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Social Responsibility Versus Sustainable Development in United Nations Policy Documents: A Meta-analytical Review of Key Terms in Human Development Reports

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Social Responsibility and Sustainability

Part of the book series: World Sustainability Series ((WSUSE))

Abstract

Social responsibility (SR) and sustainable development (SD) are dissimilar yet complementary concepts. Over recent decades their increase in popularity has seen the two terms become firmly integrated within international development policy discourse. Nevertheless, even though both terms are intertwined and cannot be meaningfully discussed in isolation, there is a paucity of research that addresses the interrelationships of the two terms in human development and policy discourse. To address this gap in the literature, this research employs an inductive and exploratory methodological approach. Conducting a systematic keyword search and expert literature meta-analysis in all 25 United Nations (UN) Human Development Reports (HDRs) published to date from 1990 to 2016, the study investigates what prioritisation the UN ascribes to ‘economic’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘social’ development. Keyword analysis reveals that ‘economic’ perspectives dominate ‘sustainability’ and ‘social’ perspectives by a factor of 2 and 4.67 respectively. In synthesis, the UN remains espoused to ‘economic’ development as its primordial panacea for poverty reduction, which it increasingly advocates under the guise of ‘sustainable’ development. Relatedly and importantly, UN HDRs continuingly advocate ‘economic growth’ as a solution instead of identifying it as a problem. This study extends previous research by focusing expressly on the intersection of economic development, environmental sustainability, and social responsibility as a fertile space for inquiry. The research proposes a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach as a bridging notion for a more holistic human development agenda.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://www.donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Limits-to-Growth-digital-scan-version.pdf.

  2. 2.

    This limitation in scope is elaborated in Sect. 6.

  3. 3.

    There are two exceptions: Over the two-year period 2007–2008 there was only one report published (UNDP 2007), and no HDR was published in 2012.

  4. 4.

    UN HDRs were accessed online at: http://hdr.undp.org/en/global-reports.

  5. 5.

    cf. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs; https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/.

  6. 6.

    http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals.

  7. 7.

    All four inclusions of ‘social justice’ in UNDP (2011) are tokenistic references: (1) “The 2011 Human Development Report offers important new contributions to the global dialogue on this challenge, showing how sustainability is inextricably linked to basic questions of equity that is, of fairness and social justice and of greater access to a better quality of life.” (p. iv); (2) “Hence, our inability to promote the common interest in sustainable development is often a product of the relative neglect of economic and social justice within and amongst nations.” (p. 14); (3) Timsina (2003). Promoting social justice and conserving mountain forest environments: A case study of Nepal’s Community Forestry Programme.” Geographical Journal, 169(3), 236–242 (p. 115); (4) “The 2011 Human Development Report offers important new contributions to the global dialogue on this challenge, showing how sustainability is inextricably linked to equity—to questions of fairness and social justice and of greater access to a better quality of life.” (p. 185/back cover).

  8. 8.

    http://data.footprintnetwork.org/.

  9. 9.

    https://www.overshootday.org/about-earth-overshoot-day/.

  10. 10.

    See, e.g., EOD (2017), Hoekstra and Wiedmann (2014), Meadows et al. (1972), Oxfam (2015), Pacheco et al. (2018), Ripple et al. (2017), Simms (2008), among others.

  11. 11.

    As advocated by Myers and Kent (1995), “[in] a situation of uncertainty where not all factors can be quantified to conventional satisfaction, let us not become preoccupied with what can be precisely counted if that is to the detriment of what ultimately counts.” (p. 33).

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this meta-analytical review wish to thank Ms. Kirsty Andersen for her copy-editorial support, Kirk Huffman and Dr. Jens Unger for their constructive comments, and Ms. Karen du Plessis and Dr. Jer-Ming Chen for their assistance with data analysis.

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  1. CHC Higher Education, Brisbane, Carindale, QLD, 4152, Australia

    Johannes M. Luetz

  2. University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia

    Johannes M. Luetz

  3. London School of Economics, London, UK

    Mohamed Walid

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Correspondence to Johannes M. Luetz .

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    Walter Leal Filho

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Luetz, J.M., Walid, M. (2019). Social Responsibility Versus Sustainable Development in United Nations Policy Documents: A Meta-analytical Review of Key Terms in Human Development Reports. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Social Responsibility and Sustainability. World Sustainability Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03562-4_16

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