Towards a sustainable built environment
41
market with incentives and disincentives through legislation, taxation and subsidy.
But it is also in a unique position to address social issues, such as population and
consumption, and develop appropriate policies. Although environmental groups have
served as a voice of conscience for governments and businesses alike, historically
they have remained outside the policy-making sphere. This is now changing with the
advent of sustainable development, which seeks to engage environmental experts
with government at the point of policy development. Approaches towards addressing
environmental problems increasingly involve investigating the causes rather than
reacting to their symptoms.
Governments are becoming more open to discourse, particularly as the implications
of climate change become clearer. Changes of leadership can bring about great policy
change. For example, new leadership in Australia in 2007 brought about a reversal of
previous policy with an immediate ratification of the Kyoto treaty.
One policy requiring revision is that which uses the gross domestic product (GDP) to
equate financial wealth with personal well-being. Measuring national success by GDP
alone has been questioned for many years, as increased GDP offers no guarantee of
increased well-being. In fact, the chart below (Figure 12) suggests that levels of well-
being, or ‘happiness’, stay more or less constant despite rising affluence.
Figure 12 - Well-being vs economic growth
Happiness data from National Opinion Research Center General Social Survey; income
data from Historical Statistics of the United States and Economic Indicators.
There have been several attempts to formulate an alternative to GDP; among these,
the Human Development Index, developed for the UN in 1990. This measure averages
key indicators such as life expectancy, literacy, education and financial income in
relation to individuals in a particular region. In its adoption of a wider framework of
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76