach to these challenges is framed within the context of two concepts: sustainable community development and the social economy. It is our hope to contribute to the discourse surrounding sustainable development and to offer insights, drawn from our research, into how to mobilize sustainable forms of development that offer a truly balanced and holistic interpretation of the sustainability ideal.