Page 205 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

188 H. Heinrichs

Sustainability and participation have thus become important aspects in a
number of current debates, whether the reform of the financial, health or social
systems, the securing of supplies of energy, the development of key technologies,
promoting innovations in nature conservancy and species protection or in interna-
tional development cooperation (Coenen and Grunwald 2003; Chambers 1994).
In practice, however, sustainability has been limited to a number of individual
sectors, e.g. ensuring a viable pension system over the long term or maintaining
economic competitiveness. There has not been enough systematic, integrative
study of the three dimensions of sustainability. And the expansion of means of
participation through new methods to a number of political levels – local, regional,
national and international – and in diverse social spheres – political, economic,
academic and educational – is still to a great extent selective and little institu-
tionalised despite growing academic discussion about participatory governance
(Delli Carpini 2004; Creighton 2005).
Behind both concepts there are far-reaching ideas, concepts and approaches for
social modernization and transformation processes. It is unsurprising that a number
of different interpretations and expectations meet in these fundamental perspec-
tives. However there is still a broadly shared perception of the problem. The dynamic
of social and biophysical changes – driven by globalisation and global environmen-
tal changes – requires new forms of communication in order to build collective
opinion and decision-making processes (participation) as well as to create a more
conscious orientation towards interdependent and temporal-spatially disassociated
effects (sustainability).
Over the past 10 years in a number of different areas – from politics to economics
to the educational system – there has been an increase in social activities concerning
sustainable development. In spite of this development on both global and local
levels of policy – and it should not be underestimated – changing the on-going non-
sustainable development dynamic, under real-world conditions of power and interest
relations, is a Herculean task (Steffen et al. 2004). Collective development and
decision-making processes become even more difficult given the limits of knowl-
edge regarding forecasting, risk, simulation and scenario and the accompanying
uncertainties in diagnosing problems.
When considering the relationship between sustainability and participation and
faced with cognitive uncertainty and normative ambivalence, it is clear that partici-
pation and participatory approaches need to be further developed if we are to
improve anticipative knowledge communication and decision-making. This would
allow a reduction of risky failures, in particular environmental ones, and the explo-
ration of possibilities for sustainable development. Besides the use of participation
methods in local Agenda 21 processes, there have been manifold ‘experiments’
with participatory approaches. Even innovative approaches developing and testing
sustainability oriented participation methods have been explored. In the context of
sustainability research, citizen participation has been used to diagnose problems
and evaluate possible courses of action (Kasemir et al. 2003). This demonstrates
that participation methods can make important contributions to the rationalisation
of sustainability discourse and release creative potential. These impulses stimulate