Ilkka Niiniluoto

Back to winter issue 2006

Since the 1990s, Finnish universities have published plans and reports on sustainable development. These docu-ments have concerned the operational standards of facilities and technical ser-vices. However, the main strategic challenge of the university is to find ways of supporting sustainability through research and research-based teaching.

The catchword “sustainable development” was introduced to the public in Our Common Future (1987), the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. Brundtland’s Commission defined sustainable development as a dynamic process that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. A virtue of this definition is its concern for the future: we are not allowed to selfishly and short-sightedly only look after our own momentary profits in exploiting environmental resources; our children and their descendants should also have adequate means for living.

Brundtland’s Commission was mainly concerned with ecological threats, but it recognised that human and social behaviour in both rich and poor countries has dramatic effects on our environment. In 1992, the Johannesburg Summit identified three pillars of sustainable development: economic development, social development, and environmental protection. Today, UNESCO advocates a very broad definition where sustainability covers, among other things, the management and protection of natural resources, climate change, global warming, biodiversity, health, rural development and urban planning, poverty reduction, corporate responsibility, cultural diversity, education for all, free flow of information, human rights, gender equality, and peace.

International organisations, national governments, businesses, the media, and NGOs all have roles in our common political and moral task of sustainability. How can scientific research and education best promote sustainable development? It is clear that natural and social sciences – especially when they work together in multidisciplinary projects – can contribute to this goal.

First, the methods of science provide tools for studying the current state of nature and its development. Time series of such observations may provide alarming evidence of transformations in nature.

Secondly, environmental research may focus on law-like patterns of change in natural phenomena, such as the interaction of the atmosphere, land, and seas. With knowl-edge about such laws of nature, it is possible to build theoretical, often mathematical models for explaining and predicting the temporal development of natural systems.

Thirdly, a crucial challenge of multidisciplinary environmental research is to consider the human factor. What harmful changes in nature are due to human actions and interventions? What kinds of technologies might be helpful in the protection of nature? What cultural habits, social practices, and economic arrangements best support the goal of sustainable development? Here natural sciences, technological research, biology, agricultural and forest sciences, medicine, urban studies, cultural studies, economics and other social sciences have to work together. In this way, the subject matter of research is broadened to include the interaction of man and nature, especially the rational utilisation of natural resources and its cultural, social, and economic aspects and conditions.

Fourthly, if the concept of sustainable development is expanded to contain other pillars besides the environmental perspective, then medicine, the humanities, education, psychology, law, and social sciences are also directly relevant to its study. Sustainable development of a society requires that its economic basis is secure, but economic success has to be balanced with considerations of human welfare and social justice. Economic stability in the long run also depends on the ways in which natural resources are used and cultivated.

Conflicts about environmental protection arise easily between different interest groups – such as the landowners and active citizens. In democracies, different moral opinions are accepted, and such controversies are reconciled by legislation and by the political system (e.g. the Parliament). But value questions can also be rationally debated in philosophy. Environmental ethics is a branch of philosophy that considers questions about the intrinsic and instrumental value of nature.

In education for sustainable development, multidisciplinary environmental research and ethics are important subject matters. Introduction to cognitive and moral attitudes towards the natural and social environment is needed in schools – as well as in the home and as early as kindergarten. Universities and institutions of higher education have important roles as well. As we have seen, virtually all scientific disciplines have a potential for increasing our understanding of the conditions of sustainability in the wide sense. More specifically, UNESCO has created programmes, networks, and chairs devoted to problems of sustainable development. The Baltic Sea Project is a fine example of regional co-operation in research and teaching. In the University of Helsinki, environmental issues are studied in the departments and research stations of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry and the Faculty of Bioscience. A national centre of excellence studies the interaction of land and atmosphere. The University has also established an institute of rural studies (Ruralia), a network of urban studies, a research network of Environmental Research (HERC), a chair in environmental policy (operating in three faculties), and a teaching programme on environmental problems for students from all faculties.