On Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bangladesh (Goal 12)

On Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Bangladesh (Goal 12)

Md. Amzad Hossain

Perth, Western Australia

Email: A.Hossain@curtin.edu.au

Consumption wisdom

Scriptural - Eat to live, not live to eat 

Gandhi - The less you have, the more you are

Sustainability accounting - The Earth has enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed

Schumacher - Small is beautiful

Prelude

Goal 12. “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.” Interpreting the term ‘patterns’ is the key word for understanding and achieving this goal. This discourse interprets ‘patterns’ as the overlapping terms notions, tools and models. The notions and tools for achieving sustainable consumption and productions as stated in the target areas do not focus on any ‘models’ that can be adopted and practiced. This discourse provides notion of patterns or models for people to follow and practice in order to achieve Goal 12.  

This discourse reveals a few simple notions that can generate positive results in consumption and production patterns in order to encounter the Western capitalism that generates greed for profiteering through increasing production. The patterns are inherently traditional. But, they currently suffer from the aggression of western production-driven consumption patterns i.e. consumerism. Thus, revitalization of the traditional patterns is imperative for achieving Goal 12 in Bangladesh, even globally. For functional conceptualization of the revitalization, the proposed models exist in traditionally sustained folklore, proverbs, wisdom, religio-spiritual dos and don’ts, and the contemporary definition of sustainable development.  The models are appropriate for regulating the sustainable scale of production for revitalizing traditional consumption culture in the geo-environmental, carrying capacity and  cultural contexts of Bangladesh.  

            Once the culture of sustainable consumption can be re-established, the issue of sustainable production would automatically follow. The Goal has 11 target areas to address sustainable consumption and production patterns or models that can take care of zero waste generation in the act of both consumption and production. Taking care of chemical use (12.4) is an important aspect of Goal 12. Goal 12b is another aspect to help develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism which creates jobs, promotes local culture and products

What is understood by ‘consumption’ in general?

Consumption is the habitual action of using up a resource for eating, and meeting other needs and wants in people’s day to day living. Besides sustainable survival needs, human habits of consumption is a physio-cultural phenomena. On the other hand ‘culture’ is also dynamically linked to ‘wisdom for consumption’ and culture of consumption regulates “our relationship with the sacredness of life, nature and the universe” (King, 2008).

In the context of Bangladesh, its traditional consumption culture is inherently at the core of not only achieving the SDGs in rural Bangladesh, but also in re-shaping the way we view the world and the opportunities for living sustainably in terms of upholding the sustainability of bio-systems: soil, water, air and biodiversity.

What is consumption for, in general?

 To survive, be content, and stay happy.

What is the science, philosophy and religion behind eating?

            Eat to live, not live to eat; the less you eat, the longer you live.

What is the difference between needs and wants?

Needs are limited while wants unlimited. Consumption for meeting (basic) needs is aligned with the principles and practices of sustainable development and hence, only need based consumption is sustainable for achieving SDG 12. On the other hand, as wants are inherently expansible, so meeting wants essentially require increasing consumerism leading to overconsumption – yet remaining unfulfilled.

What is wrong with consumerism or overconsumption?

Consumption of commodities must correspond to their respective production and thus, overconsumption must lead to production by over-exploiting resources. Natural resources such as water, land and biodiversity, and their carrying and regenerative capacities are finite, so consumerism or overconsumption can lead to degradation, depletion, even total exhaustion or extinction in the case of biodiversity. Gandhi says: the Earth has enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed.

What comes first – consumption or production?

Healthy and waste-neutral consumption comes first – to be followed by need based production. This notion applies particularly in the non-populous resource rich countries. On the other hand, ecologically sustainable and waste neutral production comes first – to be followed by resource scarce populous countries such as Bangladesh. In the case of Bangladesh ‘Cut your coat according to your cloth’ must be followed in terms of simple lifestyle, modest consumption patterns in accordance with Scriptural eating culture and resilience – ‘Eat to live, not live to eat’.

            Presently, production comes first to create consumerism (wants and greed) to market targeted production for sale. To sell the increased produces, it needs such marketing that can generate expanding wants or greed for consumerism amongst people (Hossain et al., 2017; Hossain and Marinova, 2013; Hossain et al., 2007).

What is the latent cultural issue behind the urge for achieving SDG 12?

            The issue of innovating a global human culture of sustainable production for waste neutral consumption of finite natural resources on which humans and all other living beings on earth are wholly dependent.

Does the issue of climate change apply in the sphere of consumption and production?

Clearly ‘yes’. The fundamental driving force behind climate change is the unsustainable material consumption of people. Growing material consumption characterizes national and international economic systems, and business models. Thus, an associated addiction to unnecessary material consumption are among the most important sources of global environmental problems, climate change especially. During the 20th century, the world’s population increased by six times, from one billion to six billion people while consumption of fossil fuel increased by 16 times. One of the biggest contributions of new consumers to climate change is their growing consumption of meat, especially that from grain-fed livestock (Harris, 2013).

What is the outcome of marketing consumerism?

A symptom of created addiction towards consumption. Modern living means the consumption of vast quantities. In the mid 1990s, Americans daily consumed approximately 120 pounds of resources such as coal, oil, metals, stone, and cement …. This statistics do not include the even larger, perhaps tenfold, quantities of wastes resulting from the production of these resources. Nor it includes the air and water used to produce the stuff they consume. Almost 700 gallons of water are required to put a cheeseburger on the table. If all 6 billion people on the planet consumed the amount of nonrenewable resources at the rate of the average American does, about four Earths would be required to provide enough farmland and forests to support us.

One obvious implication of such high level of consumption is that the burden placed on the Earth’s ecosystem continue to grow and threatened to cause unpredictable consequences.

In an interview British psychologist Oliver James said that “we have become addicted to having rather than being and confusing our needs with our wants” (Ehrenfeld, 2008).

What is production?

Production encompasses the processes and methods used to transform tangible inputs (raw materials, semi-finished goods, subassemblies) and intangible inputs (ideas, information, knowledge) into goods or services. Resources are used in this process to create an output that is suitable for use or has exchange value.[i]

Is there any link between Consumption and production?

SDG 12 implies that sustainable consumption patterns must determine production patterns in terms of ecological footprint, not the other way around. Thus, consumption must be determined on the basis of sustainable production footprint. Generally, sustainable production and consumption can be defined as production and use of products and services in a manner that is socially beneficial, economically viable and environmentally benign over their whole life cycle. In other words, cut you coat according to your cloth.

Who threatens the planet by promoting overconsumption?

Western culture is the origin of the culture of overconsumption trend, and therefore, leads to a global culture of excess and is emerging as the biggest threat to the planet.

Higher levels of consumption can affect the environment and, in the long run, limit economic activity. As a matter of fact, higher levels of consumption require larger inputs of energy and material to produce and therefore generates a high volume of waste products. It also increases the extraction and exploitation of natural resources (Taylor, 2014).

What is more unsustainable - overconsumption or overpopulation?

Overconsumption is more challenging to sustainability than population. Consumption requires production and production requires useage of energy which produces carbon dioxide i.e. increases carbon footprint. Perhaps the largest aggregate impact that human have on the biosphere is their carbon footprint, which has grown more than tenfold since 1960. The United States and China have the largest total national  carbon footprints, with China emitting 27 percent of global carbon emissions, followed by the United States 14 percent….India accounts for about 9 percent of global CO2 emissions, and its national carbon footprint is the third largest, but its per capita footprint is only about 1.6 tons per person (Chasek et al 2017).

What is the relationship between ecological footprint and consumerism?

The ecological footprint of an individual is a measure of the amount of land required to provide for all their resource requirements plus the amount of vegetated land to absorb all their carbon dioxide emissions (Appleton, 2014).

            In 1961, the human demand for resources was 70% of earth’s ability to regenerate. By the 1980s it was equal to the annual supply of resources, and since the 1990s, it has exceeded the earth’s capacity by 20%: now humanity is eating the Earth’s natural capital” (Wackermagel et al., 2002).

The ecological footprint of all humans of course is not the same. In fact, not only is corporate driven consumerism eating into the earth’s capital, it is eating into the poor’s share of the earth’s capital for subsistence and survival. This is at the root of resource conflicts across the developing world. An equitable footprint is 1.7 ha/person. The average for the USA is 10.3 ha of land per person  to provide for their consumption and absorb their waste. For the UK it is 5.2 ha, for Japan 4.3 ha, for Germany 5.3 ha, for China 1.2 ha, for India 0.8 ha, and for Bangladsh 0.47 ha (Chasek et al., 2017).

Can people have a high-quality lifestyle while minimizing their consumption footprint?

Yes. There is little evidence that the increasing wealth and consumption have resulted in greater happiness for those people whose needs are already met. Social surveys of happiness show the opposite: by seeking wealth and possessions, people end up short changing family life and health, in the process reducing their happiness. Having more money and possessions often adds to stress and takes time away from enjoyable aspects of life (Harris, 2013).

What practice can be adopted to reduce consumption?

            The practice of observing sustainability accounting principles can optimize individual consumption patterns. On the other hand, the admiration of the philosophy of sustainability accounting in major aspects of consumption for healthy survival and wellbeing  can result in triggering sustainable production patterns.

What is the practical philosophy behind sustainability accounting?

Sustainability accounting is a spiritual as well as values driven tool, which can be used for regulating consumption and production patterns. Hossain et al. (2016) affirm that sustainability accounting should be recognized as the sustainable tool for a country’s economic, environmental and social performance on its own rights.  The traditional sustainability accounting sheds light what sustainable development means for the rural masses of Bangladesh. It also explains how the country’s spiritual leaders guide people away from self-indulgence, and ecological, social and economic destruction.

How is sustainability accounting linked to consumption and production patterns in Bangladesh?

            The sustainability of Bangladesh largely depends on its natural resource base and conservation of ecological stock. Hence the age-long practice of sustainability accounting for maintaining the culture of self-reliance, simple living and ecological conservation is integrally linked to consumption and production patterns. The Baul philosophers of Bangladesh play an important role in upholding people’s socio-spiritual resilience through sustainability accounting practices for sustainable living with optimization of finite natural resource use. Sustainability accounting is the most evolved form of accounting in the exchange between people and nature (Elkington, 1993).

What are the prominent notions in traditional sustainability accounting?

Traditional sustainability accounting is armed with moral tools such as simplicity, modest living, resilience and self-reliance. It has been practiced by the rural population of Bangladesh for centuries as a driving tool. Contained within the country’s teaching of the path of sustainability (physical and spiritual) is guidance for the entire range of human life – social, political, economic and environmental. Viewed from this perspective, traditional sustainability accounting is a synergy of all values and a way to address every sustainability circumstance.

Traditional sustainability accounting is inherent in the Islamic beliefs and practices, which are widely practiced by the rural populace of Bangladesh under the guidance of Baul Fakirs and Sufi philosophers. It engages the practitioners in all-rounded efforts or struggle for improvement at an individual, social, economic and ecological level. Traditional sustainability accounting has both spiritual and material significance (Khan, 2016).

Finally, traditional sustainability accounting is a means of overcoming wrong-doings by humans in the course of pursuing satisfaction of materialistic needs, an outcome of desires in terms of food, housing and indulgence in materialism.            

How can simplicity, modest living, resilience and self-reliance regulate consumption and production patterns?

Each of the above sustainability values individually carries effectivity for making impacts on people’s day to day living. Simplicity, modest living and resilience combinedly lead to achieve self-reliance for an individual, society and nation; and all the four together synergistically can help generate long term holistic sustainability. The following exegeses elucidate them.

Simplicity

Simplicity is a manner of living that is outwardly very simple and inwardly very rich. People of simple lifestyle reflects the truth: ‘the less you have, the more you are’. Simplicity helps balance both inner and outer aspects of our lives. It is a deliberate choice to live with less in the belief that more of life will be returned to us in the natural process of rewarding. It enables us to ‘walk gently on earth’ (Quran 25:63). Thus, simplicity is utterly a paring back of the superficial aspects of our lives, for “There is beauty in simplicity” and “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”[ii]

Our world is profoundly changing. We have entered a great uncertainty that extends from local to global scale. We are forced by pressing circumstances to ask difficult questions about the way we live our lives:

Will my present way of life still be workable when my children grow up? How much income do I really require? Require for what? How much of my consumption adds to the clutter and complexity of my life rather than to my satisfaction? How does my level and pattern of consumption affect other people and the environment? Is there an alternative way of living that is more sustainable in an area of scarcity? In the face of scarcity, is there an alternative way of living that fosters cooperation and community rather than cutthroat competition and social fragmentation (Elgin,1981)? ‘Simplicity’ can be the answer to most of the questions. “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”[iii]

Modest living

Sustainability accounting precepts and practices encourage people to observe living with modest consumption. In rural Bangladesh, traditionally people live modestly by simply meeting their needs from nature in a calculative way without being over-exploiter and wasteful or hoarding wealth for profit (El Guindi 2003). This is very different from the situation in the West where environmental priorities are only now emerging as green consumerism with debates around responsibility and what can be done to trigger social change towards modesty and voluntary simplicity (Lorenzen 2014).

Gandhi expressed modest living and material possessions in the phrase: “The more I have, the less I am” (Joshi, 1993). By contrast, the western consumerist philosophy encourages material achievements devoid of the consideration for sustainability accounting. The Bauls are a big inspiration – they respect nature and live modestly in accordance with its limits. Mujtaba and Musavi (2000) explain that naturalists acquire wisdom for modest living from the manifestations of how every other species adapts to the natural conditions of life.

Following sustainability accounting, the people of rural Bangladesh look not only for what harvest the current season will bring but also how to sustain the productivity of the land for future yields. It is in this context that in recent years villagers have changed their practices away from the discredited methods of the Green Revolution and against planetary death (Shiva 2005). Small-scale and organic farming that supports biodiversity and does not exploit nature’s fertility beyond restoration are now preferred. Thus, modest consumption is the foundation for sustenance living economies (Shiva 2005).

The 2013 World Environment Day was observed in Bangladesh by the Institute of Environmental Science at Rajshahi University with the theme ‘Vebe chinte khai, opochoy komai (Do ponder for lessening waste when consuming). This slogan is intended to trigger rural eco-spirituality towards waste neutral lifestyle and modesty in consumption (Khan et al., 2016).

Resilience

Resilience refers to the ability to cope with unforeseen changes, shocks, surprises and hazardous disturbances, events or trends while still maintaining normal functioning, identity and structure as well as learning, adapting and transforming (IPCC 2014). It is a concept that applies across many fields of science and areas of life (Xu and Marinova 2013) but from a sustainability accounting point of view its economic, environmental and social dimensions are most important. How to withstand adversities is a question constantly addressed by the Baul philosophers as Bangladesh is naturally exposed to floods, cyclones, droughts and other weather calamities. They acknowledge all natural phenomena as inherently positive. The rural people in Bangladesh believe that nature does nothing in vain. Timely floods, droughts or cyclones represent Mother Nature‟s capability to refurbish and (re)generate the resource base, its resilience. The rural people in Bangladesh believe that nature does nothing in vain. Timely floods wash away dirt and germs, recharge the water table and fertilize the land; timely droughts produce bumper yields and energize the soils with nitrogen fixation. The Baul philosophers consider this as nature’s agent for renewal and regeneration of the Earth’s carrying capacity. Fluehr-Lobban (2004) argues that poverty due to famine, such as crop failure, is not for the sake of hardship but for managing the long-term sustainability of finite renewable resources. This view, largely supported by ordinary people, builds internal resilience. This is why global policy makers are now considering ‘edging toward’ the level of Third World country’s resilience in terms of simple lifestyle, moderate consumption, and low greenhouse gas emissions (Dauvergne, 2009). 

Self-reliance

           The goal of self-reliant living is a genuine independence within the available local bio-resources and biosystems with their integrity, stability and beauty preserved (Sterba 1998). It implies meeting basic needs by sustainable natural resources using biosystems or/and bio-friendly human innovated technological systems (Marinova et al. 2006). An example of this is the concept of ecological footprint – a sustainability accounting approach related to nature’s carrying capacity. It begins with a particular section of the landscape and asks what population this locality can support sustainably; it then calculates the current pressure on this area (Rees 2000). This is an attempt to measure human demand on the planet’s ecology based on self-reliance.

To live on one’s (i.e. individual’s, society’s or nation’s) own accord in the midst of changing natural conditions or environments including climatic abnormality is the central theme of self-reliance i.e. self-reliant living. Hence, the term ‘self-reliance’ is a flexible conceptual as well as a practical tool for human’s survival activity depending on natural conditions of a given place in a given time.  Likewise, ‘self-reliance or living self-reliantly’ is a condition that denotes ‘living sustainably on the edge of changing environment’.

           In rural Bangladesh such a lifestyle is also strongly supported by the Bauls. When living self-reliantly rural people take responsibility for the long-term health of the biosystems to which they belong and would not trade economic rewards at the cost of environmental and social degradation. Most importantly, self-reliance stimulates human creativity to develop methods and technologies which synergistically build resilience to ensure stability, control, competence and independence (Marinova et al. 2006).

           In the past, many rural and remote communities worldwide such as rural Bangladeshis and Australian Aboriginal communities were self-reliant in the sense that they survived entirely on their own sustainability culture. Bourke et al. (1998) maintain that “Aborigines did not exhaust the resources of an area because of their sustainability culture they had spiritual attachment to the land, a sense of bonding to the land.

How crucial is sustainability culture in achieving Goal 12?

Sustainability culture, which is just emerging, is a demand of the present age of degrading sustainability including climate change. Essentially, it appears that only sustainability culture can ensure achieving SDGs for it is both for acquisition and practices of those values that are basic for reviving some core-shared sustainability values such as simplicity, modest consumption, resilience and self-reliance in order to redress values negative secularism and unsustainable technological fix.

 With regards to sustainability culture, Hossain and Marinova (2009) observe that ‘naturalism’ is also an integral part of sustainability, for it teaches why humans should take care of nature’s sustainability first, and then share its produce with humans and other living beings. To the people of rural Bangladesh, the goal of life is living in agreement with nature. So, nature is to be venerated through paying respect while exploring nature for meeting human needs. For example, in order to show respect to nature – the rural Hindus and Muslims walk bare footed and also take their shoes off when they work in the field. They also perform diverse religious rituals bare footed in order to comprehend nature spiritually. Their co-existence with nature facilitates a better practice of sustainability culture depicted in terms of simplicity, modest living, resilience, self-reliance, sense of place and sense of belonging in the natural world (naturalism).

How to construct Sustainability Culture?

It could be done by transforming traditional values into sustainability culture.

In the past, religious moral codes such as submission, veneration, kindness, obedience, obligation, and (God’s) justice intrinsically regulated individuals and communities across the globe and in a particular country, and that was sustainable for thousands of years. It has been a different story at present. The world is now being largely dominated by the secular values such as mastery, control, power over things, homogeneity, and individual justice.

The ascending influence of the western techno-secular values such as manipulation, efficiency, controlling, domination etc. has severely weakened the spirituality intensive ecological values such as reverence (naturalism), responsibility, frugality (modesty), and eco-justice (especially, after the advent of globalization) resulting in degrading sustainability, globally (Skolimowski, 1993; Shiva, 1994). A study reveals that we would need at least four additional planets to provide the necessary resources and absorb the resulting wastes should everyone on earth tend to consume as much as the average American do. The study also finds that an excess consumption after certain basic needs are met cannot give happiness, rather the superfluous materialistic culture of the day is fostering epidemics of depression, stress, and insomnia (Environmental Careers Organisation, 2004).

Thus, the integration of the above core-shared values into mainstream formal and informal education can build people’s spirituality up and inspire them to live a lifestyle that is sustainable, secure and also benign to the natural environment and other people. Special care for values education for new sustainability culture would encourage practices that keep the global communities self-reliant, secured and sustainable, for values education is “an attempt on the part of individuals and society to transmit to the succeeding generations their accumulated store of the knowledge of arts, values, customs and their ideals of life as a whole as well as their experiences in various fields which should help the younger generation in carrying on their activities of life effectively and successfully” (Ahmed, 1990). Tourism could also be a means for understanding the natural and social environment in Bangladesh in order for connecting our knowledge with our concerns about nature, ecology and other people.

Why SDG 12b refers to ‘tourism’ stating “develop and implement tools to monitor sustainable development impacts for sustainable tourism which creates jobs, promotes local culture and products?”

Throughout this discourse it is argued that a culture of sustainable consumption and production patterns are the life support tools for global sustainability; and sustainable accounting as practiced in rural Bangladesh depict the showcase. Thus, tourism to SDGs Model sites for experiencing the sustainability culture is part of SDG 12. It is notable here that every SDGs Model project in Bangladesh has tourism aspect as a major activity and income source. In other words, the global community is increasingly looking for communities with the spiritual knowledge and values to tackle climate challenge, in particular.

The SDGs related tourism can promote such a tourism that does not affect their respective local culture as well as their traditional mainstream culture. SDGs related tourism is a travel for the purpose of learning about cultures or aspects of cultures including cultural wisdom (Sloan, 2013).

            SDG12 related sustainability tourism needs to be developed in order to underpin sustainability culture. Sustainability tourism can be defined as a new form of pilgrimage tourism where folkloric cultures including diverse types of folk wisdom, folk songs, lifestyles, religiosity, eco-spiritual ecstasy and pro-sustainability folk values are depicted at the SDGs model project sites in Bangladesh. The hidden tourism potential of Bangladesh in terms of achieving SDGs is yet to be discovered and explored. Among other eco-spiritual aesthetics in and around the SDGs pilgrimage sites, the Baul-Fakirs are at the centre of attraction for their extraordinary poetic, musical and charismatic performances.

The western visiting tourists who lack the rudimentary comprehension of sustainable lifestyle are evidently benefited with understanding, acquiring and experiencing the sustainability values and practices such as eco-spirituality and frugality for living a self-reliant lifestyle at the SDGs model project sites. They can also acquire spiritual skill for a retreat from their unsustainable consumerism driven wasteful lifestyle.

Concluding remarks

Every culture on the planet has local tradition, knowledge and wisdom that can inform people about sustainable consumption and production. Bangladesh, a melting pot of many religions, ethnicities and cultures, is renowned for its deep spiritual base tradition. Local knowledge, wisdom, proverbs and beliefs all play significant roles in the lives of people, especially for most rural people who are not formally educated. Disseminated through rural elders, religious leaders and the singing Baul philosophers form the basis for understanding the synergies of sustainability including sustainable consumption and production patterns.

In order to address SDG12, this discourse identifies four principles for sustainable consumption patterns which represent the mainstream reporting on economic, environmental and social performance from a completely new angle. The practice of simplicity, modest living, resilience and self-reliance shed light on what sustainable development means for the rural masses and how the country’s spiritual leaders steer people away from overconsumption that can lead to ecological, social and economic destruction. In these times of global challenges, the synergies embedded in the new sustainability accounting principles (simplicity, modesty, resilience and self-reliance) also holds a lot of potential and promise regarding sustainable consumption and production patterns in achieving SDG12.

 (to be continued)

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