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(Walters and Holling, 1990: Walters, Korman,
Stevens and Gold, 2000) (cf.ecology).
Attempts to define and implement prin-
ciples of sustainability in planning and devel-
opment policy have sometimes been pursued
through the so-called ‘three pillars’ of sustain-
ability, namely economic, social, and environ-
mental or ecological. This is, for instance, a
feature of local and regional planning for sus-
tainability as pursued in the UK (Haughton
and Counsell, 2004). True, the condition of
sustainability in this context is still tethered
(legislatively) to the maintenance of economic
growth. But one advantage of at least recog-
nizing disparate connotations of sustainability,
in terms of these three pillars or otherwise, is
that it leaves open the possibility that trade-
offs must be made, and that not all efforts to
achieve sustainability can be achieved via the
win–win optimism that has been a predomin-
ant gloss on sustainable development since the
Brundtland Commission, and certainly since
the 1992 Rio Summit (Adams, 1995). Critical
work remains to be done on the governme-
ntalizing dimensions of particular sustaina-
bility programmes, specifically the ways in
which new political subjectivities and modes
ofgovernancearise around the institutio-
nalization of sustainability (seegovernmen-
tality). This comprises one way to bring
politics into discussions and analyses con-
cerning sustainability.
In fact, this speaks to a bigger problem of
politics when it comes to sustainability and
sustainable development. Seemingly endless
rounds of defining the terms leads to an over-
riding idealism in policy and academic litera-
tures that can actually obscure attention to
changinggenealogies, as predominant con-
notations evolve shaped in part by prevailing
powerrelations. Put another way, and in the
spirit of Michel Foucault, tracking the chan-
ging meaning of the term must always be situ-
ated in relation to the capacity of power to
produce these changing meanings. And this
is what frustrates many of a critical bent in
encountering this word; it seems to preclude
or leave unexamined in most iterations ques-
tions of power and politics. Revisiting the
three pillars noted above, for instance, it is
not clear where politics enter and how.
Thus, as opposed to more and more
attempts to define the term and pin it down,
it might be more useful to consider what ques-
tions it invokes. One of these, as Drummond
and Marsden (1999) argue, is why sustaina-
bility literature is so much characterized by
‘line drawing’ exercises rather than morecritical analyses of systemic tendencies for
lines to be transgressed. This echoes early
critics of both sustainable development and
sustainability, who argued that both require
direct challenges tocapitalism itself as an
inherently unsustainable form of economic,
social and political organization constituted
by and productive of profound social inequal-
ities, and predicated on the mobilization of
energy and raw materials increasingly com-
modified for the purposes of an expanding
and inherently expansionist economy
(Redclift, 1987; O’Riordan, 1991; Benton,
1994).
A second question concerns the ways in
which sustainability needs to be operational-
ized as disparate challenges in relation to the
so-called environmentalism of the poor versus
the environmentalism of the rich (Martinez-
Alier, 2002). This would allow affluence to
be challenged, while recognizing that the
poverty and environmental degradation nexus
requires distinct approaches (including not
just policies aimed at fostering socially equit-
able and environmentally benign growth
policies, but redistribution via genuinethird
worlddebt relief and reparations forcolo-
nialplunders).
A third question concerns examination of
real-world trade-offs and complex political
ecological dynamics involved in the institution-
alization of specific programmes aimed at
enhancing sustainability, moving past mantras
to ask the kinds of hard questions that lend
themselves to social science. What, for
instance, are the scaled social and environmen-
tal implications of reforestation programmes,
particularlyvis-a`-visreinforcing logging pres-
sure in faraway places (Robbins and Fraser,
2003)? What happens to local level social
relations,propertyrights and land-use prac-
tices under the influence of international fair
trade and organic standardization regimes
(Mutersbaugh, 2004)? (See alsoforestry.)
What are the social and environmental effects- again acrossscales– introduced by regimes
such as ‘foodmiles’ that stigmatize distance
travelled, particularly as these effects ripple
through complexcommodity chainslinking
FirstWorldmarkets and Third World agricul-
tural systems (Friedberg, 2004)? While such
critically minded, theoretically informed and
empirically oriented engagements with real-
world instantiations of sustainability oriented
policies and programmes might seem to take
some of the wind out of sustainability’s sails,
they also help ensure that sustainability con-
veys more than a lot of hot air. sp
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