1 Introduction

1The imperative of sustainability has often been criticized to the effect that too much is read into it, that it does not exclude anything, that it permits no differentiation, and that it generates a false sense of harmony. In this paper, the thesis is proposed that, in contrary, conflicts arise on all of the levels of making the concept of sustainable development work – not only when concrete political measures are put to debate but already in making the first steps to clarify the meaning of sustainable development.

2Conflicts, however, are mostly not an issue in debates on sustainable development. Recent papers and books (cf. Krainer/Trattnigg 2007; Parodi et al. 2010) include a lot of valuable contributions and reflections on culture and sustainability but non-intendedly seem to exclude the issue of conflict. Even in the context of decision-making (cf. Krainer 2007) where conflicts occur as a rule no emphasis is given to them. Only the fields of politics and governance conflicts and conflict-solving are thematized, even regularly only along the well-known tensions between economy and ecology, or between economy and the social.

3On the contrary, I will put the issue of conflicts around sustainable development into the heart of this paper. My main message is that conflicts are not to be avoided but to be managed in a civilian way in order to push societal developments towards sustainable development. In my perception sustainable development is too often related with issues of consensus – which of course is wishful but which is only seldom achievable in modern pluralistic societies.

4Several types of conflict will be uncovered and distinguished in this paper.1 Such conflicts are, regularly, rooted in plural societal values, different images of humankind and nature, and different ideas about future society. The paper suggests that these conflicts could and should be used to define the more concrete societal understanding of sustainability and ways to approach it. Therefore, such conflicts are to be made transparent. The approach of settling them should be understood as an essential component of the societal constitution of the content and the interpretation of sustainability. It is stated and argued for that new cultures of conflict-solving should be established across existing cultures and traditions. This would lead to the result that, in the scientific occupation with sustainability, a new field of activity is opened up for those disciplines which can contribute to this objective, such as the cultural, social, and political sciences, jurisprudence, psychology, and ethics, while, on the other hand, it can be shown that there are limitations to the conflict-solving capacities of natural sciences and earth systems analysis.

2 Sustainability as a Conflict-generating Vision

5Sustainability as a societal vision is, on the one hand – at least on the political-programmatic level – not only potentially acceptable, but does, in fact, meet with correspondingly broad approval across all societal groups and political positions, nationally and internationally. The number of nations which have signed and ratified the documents of Rio 1992 and the corresponding follow-up papers and the numerous local or regional activities are impressive.

6On the other hand, sustainability’s conflict potential cannot be overlooked. As soon as relatively concrete goals or even strategies of societal action for attaining sustainability are put on the agenda – at the latest – it becomes obvious that the usual antagonistic societal values and interests are lurking behind the programmatic consensus.

7Due to this fact, the opinion is often expressed that sustainability is a concept without content, or that sustainability is a harmonistic wrapper (meant here in an analogous sense to that of the definition in the field of biblical hermeneutics. The harmonistic tradition smoothes the disparities in the biblical text in a manner that imposes greater strain on faith than do the disparities themselves, i.e.: sustainability is, according to this objection, supposed to create a harmoniousness which in reality does not exist) over heterogeneous and incompatible goals, and can therefore only have rhetorical functions. It has sunken, so some people argue, to the level of arbitrariness, and no longer has any power to “make a difference”. In order to refute these contentions, it would be necessary, on the one hand, to make clear what the concept of sustainability comprises and what not. On the other hand, the principle of sustainability should not appear to be merely a plaything of conflicting interests, but has to demonstrate and realize possibilities for settling such conflicts in a constructive and, optimally, in a “sustainable” manner.

8The objection that nothing more than harmonistic meaninglessness is hidden behind the concept of sustainability, that talking about sustainability would therefore either be of no consequence, or could be arbitrarily instrumentalized or misused, can be interpreted in a number of ways which allow a better understanding of that objection:

• Sustainability as mere design: The postulate of sustainability has, in this version of the objection, no content. Of course, nobody can be opposed to a person’s pursuing his or her economic interests in a sustainable manner which “satisfies the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their own needs” (Brundtland Commission 1987, p. 24, no. 27), but acceptance of this understanding says nothing specific regarding content. People who can all generally agree with this statement can still compete further for diametrically opposed aims.
• Sustainability as an ideological illusion: The concept of sustainability conceals in this manner the conflicts of interests among the real actors and the actual power constellations. It is instrumentalized as an ostensible legitimization of power and of particular vested interests, for instance, in the question of the relationship between securing continued affluence in the industrialized nations and the perspectives for the developing countries. The danger is that each social actor or group may define its “own” sustainability – the farmers, the industry, social movements, political parties, authorities or others. All of them could then claim to promote sustainable development but with using diverging or contradictory understandings of sustainability.
• Sustainability as a utopian hope: A further point of critique is that the concept of sustainability is overtaxed, in any case, whenever more than ecological sustainability only is subsumed under it (cf. Knaus/Renn 1998). If sustainability should be used as a collective designation for everything “noble, helpful, and good”, then this would be impracticable, could lead to arbitrary conclusions, and would arouse expectations which cannot be fulfilled. The concept of sustainability as an integrative-utopian aspiration is, according to this contention, a harmonistic illusion which blocks the view onto the real problems.

9These doubts have to be taken seriously – at least for the time being. A theory of sustainability which lays claim to relevance in practice and to presenting contributions towards solving societal problems has to make clear how it reacts to these objections. The concept, theory, and operationalization of sustainability have to fulfil at least the following requirements in order to avoid slipping into arbitrariness:

• Specification of the fields of application: exactly what they apply to, and what not must be stated, i. e., a field of responsibility for sustainability must be delimited from questions for which sustainability is not relevant.
• Unambiguous judgements: distinctions must be made between “sustainable”, and “unsustainable” or “less sustainable” possibilities within the areas concerned.
• Operationalizability: concrete ascription must be made of these judgements (sustainable/unsustainable) to societal circumstances or possible developments (e.g., by means of indicators to be derived from the concept and theory of sustainability but also by using explanatory cause/effect knowledge about the developments under consideration).

10It turns out that conflicts over sustainability do not first arise – as has often been maintained – at the point when concrete measures are discussed. Rather conflicts are unavoidable as early as on the conceptual level where the basic understanding of sustainable development has to be clarified. At least the following types of conflict can break out at this stage:

• Conflicts of demarcation: What belongs to the subject area that the principle of sustainability should be applied to, and what does not? Is it solely a matter of responsibility for the future or of distributive justice in the present? Is it a question of conservation, or of development? What should be protected or developed under the banner of sustainability? Which legitimate societal goals are there beyond or outside of the concept of sustainability? In the integrative concept of sustainability (cf. Kopfmüller et al. 2001, p. 172) the field of application is defined, for example, so, that the sustainability rules are formulated not as the sum total of all desirable societal goals, but as minimum requirements for a lastingly humane existence. Societal goals which extend above and beyond this level no longer belong to sustainability’s areas of study and evaluation. The exact determination of this line of demarcation is, however, obviously connected with societal conflicts, because it is neither on the national nor on the global level at all clear what should be included in these minimum requirements, what the attribute “humane” includes, and what it excludes.
• Conflicts about the substitutability of different parts of the overall societal capital: Every generation disposes over a certain productive potential, which is made up of various factors (natural capital, real capital, human capital, knowledge capital). Sustainable development demands in general that the stock of capital which exists within a generation be handed down as undiminished as possible to future generations – whereby, however, two fundamentally different alternatives are conceivable (cf. Daly 1999, pp. 110ff.). On the one hand, one could stipulate that the sum of natural and human-made capital be constant in the sense of an economy-wide total; on the other hand, one could require that every single component of itself has to be preserved intact. The former path is sensible if one assumes that natural and human-made parts of the overall capital are completely interchangeable (weak sustainability). The latter path is advisable if one assumes that human-made and natural capital stand in a complementary relationship to one another (strong sustainability). The controversy over both of these strategies, that is, over the question, how the heritage which is to be handed down to future generations should be composed, is one of the central problems of the sustainability debate (cf. Ott 2001). There are also intermediate positions, sometimes designated as “sensible sustainability” (cf. Serageldin/Steer 1994). Due to this approach, the substitution of natural capital by human-made capital is held to be admissible to a limited extent, as long as nature’s basic functions (the immaterial ones as well) are maintained.
• Conflicts over priorities: Whenever it is a question of the mutual relations of the various (ecological, economic, social, and political) dimensions of sustainability, or of the relation between inter- and intragenerational justice, careful consideration and weighing of priorities are imperative. The proposed approaches to sustainability in the various dimensions will not always mutually reinforce each other and lead to “win-win”-situations. For instance, the precept of conserving landscapes of a particularly characteristic nature and beauty can come into conflict with the need for securing an independent livelihood, as far as the local population is concerned – a classical conflict in environmental conservation policy. It is then necessary to weigh up goals and values and to set priorities which, as a rule, quite obviously give rise to societal conflicts.
• Conflicts over the choice of indicators: Appropriate and meaningful indicators for sustainability cannot be derived logically and deductively from the sustainability rules. Rather, different indicators are conceivable, which respectively set different accents. The determination of indicators influences further questions, such as, which parameters should be chosen for long-term observation, or for which parameters targets should be set and commitments be made. Because the choice of indicators is, therefore, not value-neutral, it can be fraught with conflicts – and often is, as the pertinent discussion shows. These conflict levels make clear that conflicts over sustainability not only occur, as is often discussed, on the strategic level of concrete measures and their realization, but that they are inherent in the very conceptualization of sustainability. In addition, the usual conflicts arise in the further strategic operationalization of sustainability whenever it is a question of specific measures or their consequences. The distribution of the burdens and risks of measures for promoting sustainability is, as a matter of course, conflict-laden in a pluralistic society.
• Conflicts of distribution: Further conflict potentials can arise on the strategic level when it comes to translating the principle of sustainable development into concrete responsibilities of action for societal actors. When, for example, one has to decide which contribution the transportation industry and which the power supply industry should bring toward realizing a national CO₂-reduction target. When the contributions of various nations to common goals are set, quite substantial conflicts of interests flare up (as could be observed, for instance, in the Kyoto follow-up conferences). On the one hand, conflicts of distribution arise because of the winner-loser problems, and on the other hand, due to the finiteness of scarce resources, such as drinking water or soil.

11These different types of sustainability conflicts mentioned have their origin in the diversity of the conflicts inherent in a pluralistic society (as, for example, differing conceptions of justice, of responsibility, of the role of the welfare state, or of the economic system). Different and contradicting interests between social actors, between NGOs and industry, between political parties, or between developed and developing countries are leading to such conflicts. These conflicts do not just vanish into thin air by their common relevance for sustainability, but come into play again when sustainability is to be made operable. This is in no way surprising.

12Of greater interest with respect to this paper is the fact that not only already existing societal conflicts play a role, but that the imperative of sustainability itself is also the source of additional conflicts. As soon as the question of justice – and this is the essence of sustainability – is extended beyond the small national or regional circle of the present generation to the global scale and to future generations, completely new questions and additional distributive problems arise – with the corresponding lines of conflict. In this category belong questions of the sort whether and how much abstinence can be expected of those presently living (in the western nations) in the interest of future generations, and if so, how this abstinence should be distributed among and within nations. This situation is the clearest proof of the fact that the principle of sustainability is anything but harmonic, and can even be the origin of conflicts.

13It is the extension of the time and space dimension inherent to the imperative of sustainable development which leads to new types of challenges in the reflections on justice and equity. Conflicts between the assumed needs and interests of future generations – obviously, there is already a problem of knowing enough about them – and the interests of people living today arise. Why should we renounce on realising certain needs in favour of future generations which we will never meet? The global dimension of sustainability (cf. Kopfmüller 2003) leads to a more narrow contact of different traditions and cultures in attempting to arrive at a common understanding of sustainable development. Different concepts of nature, different views of the relationship between the individual and society, different religious and cultural traditions, different conceptions of justice enter into the sustainability conflicts. Solutions in this respect will require identifying the explicit and implicit contradictions and divergencies between different cultures in the five fields of conflict mentioned above and dealing with them in a constructive way.

14It therefore becomes apparent that conflicts are an inseparable constituent of discussions on sustainability, of the way to make it more concrete, and of its societal implementation. It would be “harmonistic” to ignore this fact. The reproach of harmonism rightly draws our attention to the fact that disclosure of the lines of conflict is necessary in order to be able to talk “honestly” about sustainability and in order to avoid the above mentioned dangers of instrumentalization. But in order to refute this contention successfully, it would be necessary to offer advice and strategies how the various types of conflict can be settled constructively.

3 Approaches to Conflict Resolution

15In the following, the conceptual question on which cognitive and conceptual basis these conflicts can and should be settled in the interest of sustainability stands in the foreground. In the form of an exaggerated confrontation (cf. on this subject in general Hartmann/Janich 1996), we distinguish between a

• naturalistic conflict management in which, with scientific methods, optimal and, in a certain sense, “objective” paths to sustainability are determined, and a
• culturalistic conflict management, in which, besides scientific knowledge, societal discourses and normative reflection would play an important role.

3.1 Naturalistic Approach

16The naturalistic concept is based on the assumption – to put it simply – that sustainability means lasting stability in the relationship between society and the environment (cf. Schellnhuber/Wenzel 1999). It would then be science’s responsibility to determine the carrying capacity and the critical loads of natural systems (cf. Kates et al. 2001). Because tolerance limits can hardly be defined empirically without exceeding them, and because this sort of empirical “test” rules out itself (because of its negative and possibly irreversible consequences in the sense of global change), a key role is ascribed to the integrative modelling and simulation of interactions between humankind and the environment (cf. Alcamo 2002; Rotmans 1999). In this manner – one hopes –, “objective” standards for sustainability could be formulated, which would make the societal conflicts – at least in the questions treated by scientific methods – unnecessary. The conflicts, with their subjective and ideological aspects, would be decided virtually “objectively”.

17One has also tried to transfer the concept of “carrying capacity”, which has been adopted from the ecological debate, into the societal sphere: “[…] the insight has been gaining ground that, in the areas of the economic and social systems as well, there are limits of load capacity, which – in the case of overtaxing – can lead to similar consequences (from loss of productivity to the collapse of the system concerned)” (DBT 1998, p. 17; critique of this standpoint in Kopfmüller et al. 2001, chap. 4.1.2). The latitude left for humanity would, according to this conception, in principle have to be defined by the “objective” load-carrying capacity of the ecological, economic, and social systems. The determination of these limits would be science’s responsibility, which could therefore decide the resulting conflicts objectively. Making sustainable development work would be a task for optimising the future path of more or less calculable natural and social systems. For the role of societal and therefore “non-objectivizable” conflict management, there would remain only the task of setting the safety margins in a so-called “guard-rail” concept.

18The question is to what extent the expectations set in the naturalistic approach – to decide societal conflicts scientifically – are justified. The following problems present themselves:

• Load limits and carrying capacities can, as a rule, not be determined solely by the natural sciences (for the case of ecological problems). The problems are often of a character other than the eutrophication of a body of water by phosphates (in which case there actually is a clear limit of carrying capacity), but are rather a question of a more or less moderate increase of the risk of biohazard by certain anthropogenically-influenced input without a sharply-defined limit of load factor. For the limits of carrying capacity of social or economic systems, this holds true to a much greater extent.
• The intergenerational aspect of sustainability confronts the present generation with questions of long-term responsibility, and therefore with the question of an equitable distribution of the use of the natural and social resources through time. Questions of distributive justice cannot be decided by reference to results of earth systems analysis.
• Questions of the just distribution of chances for making use of the various types of capital, especially natural resources, cannot be decided naturalistically, because they involve ethical problems and concern internal questions of societal organization on the global level.
• The incompleteness and the provisional nature of (scientific) knowledge lead to the fact that societal actions with regard to sustainability always include risk. The resulting conflicts over risk acceptance cannot be decided naturalistically, but require societal discourses.

19It therefore turns out that the naturalistic attempt at conflict management by giving an “objectively” best solution according to sustainability aspects encounters limits at several points. The conclusion is, therefore, that exactly the central conflicts of sustainability – questions of the just inter-and intragenerational distribution of chances for utilizing natural resources, questions of priorities in conflicts inherent in sustainability, as well as questions of handling the inevitable problems of dealing with risk – cannot be answered by the naturalistic approach. Knowledge and values cannot be kept distinctly separate (cf. Funtowicz/Ravetz 1993), but rather, societal values pervade even the results provided by a “sustainability science”. Lines of conflict have their effects on these results – for this reason, scientific findings cannot even logically be used to solve the societal conflicts.

20Therefore it does not seem surprising that, in discussions on and around the subject of “sustainability science”, the level of political and normative conflicts is barely even mentioned. In the original manifest on “sustainability science” (cf. Kates et al. 2001), the word “conflict” does not even occur. If the purpose is seen as providing systemic knowledge so that “different social actors to work in concert, even with much uncertainty and limited information” (Kates et al. 2001, p. 641), then the plane of legitimate political negotiation and of ethical reflection is ignored. The background assumption is presumably that the “systemic knowledge” as a result of scientific research on the relationship between the environment and society (e. g., in the form of integrative modelling within earth systems analysis Schellnhuber/Wenzel 1999) decides in a naturalistic manner which actors are in the right in cases of conflict. This orientation has been tempered in further development of the concept; nonetheless, this question still has to be discussed further (cf. Grunwald/Lingner 2002).

3.2 Culturalistic Approach

21This brings up the question of the culturalistic approaches to conflict management. Here, we can distinguish at least three different schools of thought:

• the political-decisionistic approach leaves the decision in societal conflicts to the political system;
• the discursive-participative approach relies on organizing broad societal communication;
• the ethical/justice-theoretical approach offers conflict management on the basis of universal ethical principles.

22These approaches have their respective strengths and weaknesses, which cannot be discussed here in detail (cf. Grunwald 2000 for the case of engineering ethics). We only want to call to mind the facts that the decisionistic approach contradicts the polycentric self-understanding of modern societies, that the ethical/justice-theoretical approach is fraught with problems of implementation, and that, with regard to the discursive-participative approach, the question poses itself, why societal dialogues, in which decisions about acceptability are made, and in which power and interest constellations build the foundations, should work to the advantage of sustainability, if the actors’ egoism and preoccupation with the present play a decisive role (cf. Brand/Fürst 2002, pp. 32ff.) There is no royal road to the solution of these problems, but their solution would require a combination of different approaches from one case to another.

23In particular, it is insufficient, even in the culturalistic perspective, merely to refer to the societal dialogue on sustainability. Leaving this dialogue to itself would mean refraining from doing everything in one’s power to make use of available potentials for rationality in acquiring knowledge and in seeking orientation. The societal dialogue and its organization, down to the establishment of formal, legitimized decision-making procedures, determine, in the final analysis, in which manner the lines of conflict within the concept of sustainability can be broken up. What is decisive, however, is that these processes are not run “blindly”, but are “informed”: informed by the results of interlinked models, by knowledge about the systems involved, by the knowledge about the impacts of human activities; informed, too, about the “culturalistic” components of the conflicts, namely by ethics, by the theory of justice, and by the social sciences.

24The question is therefore not that of an objective-naturalistic transition to sustainability (cf. Kates et al. 2001), but of the scientific accompaniment of a societal process of gaining awareness, opinion formation, conflict management, and decision-making, in which sustainability is, normatively, first constituted – with observance of the ethical dimension of responsibility for the future. In order to be able to propose some more concrete ideas to enter this way of proceeding, it is necessary to explain the basic understanding of sustainable development in more detail.

4 Conclusions

25Constructive conflict management is, obviously, a communicative endeavour. Conflict management can be made by argumentation or by bargaining, by different forms of negotiation and mediation, by participative approaches and by broad debate. In this respect the integrative concept of sustainable development (cf. Kopfmüller et al. 2001) provides some advice in which direction such communicative procedures should be developed and applied for sustainability conflicts and for institutions supporting those types of “sustainable communication patterns”. The following issues are relevant in this respect:

• Society’s ability to respond;
• society’s reflexivity;
• self-organization;
• balance of power.

26It is of crucial importance that the impacts and consequences of approaches to make sustainability work are uncovered (reflexivity) and that an open debate is possible (balance of power). Furthermore, it has to be ensured that the results of those reflexive processes can be taken into account in the relevant decision-making processes (ability to respond). The solution of conflicts at the level of people directly concerned is preferred compared to top-down-approaches (self-organization, subsidiarity).

27In this way, it becomes clear that approaching sustainable development is a societal endeavour for which cultural resources are needed in a double manner. At first, they are needed as inputs to the debates, as standpoints and experiences in the conflicts and discussions about sustainability. At second, a new “culture” of conflict resolution is required which extends existing experience because of the extension of the scope of sustainability in time and space, compared to other issues in ongoing debates. This situation forms a formidable challenge for all societal groups.

28This has considerable consequences, amongst others, for the role of the humanities and for the need for further research. Obviously, deficits of knowledge about the relationship between humankind and the environment have to be filled, systemic relationships of the human economic system have to be investigated, the foreseeable effects of societal-political interventions in even more complex cause-and-effect relationships have to be studied, modelled, and simulated, in order to make forecasts about the potential success of measures under the aspect of sustainability possible. All of this knowledge, which can often only be provided by integrative modelling, is indispensable for a policy of sustainability.

29But – and the deliberations on sustainability conflicts and how to manage them point to this insight – this alone is not enough. Many, if not the majority, of the sustainability conflicts on the various levels mentioned cannot be decided naturalistically (cf. part 3.1). They much rather require an open societal discussion, informed by the sciences and the humanities. As soon as it is a question of conflicts based on divergent conceptions of humanity, plans for the future, and ideas of a good society, ethics as well as the social and the political sciences are called for (on the level of negotiations) to contribute to successful and peaceable conflict management.

30Conflict management on the levels of the sustainability discussion can itself be understood as a process oriented on the imperative of sustainability. The instrumental rules of sustainability (cf. Kopfmüller et al. 2001, chap. 6) show that demands for self-organization, reflectiveness, and the balance of power have consequences for the manner in which the corresponding conflicts should be settled (these rules are obviously far removed from any sort of naturalism). Sustainability’s demands for equal opportunity and participation are in this respect also not inconsequential.

31In sum, the following requirements for the formulation of a culturalistic concept for the management of sustainability conflicts follow out of the above discussion:

• Conflict management has to be carried out in a participative and discursive manner, in keeping with the corresponding provisions of the Rio documents. This requirement forms an inseparable component of sustainability.
• In accordance with the instrumental rules of sustainability, the appropriate instrumental and political frameworks have to be established for this purpose. Especially, this leads to the requirement that societal processes of decision-making have to ensure that enough time and resources are available to the effect that careful reflection ex ante is possible and that there are opportunities to feed the results of that reflection back into the decision-making process.
• Negotiation of the conflicts has to be informed by comprehensive knowledge of the consequences (e. g., of the foreseeable effects of unsustainable developments, of the implementation of measures, or of societal transformation, and be based on knowledge. This implies an important role for the sciences and humanities.
• In normative respects, they also have to be oriented on ethical advice (e. g., with regard to responsibility for the future, justice, and distributive problems): the co-operation between philosophical ethics, the social sciences dealing empirically with conflict management, and extra-scientific actors in the field becomes more important.
• Input from and engagement by the various societal groups is indispensable. Especially the world religions are obliged to bring their experience concerning humankind and history into such conflict-solving processes.

32These requirements indicate the dimensions of the challenges – challenges to societal communication and to the societal dialogue as well as to its comprehensive, interdisciplinary scientific support, which extends from research on natural systems and anthropogenic influences on them to ethics and conflict research.