An African philosophical perspective on barriers to the current discourse on sustainability

Abstract

Since the publication of the Report of the Brundtland Commission, Our Common Future, the idea that the “triple bottom line” can cohere harmoniously to yield progressive rates of GDP growth, and a sustainable stock and welfare of the resources of Earth's ecosystems has been rigorously challenged.1 These challenges have triggered theoretical refinements of the assumptions and conclusions of Our Common Future and strategies for the achievement of sustainability. My paper wonders whether the dominant traits of such refinements and strategies have succeeded in discarding the burdens of the triple bottom line and defends two theses; that the notion of “sustainable development” as deployed in Western developmental ethics is potentially incoherent in that it is premised on the pursuit of conflicting goals, viz., economic growth and environmental protection; and that when deployed in the African context in particular, the concept has little practical purchase given its lack of engagement with indigenous values conceptions. Consequently, I propose some African normative perspectives as viable basis for further refinement of the conceptual tool kits of sustainability into a notion that has broader global resonance and uptake.