Abstract
Sustainability goes beyond the environmental aspect. It has several dimensions, often interconnected. Economic growth is sustainable if it is attentive to pollution and ecological balance, but also to demographic stability, which is threatened by a growing and ageing population and by increasing intergenerational tensions. Moreover, economic growth should be compatible with the availability of natural resources—especially food and energy—and be able to preserve a socio-institutional equilibrium in the long term. Key elements for this are the provision of adequate levels of education and training, the existence of job opportunities, and a fair and inclusive redistribution of the produced wealth. Finally, as emerged during the pandemic, there can be no economic growth without health sustainability. Sustainability constraints, both on the demand and on the supply side, must be taken very seriously. It is difficult to say whether economic policy and international cooperation will be sufficient to deal with these challenges. Perhaps even more difficult is to understand whether mankind will be able to make in time the necessary mind-change to bring growth back onto the tracks of sustainability. What is certain is that the current situation leaves no room for errors, indecisions or deferrals. Now more than ever, it is necessary to make the right choices. With urgency.
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Notes
- 1.
The recession triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007–2008 and the economic downturn caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
- 2.
Nordhaus’ studies focus on the influence of the economy on climate change and the consequences of climate change on social dynamics such as living standards and the well-being of future generations.
- 3.
Much of the scientific community agrees that human activities are the dominant cause of current global warming. However, a minority of climatologists—including atmospheric physicist Franco Prodi (2019)—believes that at the moment no scientific research establishes a certain relationship in this sense. The main argument is that throughout history Earth has undergone climatic changes even before humans developed industrial activities. This is the case in the Mediaeval warm period between 800 and 1200 and the Little Ice Age between 1300 and 1850. Raphael Neukom of the University of Bern disputes this thesis and—in a study published by “Nature” (2019)—shows that previous climate changes were local (not global) phenomena while the current warming affects 98% of Earth's surface.
- 4.
With annual sales of about 135 million units, the current 1.6 billion air conditioners worldwide could grow to 5–6 billion by 2050 resulting in an energy consumption second only to that of industrial use.
- 5.
More than 90% of the plastic dumped in the oceans comes from ten rivers, eight of which are in Asia (including the Blue River—or Yangtze—and Yellow River in China and the Indus River in India).
- 6.
The other four islands are in the west side of the Pacific Ocean (0.7 million square kilometres), in the Indian Ocean (2.2 million square kilometres) and in the north and south Atlantic Ocean (3.6 and 1.3 million square kilometres). Italian artist Maria Cristina Finucci (2013), whose work has denounced the pollution of the oceans for many years, has provocatively proclaimed herself president of the Garbage Patch State, an ideal “waste nation” made up of plastic islands!
- 7.
In June 2021, the Keystone XL pipeline's developer has halted all construction on the project months after its permit was revoked by the incoming Biden administration.
- 8.
This has clearly emerged also during the COP26 meeting that took place in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2021.
- 9.
The central objective of the Paris Agreement (2015) is its long-term temperature goal to hold global average temperature increase to “well below 2 °C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels”. In November 2021, in the COP26 in Glasgow nearly 200 countries agreed to keep the target of 1.5 °C alive and finalized the outstanding elements of the Paris Agreement. The U.N. (2021) predicts a global temperature increase of about 3 °C by 2100.
- 10.
It should be noted that in the last forty years the Arctic has lost about 3 million square kilometres of ice while the Antarctic ice area—perhaps due to the different impact of winds and currents—is stable and sometimes increasing. This contrast offers arguments to those who deny the existence of a climate crisis.
- 11.
The case of China is emblematic: although it is very distant from the Artic, Beijing has described itself as a “quasi-arctic power” and, in addition to the terrestrial Silk Road, is investing in a polar Silk Road. On this route, navigation from Shanghai to Rotterdam takes thirty-three days compared to forty-eight to fifty days required when going through the Suez Canal. The passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific—skirting Greenland, Canada and Alaska—takes a week less than the Panama Canal route.
- 12.
A study published by “Nature” (2019) notes that by 2050 areas currently populated by about 300 million people could be at risk of flooding. The Indonesian government has announced plans to move the capital Jakarta, which is subject to constant flooding, by about 100 kms.
- 13.
Desertification, floods and droughts are already causing migrations. For example, the 90% decrease in surface area of Lake Chad over the last fifty years has damaged fisheries and agriculture, causing a food emergency for 7.5 million people and the displacement of at least 2.5 million to neighbouring countries. Various sources estimate that 30% of the inhabitants of the Sahel area of Burkina Faso have had to migrate over the last 20 years. According to the British scholar Norman Myers (2005), environmental migrants could reach 200 million by 2050.
- 14.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2018), the production of one kilo of beef requires 15,000 L of water, 6000 L are necessary for pork and 4000 L for chicken, compared to only 50 L for the equivalent quantity of protein-rich legumes. Moreover, 98% of the water used for zootechnics goes to fodder cultivation and only 2% to watering, cleaning, waste disposal and slaughtering.
- 15.
The South Sudanese civil war (December 2013–February 2020) left some 5 million people with no access to safe water, basic sanitation and hygiene. This led to a fight for water within the conflict. Conflicts for water take place in different regions of the world. Sometimes water is not the main factor affecting the conflict, but it is one of the outstanding issues. The 2019 U.N. World Water Development Report lists 94 “water wars” in the period 2000–2009, growing to 263 in the period 2010–2018. Some examples are the civil war in Syria, the dispute between Bolivia and Chile over the waters of the Silala, the Tigris and Euphrates conflict involving Turkey, Syria and Iraq, the Zambezi River basin fight between Mozambique and Zimbabwe, the Nile Basin conflict between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, and the Cochabamba Water War.
- 16.
Among the most damaging fishing techniques are bottom trawling, which destroys marine habitats, drift longlines, which catch dolphins and turtles together with tuna and swordfish, flying traps, which are not very selective in what they catch, dredgers, which damage the seabed and do not distinguish between catches, and the use of fish aggregating devices (FAD), floating objects that attract small fish.
- 17.
According to FAO (2010), deforestation destroyed about 16 million hectares per year in the 1990s and about 13 million per year in the following decade (about the same size of Greece). The main reason for deforestation is conversion into agricultural land, the second cause is fires.
- 18.
Digital twin is the perfect digital copy of something real—a product or a process—through which it is easier to interact. An example is the seed, whose digital twin makes it possible to save on the creation of a physical prototype and test its performance only on a digital level. The digital twin of a farm is a virtual copy of it that reproduces its operation, facilitating management activities and improving decisions. Every component of the farm—such as seeds, plants, animals and farm equipment—can have its virtual twin.
- 19.
According to agricultural genetics expert Salvatore Ceccarelli (2019), the real weakness of GMOs is that although they are effective in the short term—because they make crops more resistant to insects, fungi and weeds—their introduction stimulates the evolution of certain parasites—similar to the reaction of bacteria to antibiotics—which become more resistant and require different solutions (such as a new GMO!).
- 20.
The field of comparative and evolutionary genomics is developing fast, driven by the availability of genome sequence data. Evolutionary genomics improves the characteristics of plants and animals without abruptly changing their genetics—as it is the case with GMOs—but rather by regularly replicating the mutations that nature occasionally produces.
- 21.
F.A.O. (International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, 2021) estimates that globally, about 14% of food produced is lost between harvest and retail, while an estimated 17% of total global food production is wasted (11% in households, 5% in the food service and 2% in retail).
- 22.
In the “Current Policies Scenario”—that is if the world continues along its present path, without any additional changes in policy—the estimated increase in energy demand is 1.3% each year; in the “Stated Policies Scenario”—which incorporates today’s policy intentions and targets—the estimate is 1%.
- 23.
Thanks to shale energy, the United States has become the world's leading producer of hydrocarbons: of natural gas since 2009, surpassing Russia, and of oil since 2013, overtaking Saudi Arabia.
- 24.
Rifkin's conclusions on energy should be read in the context of the zero marginal cost society he envisions. According to Rifkin, the increasing level of productivity will reduce the quantity of resources, energy and labour needed to produce anything, converging in a system where fewer goods will be produced and shared by more people. In this scenario, “access” is more important than “ownership” and the new key figure is the prosumer, someone who is at the same time producer and consumer of goods, services and energy. Current examples of prosumers are those who share their cars and homes using sharing economy platforms. In the future, people will be able to produce and share information, energy and 3D printed goods. And this will occur at almost zero marginal cost.
- 25.
Austrian demographer Wolfgang Lutz (2015) and others have a different view. They believe that the world population will stabilize at 8 billion around 2040 and then begin to decline. This is because of the rapid fall in fertility rates in developing countries due to the urbanization of rural populations and to higher education of girls.
- 26.
Italy has an average age of about forty-five, higher than the EU average of 42.6 and lower only than Germany.
- 27.
One-child policy is a birth control programme introduced in China in 1979 by Deng Xiaoping, which prohibited couples from having more than one child. In the mid-1980s, it was amended to counter selective abortions and female infanticide, allowing rural families to have a second child only if the first was a girl. Despite this, it is estimated that there are currently about 30 million fewer women than men in China. The law was only removed in late 2015 allowing couples to have up to two children. The limit was increased to three children in May 2021, after a census data showed a steep decline in birth rates.
- 28.
According to Eurostat (2021), in 2020 the NEETs in Italy were 29.4% of the relevant age group: the highest percentage in the EU, whose average was 17.6%.
- 29.
- 30.
The formal decline in world poverty over the last fifty years—from over 2.2 billion people in 1970 to just over 700 million today—is also due to the very low threshold used by statistics. Despite the fact that the World Bank has raised it from 1.25 to 1.90 dollars of income per day, this threshold does not seem realistic and is perhaps kept low on purpose in order to be able to meet—at least formally—the objectives of the international institutions for fighting poverty.
- 31.
In a supply-side view of secular stagnation, slower growth in potential output is a consequence not only of lower productivity growth but also of reduced population growth and declining labour-force participation.
- 32.
Similarly, biomimicry (or biomimetics) studies the biological and biomechanical processes of nature as a source of inspiration for solving human problems. Leonardo da Vinci studied birds to design flying machines. The structure of the Eiffel Tower is inspired by human anatomy, in particular the joint between the femur and the kneecap. Insects, plants and animals are mines of ideas. The sociability of ants has inspired mathematical models to optimize traffic. The lotus leaf has been a model for the development of water-repellent materials. The burdock for that of Velcro. Geckos, which walk on walls, have inspired new adhesive materials, the properties of shark skin the design of the suit of swimming champion Michael Phelps!
- 33.
- 34.
Martin, Shaheen and Lidicker (2010) estimate that in the United States on average a carpool “replaces” 9 to 13 owned vehicles; Myers and Cairns (2009) show that in the United Kingdom the cars “replaced” are 9 to 14. In both countries, the reduction in terms of mileage and greenhouse gas emissions is significant (up to 40%).
- 35.
In the short term, the sharing economy increases supply and lowers prices, creating value for consumers. However, in the long term, it can sometimes have negative effects, such as the case of Airbnb which in some cities is taking homes away from the residential market thus driving rents up.
- 36.
Benessere Equo e Sostenibile (BES)—Equitable and Sustainable Well-being—is an index introduced by ISTAT (Italian National Institute of Statistics) and Cnel (National Council for Economics and Labour).
- 37.
For example, the BES index is more accurate than GDP fluctuations at assessing the negative impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has on the economy and society. This is because, in addition to showing the decline of economic wealth produced, it also takes into account the damage in terms of health, education, social relations, and other dimensions.
- 38.
The Romanian mathematician argues that “goods must be made more durable through design that then allows them to be repaired”. A very topical position given the current controversy over planned obsolescence.
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Magnani, M. (2022). Constraints to Economic Growth: Sustainability, Happiness and Other Issues. In: Making the Global Economy Work for Everyone. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92084-5_4
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