Sustainability

what are we talking about?

Abstract

In Portuguese, different things are contemplated in the concept of sustainable development. The discussion about development raised critical questions about its impossibility, given the inherent structure of capitalism and the inequalities that sustain it. With the sustainable qualifier, which should be the solution to problems caused by the search for development at any cost, becomes an immense contradiction. Advertising, governments, companies appropriate this term with the intention of disseminating a public image of actors committed to such development. However, often, their spokespersons speak, for example, in sustainable exploration of nature, something expressly impossible. If there is exploitation, it cannot be sustainable. These actors are aware of this. Writing an article to clarify the subject is timely. And I think, mainly, of students, researchers, social actors who are truly unaware of the nuances and criticisms existing in the current debate. Who find themselves confused, as one day I was when I started studying on the subject. After bibliographical research, I gathered six models of sustainable development based on economic-theoretical-instrumental-technological rationality, neoliberal environmental economy and development geopolitics, critically analysing them: rhetorical sustainability; to the previous one, another model with the addition of cultural and neuroplastic 'improvements'; the neocapitalist; of natural capitalism; the green economy; and ecosocialism. All of them are contradictory, though quite widespread. In opposition, under the so-called environmental rationality, I compiled the contributions of six cosmologies and two models of sustainability, long practiced, although they are not contemplated from this perspective: Zen Buddhism; Taoism; Confucianism; African philosophies (highlight for ontological category of ubuntu); Sufism; the philosophies of well-being; bioeconomy and ecodevelopment; and the solidarity economy. Following Enrique Leff, I use only the noun sustainability to differentiate it from sustainable development, evidencing the commitment to other values that are not contemplated by the economic concept. And breaking through, whenever possible, with the negative connotations that the name development brings with it. In the end, I believe I have elucidated and demystified what such sustainability is.