Page 78 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

5 Sociological Perspectives on Sustainability Communication 61

stood in opposition to ‘sustainability through new models of prosperity’, the
interpretation formulated by the Wuppertal Institute and anchored in a spectrum of
environmental movements and development organisations. The position typical of
the upper right-hand quadrant – and exemplified by the frame represented by the
Advisory Council on the Environment, ‘sustainability through ecological moderni-
sation’ – at first found little resonance in the public debate but then, after the change
of government, became part of the official policy of the Ministry for the Environment.
Since the end of the 1990s, as a result of the spectacular, internationally coordinated
protests by opponents of globalisation, the frame ‘sustainable development through
a new international economic order’ has received greater public response too.
These opposing interpretations were mediated by the procedural, integrative sus-
tainability concept of the Enquete Commission “Protection of Mankind and the
Environment”, which interpreted sustainable development as an open, participative
trade-off process between ecological, social and economic dimensions (‘three-pillar
model’). This mediating frame provided an integrative foundation for practical
cooperation and strategic alliances of diverse social groups for the advancement of
sustainable development. This procedural, multi-dimensional interpretation of sus-
tainability reached a dominant position in the German discourse on sustainable
development towards the end of the 1990s.
The price for this procedural, integrative understanding of sustainability, how-
ever, is a loss of clarity. The term sustainability has tended to become a catchword,
meaning anything and everything. It no longer provokes and polarises and is thus
hardly present in the public media – in contrast to the debates among committed
sustainability experts (Brand 2000). The focus on the integrative trade-offs between
different interests and perspectives also largely hides the conflict and power dimen-
sion of sustainable development. Windows of opportunity for fundamental changes
thus only open by chance, through more or less dramatic events. For example, the
first case of BSE was heatedly discussed in Germany in November 2000 and
opened up the opportunity for a radical change in German agricultural and con-
sumer policy, which brought about considerable dynamism in the organic food
market (Brand 2006). A new window of opportunity for a more radical shift in
German climate policies opened in spring 2007 in response to the fourth IPCC
report on climate change, which found great resonance in the mass media in
Germany. The climate issue, however, disappeared from the political agenda very
quickly when the economic consequences of the global financial crisis became a
top issue in the following year. The dependence on catastrophes, scandals and dra-
matic media events thus cannot provide a reasonable basis for a ‘strategic’, long-
term sustainability policy (cf. Jänicke and Jörgens 2000).
In the framework of this integrative, procedural concept of sustainability, some
other closely interrelated structural issues remain in the background: economy,
work and gender, all three of which are basic elements of the industrial growth
model. Whenever there is talk of an ‘ecological modernisation’ of the economy, the
structural framework that is implicitly assumed is not only that of a growth-oriented
capitalist economy but also that of a formal market economy. The sphere of repro-
ductive economics remains hidden, as it is traditionally the province of women and