The workshop “Histories of Sustainability in Europe: Discourses and Practices Before and After 1989 ” was part of the project “Histories of Sustainability – Discourses and Practices since the 1970s”, funded by the Leibniz Association and run by the Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin (Elke Seefried) in cooperation with the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe, Marburg (Christian Lotz) and the University of Augsburg (Marita Krauss, Jens Soentgen).
The word "sustainability" started its wider usage career in the 1970s with the documents and conferences prepared by the United Nations. Just in a few decades, “sustainability concept” became a buzzword with its meaning being vague and very much dependent on the context. Therefore, the core aim of the workshop was to focus on the immense transformation of the sustainability discourse from its roots in forestry to the usage in almost every field of human activity nowadays. What exactly did various actors and their policies mean when using the word "sustainability" in particular European cases in the second half of the 20th century? How were discourses and practises of sustainability influenced by political and social transformations in Eastern and Western Europe after 1989?
In her introduction to the workshop, Elke Seefried emphasised the economisation of the sustainability concept in the mid-1990s. Therefore, according to her it is interesting to research the changing meanings of sustainability and the reasons why this concept became so popular. In her keynote address, MELANIE ARNDT (Regensburg) analysed the so-called new era of ecology (Joachim Radkau). She looked at the shift of how nuclear energy was perceived before and after the Chernobyl disaster. Firstly regarded as ecologically clean, after 1986 nuclear power started to be highly debatable. However, although the Chernobyl catastrophe fostered international cooperation in discussing safety and ecological issues, it took longer for environmental awareness to change. Chernobyl also increased the gap between environmentalists and others, especially in Eastern Europe where confidence in technology was high. Arndt also asked what has changed and what has remained in the new era of ecology.
The presentation of FELIX LIEB (Munich) focused on the German Social Democratic Party’s (SPD) concepts of sustainability from the 1980s. In West Germany, social democratic concepts of environmental policy played a crucial role in the establishment of the connection between ecology and economy. Firstly, it was done through the term “qualitative growth” which, after the Rio conference in 1992, was replaced by “sustainable development”. However, in contrast to the term “qualitative growth”, the perception of the term “sustainability” led to an internationalisation of the SPD’s ecological concepts. However, the very sustainability concept was not developed by the SPD party itself and was chosen mainly because of its popularity.
YULIA KARPOVA (Budapest) drew attention to the visual aspect of sustainability. Based on the example of the Soviet recycling system, she looked at how design and aesthetics were used as means to promote environmentally conscious consumption during Leonid Brezhnev’s rule. Leningrad designers proposed to create environmentally responsible citizen communities through friendly, comprehensible and even festive material structures. However, as Karpova noticed, while Western proponents of sustainable design in the 1980s addressed the catastrophic consequences of a full-blown consumerism, the Leningrad designers targeted the irresponsible attitudes stemming from the challenges of the growing socialist urban culture and retail infrastructure.
Meanwhile RONALD PLANTINGA (Groningen) shifted the focus on sustainability from Soviet Russia to the Friesland province in the Netherlands. There, the regional dairy sector development has been facing two main challenges of productivity and sustainability. For a number of years, the regional government tried to combine elements from both productivity and sustainability paradigms and to emphasise “economic sustainability” as a policy goal. Unfortunately, as Plantinga argued, these efforts remain problematic because ecological sustainability is still negatively affected.
The Map slam gave a chance to analyse and discuss how environmental problems are depicted in different cartographical sources. The group work dealt with maps showing water pollution in socialist Poland, radioactivity and nuclear tourism in Chernobyl, as well as with topographic maps of the 1920s, 1950s and 1990s depicting environmental transformations such as drainage or deforestation. These sources triggered discussions on what is and what is not included in the maps and how differently similar environmental issues can be visualised.
The second day of the workshop began with the lecture of SABINA KUBEKĖ (Marburg) on environmental sustainability in socialist Poland. The period from the 1970s until the beginning of the 1990s, a period of censorship and martial law, featured mostly inefficient environmental legislation in Poland, a subordination of environmental goals to economic policies and limited sustainability discourse. This left the issues of environment and sustainability to be discussed mainly in the circles of scientists up until the second half of the 1980s.
ISABEL SCHRICKEL (Lüneburg) analysed the scientific approach to sustainability by focusing on the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). IIASA has been established as a nongovernmental, international think tank in 1972 in Laxenburg, Austria, and among others worked on global environmental challenges. The first IIASA works including the word “sustainability” appeared in the beginning of the 1980s; before, as Schrikel noticed, the the term “resilience” had been used. In the works of IIASA scientists, the notions of energy, ecology, agriculture, demographic development, and even the role of science and science policy were closely related to sustainability.
JACOB NUHN (Bremen) provided interesting insights into the developments of urban spaces during the transformation of socialist states. Specifically, by comparing local cycling initiatives in (post)socialist Dresden and Wrocław, he showed how a shift of a bicycle from a vehicle for children or backward villagers to a healthy and eco-friendly means of transport could be placed into a broader discourse of sustainability. Nuhn explained how cycle-advocacy groups influenced traffic planning with a more bicycle-friendly infrastructure through organising cyclists, lobbying, providing expertise, and monitoring.
TRACIE WILSON (Halle/Saale) also looked at the local contexts of sustainability discourse and analysed the role of language in discussing sustainability. She explained how the term was used among environmental activists in Bielsko-Biała and its problematic translation into Polish. Wilson put great emphasis on the fact that translations of terms across languages and cultures are often challenging as we struggle to capture fine nuances and make them relevant to audiences in other contexts. This is particularly pertinent with regard to the terms of sustainability and sustainable development, as Wilson showed in her examples.
Meanwhile, KAREN FROITZHEIM (Augsburg) proposed another – corporative – perspective on economic sustainability. She analysed annual reports of British (Marks & Spencer) and German (Otto Group) companies in the 1990s and looked at the ecological and social understandings of sustainability they presented. She asked why the concept of sustainability became so influential to companies and their corporate social responsibility strategies and whether sustainability was only one part of the public relations strategies or a true strategic focus.
In the last presentation, EVA OBERLOSKAMP (Munich) discussed different understandings of sustainable energy and how the ideas of liberalised energy markets and sustainable energy are correlated. According to Oberloskamp, although these parallel processes emerged independently from each other and were promoted by rather distinct actor groups, certain similar discursive structures rooted in “neoliberal” thinking patterns can be noticed. Based on the example of Germany in the 1990s, she suggested that the far-reaching dominance of economic mindsets contributed to the undermined roles of alternative solutions to sustainable energy suggested by non-economic and social actors
The final discussion of the workshop evolved around the question of how to talk about and analyse sustainability and sustainable development in instances where the term is not being used and asked what is not included in the discourse of sustainability. In addition, concerns were raised about this opaque term and about the question whether it has a future, and it was asked if it is possible to come up with a new definition of sustainability.
Conference overview:
Elke Seefried (Munich), Christian Lotz (Marburg): Introduction and welcome
Keynote Lecture
Melanie Arndt (Regensburg): A “new era of ecology” in East and West, 1986-1992
Presentations and Discussion
Felix Lieb (Munich): From “qualitative growth” to “sustainable development”: German Social Democratic concepts of sustainability and the economisation of environmental policy 1983-1995
Yulia Karpova (Budapest): Sustainability visualised and materialised: design project for the Soviet recycling system, 1981-1985
Ronald Plantinga (Groningen): The sustainability challenge in a regional agricultural context. The case of the Frisian dairy sector, 1990-2018
Map Slam
Christian Lotz, Paul Grünler: Cartographic sources on environmental issues
Presentations and Discussion
Sabina Kubekė (Marburg): Poland and the international environmental cooperation during the 1970s and 1980s
Isabell Schrickel (Lüneburg): A computational approach to explore the discursive landscapes of sustainability at IIASA
Jacob Nuhn (Bremen): Biking to sustainability: local cycling initiatives in (post)socialist Dresden and Wrocław, 1980-2000
Tracie Wilson (Halle/Saale): The problematic nature of sustainability among environmental activists in Bielsko-Biała
Karen Froitzheim (Augsburg): The development of economic sustainability: a corporate perspective in Germany and Great Britain
Eva Oberloskamp (Munich): “Sustainable energy” and the liberalisation of energy markets: discursive conjunctions in Germany during the 1990s