|
 On
16 and 17 April 2007 about 40 scientists from Poland, the
Netherlands, Germany, France, England and Greece took part in
the Seventh International Conference on “Current Issues of
Sustainable Development” organised by Prof. Joost Platje and
Prof. Janusz Słodczyk, in co-operation with Diana Rokita, Dr
Robert Poskart and the Student Scientific Circle on
Sustainable Development at the Faculty of Economics of Opole
University. The conference was organised in co-operation with
the Polish Association of Environmental and Resource
Economists and generously sponsored by the City Council of
Opole and the Coastman Project.
The aim of organising such conferences it to create and extend
a platform for discussion, exchange of ideas and development
of cooperation. Sustainable development has become more and
more important as it has become the fundament of European
development policy. Although many local, regional, national
and European development policies are based on the concept of
sustainable development, a question of course remains whether
practice supports sustainability. This issue returned in
different presentations and discussions.
First, professor Platje gave a general introduction to
institutional aspects of sustainable development. Dr Kozłowska
presented the Coastman Project. The particular panels
concerned sustainable develpment, or the lack of
sustainability, in socialist countries, education, business
and sustainable development, issues of priorities in
sustainable development and problems with implementation, and
different governance related issues.
 A
point that returns at many conferences, and also was discussed
at this conference, is the question how the concept of
sustainable development is interpreted. Does the
interpretation depend on the level of socio-economic
development, meaning that environmental issues become
important only after fulfilment of socio-economic goals, while
economic goals often receive priority? Interesting papers on
sustainability issues in countries in transition were
presented by Prof. Marquand (Oxford, England), Dr De Deugd (Groningen,
the Netherlands), and Renata Matuszkiewicz (Gdańsk, Poland).
In the discussion, led by Prof. Delakowitz (Zittau, Germany),
the following issues came up. How to communicate issues of
sustainable development between highly developed countries and
a country like Kazakhstan, which was forced to change its
economic system after the break down of the Soviet Union,
while a question remains whether they really wanted change and,
as a consequence, know what they want? In former Soviet
republics the political turbulence makes creation of
sustainable development policy very difficult, and research
seems to comfirm that the main focus is on economic issues,
while social issues may receive some attention. Within this
context the question was raised why Russia signed the Kyoto
Protocol. It was argued that this may be for international
political reasons.
Two very interesting papers on education and sustainable
development were presented by Dr Manolas (University of Thrace,
Greece). While discussing education, the question came up how
many people engage in education. By definition, education can
only lead to positive results when people are involved.
Furthermore, methods are of crucial importance. Education is
not only about e.g. theory and practice of sustainable
development, but also about “getting the feeling”. For this,
often new innovative methods are required, and a question
remains whether teachers are interested in changing their
teaching methods, while changing ways of thinking and
transferring ideas is time consuming (high transaction costs).
Markus Will (Zittau, Germany), quoting Milton Friedman’s
statement thet “the business of business is business”, in fact
argued that business only seems to become interested in a
broader kind of sustainability when their own business is
threatened. Then, following the arguments of Prof. Platje and
Robert Kudłak (Poznań, Poland), institutions (rules of the
game) should be shapen in such a way that firms get incentives
to do something which is not directly in their own interest –
stimulating sustainability. In other words, it is e.g. about
creating positive environmental and social effects as a side
effect of achieving the main goal – profit. Environmental
management systems, as discussed by Bartosz Fortuński (Opole,
Poland) may be an instrument in this context, as they may
stimulate sustainable practices and lower information costs.
Prof. Platje, students from the Scientific Circle on
Sustainable Development (Opole University, Faculty of
Economics), Robert Kazimierowicz (York University, England)
and Dr Janikowska (Katowice, Poland) presented papers on
priorities and implementation of sustainable development. From
the discussion it seems that family, friends, income, work and
direct / local environmental issues are more important than
economic and social problems somewhere else. In this context
information and knowledge are essential: Do citizens know what
is happening? What are the sources of distribution of
information? Information – where, how, what and for whom is it
produced? A point which came up in the presentation of Dr
Janikowska is that it seems that human beings need to develop.
This implies continuous change. Does change mean that systems
are improving or deteriorating? Or is sustainable development
just a history of continous perceived decline? The good old
times are better – because they don’t return?
Very interesting papers on governance and other issues of
sustainable development were presented by Prof. Manteuffel (Warsaw,
Poland), Agnieszka Sobol (Katowice, Poland), Dr Strzelecka
(Łódź), Dr Kreft (Bureau for Regional Sustainable Development,
Germany), Dr Płociennik (Wrocław University, Poland), Dr
Kociszewski (Wrocław University of Economics, Poland), Diana
Rokia (Opole University, Poland) and Katarzyna Wyporska (Warsaw
Agricultural University, Poland).
What came out of the final discussion is that a problem may be
that scientists are “forced” by their discipline, funders,
etc. to become specialised, while sustainable development
often requires a broader, interdisciplinary approach. Another
issues is, when getting specialised, whether we understand the
specific way of thinking in other subjects. Furthermore, is
only what we can measure important, or should we also take the
unmeasurable and difficult to measure issues into
consideration? It is like an illness about which we do not
know or which is not fully researched yet – we may not take
the possibility of this illness into consideration, but we may
face very serious consequences. So, is high information cost
of measurement a reason for not taking issues into
consideration, or is this the real task of science – uncover
the unknown?!
A selection of papers will be published in the journal
Economic and Environmental Studies, which issue is planned for
autumn 2007, and in the journal Management of Environmental
Quality (January 2008). For information on conference papers,
presentations and publications please contact Prof. Joost
Platje (e-mail: jplatje@uni.opole.pl). |
