Page 21 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

4 J. Godemann and G. Michelsen

‘The Limits to Growth’, and followed by such landmark reports as ‘Global 2000’,
published in 1980 by the Council on Environmental Quality, or the report ‘Our Common
Future’ in 1987 by the Brundtland Commission, it became clear that humanity was
entering a phase of radical social change calling for a new approach to dealing with
anthropogenic environment problems, but also with improving humanity’s ability to
coexist in the world (Meadows et al. 1972; Council on Environmental Quality 1980).
This development is characterised by three closely woven basic trends. First,
there is a rapid increase in global interrelationships in the economy through an ever
greater flow of goods, money and information. Cheaper telecommunication and
computer technologies on the one hand and denser and more closely linked net-
works of transport and energy supply on the other have changed global patterns of
production, logistics and trade. Multinational corporations and transnational operating
financial actors are attempting, and not without success, to influence these eco-
nomic globalisation processes. On the other the globalisation of ecological dangers
can be seen in anthropologic greenhouse effects, in climate change and in the loss
of biodiversity. Global ecological dangers are linked with regional problems (such
as water scarcity, flooding, forest damage, desertification, urban sprawl, famine,
disease etc.) – and these in turn with local environmental damages (such as air pol-
lution, waste, traffic noise, water pollution, losses in soil fertility, etc.). And thirdly
the explosive increase in available information, the dissemination and the large-
scale use of modern information and communication technologies have enabled the
growth of data networks, and with it the expansion of research and development.
What is in principle available worldwide however is not necessarily available locally.
New and fast-growing inequalities in access to information, the so-called ‘digital
divide’, deepen the divide between the winners and losers of global communication.
All of these trends overlap, interlink and reinforce each other, thus leading to severe
economic, ecological, social and cultural distortions both in individual regions as
well as worldwide. The consequences of such developments worldwide can only be
met if humans assume their responsibility and reshape their relationships to each
other and the natural world. This requires a social process of mutual understanding
that deals with both the causes of these developments and their possible solutions.
In other words, a process of communication and mutual understanding that is also
known as sustainability communication.

Sustainability and Communication

Before discussing sustainability communication, it is important to first clarify
the contents and concept of sustainability and sustainable development.
Sustainability has only recently found its way into academic discussions. At the
latest since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development in Rio de Janeiro and the final document ‘Agenda 21’ the concept
of sustainable development has come to have a number of different interpreta-
tions and uses. Each social vision has a different weighting of the core elements