Page 79 - Sustainability Communication Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Theoritical Foundations

62 K.-W. Brand

considered second rate, even though the reproduction, the ‘sustainability’ of social
life, is largely dependent on the smooth functioning of this sphere (Biesecker and
Hofmeister 2006).
A central shortcoming of the sustainability debate is connected to this very
aspect: work is schematised exclusively in the form of gainful employment. In the
context of the debate about ‘new models of prosperity’, research has been carried
out into a new understanding of work involving a balance between gainful employ-
ment, family care, self-employment and community work (Brandl and Hildebrandt
2002; Spangenberg 2003; Stahmer and Schaffer 2006). This new conception of
work-life balance, however, has so far not been able to call into doubt the hege-
monic debate fixated on the traditional triad of growth, gainful employment and
consumption.
The structure of the German sustainability discourse thus favours and legitimates
a certain pattern of institutional practices dealing with sustainability problems.
Fading out relevant dimensions of these problems from the public debate leads to
corresponding gaps in the options for practical action.

Sustainability Discourse, Lifestyle and Everyday Practices

The result of both the low presence in the mass media as well as the vagueness of
1
the term ‘sustainable development’ is that it means little to a broader public audience.
Thus in Germany, energy-saving, environmentally-friendly transportation or organic
food campaigns are typically framed without reference to ‘sustainability’. Terms as
‘energy-saving’, ‘organic’, ‘nature’, ‘fairness’, ‘health’, ‘countryside’, ‘region’ etc.
evoke symbolic associations that have considerably more mobilisation potential.
The question then is whether the sustainability discourse is able to influence every-
day life at all.
In fact, on a general level, it is not the integrative, multi-dimensional concept of
sustainable development but its more specific understanding as ‘ecological sustain-
ability’ that has had some influence on public debates in Germany. It stimulated a
reframing of the public perception of environmental problems as complex interre-
lated global problems and introduced a sense of long-term, intergenerational respon-
sibility into the debate. With the general shift of the environmental debate in the
1990s towards ‘sustainable consumption’, the social aspects of responsible consump-
tion (fair trade, child labour etc.) became more important in Germany as well.
However, which of these aspects of ‘sustainable’ behaviour is taken up in which field
of action (food, transportation, waste separation, energy saving etc.) depends in
Germany, as in all other countries, on specific national as well as individual factors.

1 To the extent that the term ‘sustainable development’ is known at all in Germany (roughly 20%),
it is associated with ideas of ‘ecological economizing’ or ‘responsibility for future generations’
(Kuckartz and Rheingans-Heintze 2006: 16f.).