Seven Dimensions of Sustainable Development

Center For Alternative Development Initiatives
[Promoting Sustainable Development Through Threefolding Including Threefolding Partnerships]

The following discussion on sustainable development is drawn from Philippine Agenda 21, the Philippine's official framework for sustainable development. This framework has been validated and re-affirmed through numerous consultations, conferences, dialogues and workshops throughout the Philippines.

From the Philippine perspective sustainable development is a multidimensional concept, involving no less than seven dimensions. Sustainable development is viewed as the mutually beneficial interaction between the legitimate interests of business and the economy, government and the polity, and civil society and culture. However, these societal interactions do not exist in a vacuum. On the physical and material side, society is bounded by the carrying capacity of the varied ecosystems, landscape ecology, and ultimately the biosphere of the earth, of Nature. On the psychological and spiritual side, the threefold functional differentiation of society is contextualized by the caring capacity of individuals.

From this perspective, five dimensions of sustainable development are clearly visible. These are—the human being, culture, polity, economy, and Nature. However, to this five, we need to consider society as a separate dimension. Society can be understood as the integrative result of interactions of the different activities in culture, polity, and the economy. The population issue, for example, is a development issue that can only be addressed from a societal perspective, not just from culture alone, or the economy alone, or polity alone.

One must not confuse the societal dimension with the individual dimension. Ontologically, in the physical world, only individuals exist as such. Society, in effect, is an idea. Society is a cognitive construct arising from an individual’s or several individual’s perception of the differing patterns of interactions among human beings. It is within this context that the whole debate between Western and Asian values, between rights versus community and responsibility, can be understood. It is also within this context that the harmonious integration between human and social development is to be achieved.

With society, we therefore have the six dimensions of sustainable development before us. But these six are not enough. We need to add a seventh that pervades all the other dimensions. This seventh is the dimension of Spirit. Unless we see and explicitly acknowledge the spiritual in nature, human beings, and society in our framework of development, we can never do justice to the strong sense of Philippine spirituality that permeates Philippine Agenda 21.

These seven dimensions of sustainable development are the keys to understand the structure and substance of PA21. The definition, vision, principles, and parameters of the Principles of Unity as well as the Action Agenda of PA21 are all basically drawn out from the key concerns of these seven dimensions of sustainable development.

• Philippine Agenda 21 (PA21) – Long-term development plan finalized in 1996 to fulfill the Philippine commitments to the 1992 Earth Summit. Endorsed as the country’s blueprint for sustainable development, the Principles of Unity of PA21 is also considered one of the most widely consulted documents ever produced in the Philippines.
• Principles of Unity – Consensus portion of Philippine Agenda 21 that presents a holistic assessment of the Philippine development condition, and provides a responsive framework for Sustainable Development in the Philippine context, including fifteen principles and numerous multidimensional parameters and strategies for achieving sustainable development.

Philippine IT and Telecom Firms are ‘Going Green’

By Alexander Villafania [June 16, 2010]

MAKATI CITY, METRO MANILA – Thanks to the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth and environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace, government agencies and private companies have begun implementing projects aimed at protecting the environment and mitigating human impact.

High tech companies are also jumping into the fray. Some companies have started by incorporating environment-friendly materials in their next line of products, such as Apple’s lead-free devices and Samsung’s energy-efficient home appliances. In some cases, they utilize alternative energy sources for their operations.

But it doesn’t stop there. These companies are also holding their own green projects that involve their employees as well as the community they belong to. They essentially want to give back to the community and to the environment. More than this, these companies know the long-term economic impact of a damaged or weakened ecology.

Besides, “green is in”, according to Philippine Green Building Council President Christopher Cruz de la Cruz.

Here are some of the list of these companies and a few of their own green corporate projects:

• Globe Telecom Goes Green – The company started implementing environment programs in 2005 with solid waste management and used lead acid battery disposal. Part of this is the Eco-Action project where the company will be planting 250,000 trees in the next five years.  

• Smart Communications Alternative Power for Cell Sites – In 2009, Smart Communications won the “Green Mobile Award” during the GSM Association Conference in Barcelona. Smart was among the pioneers of using alternative power for their cell sites. Forty-one sites are powered by wind energy while 27 are hybrid of wind and solar.

• Sony Road to Zero – The Japanese electronics giant has a long-term global project aimed at reducing their greenhouse gas emission in their manufacturing process in the next five years.

• Nokia Recycling Project – Nokia commands the biggest mobile phone markets in the Philippines so it is just obvious to note that Nokia would produce the most number of discarded mobile devices. Nokia Philippines implemented a recycling program by putting trash bins in several malls where people can discard their used electronic devices, even non-Nokia items.

• HP My Backyard – In 2009, HP Philippines tied with the Center of Excellence Public Elementary School in Tondo, Manila for its My Backyard project, which inculcates ecology safeguards among students. They also had celebrity singer Charice Pempengco sing their jingle.

• Intel Philippines – Prior to the departure of Intel’s manufacturing plant in the Philippines, the chip giant has had various CSR projects that dealt with the environment. They are among the companies with a long list of environment-related initiatives, which they integrated into the International Science and Engineering Fair.

• IBM Smart Planet – It’s not exactly a CSR project for the environment but what IBM does is to get clients to implement their own cost-effective, energy-efficient and high capacity IT infrastructure. The result in adapting the IBM Smart Planet would be lower energy utilization, and low carbon emission.

Having a CSR project helps a company get closer to its employees and with communities that are in need of help. But it becomes even nobler when the environment is put on top of all priorities. The smallest project dedicated to the environment can go a long way.