Working Towards Sustainable Development in the Face of Uncertainty and Incomplete Knowledge

Abstract

It is an inherent constituent of the Leitbild of sustainable development to think about strategies for shaping current and future society according to the normative content of that Leitbild. Knowledge in different forms is an essential input to make reasonable and robust decisions about shaping strategies and adequate measures. Many of the types of knowledge involved, however, show general attributes of uncertainty. In the field of sustainable development, uncertainties from different areas merge and create a dramatic increase in the importance and relevance of this issue. Working towards sustainable development, therefore, is not feasible within a classical planning approach; new concepts for approaching the future are needed. Uncertainties are, on the other hand, an indication of the openness of the future and the possibilities of shaping it. Uncertainties in some sense disturb the options for working towards sustainable development, but also allow for learning over time, for adapting and modifying measures due to the results of monitoring processes, etc. Exploiting the chances offered by this situation requires specific implementation strategies in favour of sustainable development, in particular strategies that are open to adaptation and ‘online’ modification by monitoring the effects of the initial measures. Sustainability policies have to become reflexive more radically than policies in other areas.

Keywords:

• Planning Theory
• incrementalism
• prospective knowledge
• governance

Acknowledgement

The author would like to express thanks to Jan-Peter Voß, Jens Newig, Jochen Monstadt and two anonymous referees for many valuable remarks and recommendations that have contributed considerably to improving this paper.

Notes

1. All of the analyses and arguments are presented here at a conceptual level. References to specific cases are made for purposes of illustration only, where appropriate.

2. The concept of knowledge used throughout this paper is a rather general one that is far from restricting knowledge in a positivistic sense. To categorize a statement as knowledge, however, is not arbitrary but bound to standards which might differ in various areas. But, in any case, using the term ‘knowledge’ involves the regulative idea that it should be possible to prove its reliability or validity (e.g. by scientific means or by discursive procedures) (Luhmann, 1990).

3. There are also other sources of uncertainty which relate directly to the social and economic processes of technology development, for example the interdependence between technologies and their path-dependence.

4. This has been the classical epistemological situation in science. Transferred to the steering challenge, this relates to the distinction between governing a system from inside or from outside, cf. Smith & Stirling (2007).

5. The kernel of incrementalism consists of the trial-and-error approach, as suggested in some incrementalistic planning theories (Braybrooke & Lindblom, 1963; cf. the discussions in Camhis, 1979).