Conversation with prof. dr hab. Jacek Zaucha
Faculty of Economics, Department of Macroeconomics
Taking into account both your scientific achievements and your personal experience and views, how do you understand sustainable development?
Basically, sustainable development is a concept that has existed for many years and is widely discussed in the literature. The essence of the concept of sustainable development is to pay attention to three dimensions of development: the social dimension, the ecological dimension and the economic dimension, some also talk about the cultural or political dimensions, but in general, this is not the subject or axis of the dispute. The axis of the dispute is how to combine these dimensions and which of them should be given priority. And here the discussion really concerns whether we have so-called hard or soft sustainability. But in general, in my opinion, the problem is that this concept seems to have arisen from the appreciation of natural values, the value of natural capital. Hence, we often associate it with the ecological approach, but if we take it literally, i.e. talking about these three dimensions, each of them is important, especially the social dimension, which, in my opinion, is not fully appreciated. Narrowing the discussion to this economics-environment dichotomy impoverishes the entire discussion a bit. There is such a thing as eco-development. I think that this concept adequately describes the issue of ecology, but for me, sustainable development is an attempt to harmoniously combine the three dimensions of development in accordance with the adopted hierarchy of values in a given society. It will look slightly different in each of them, because in societies where basic needs aren’t met, it may turn out that strictly economic development is necessary for the society to mature to pro-ecological thinking or thinking about social inclusion. Please note that in many societies, even in those where thoughts about the need for an ecological approach are common, it’s most difficult to understand the meaning and importance of the social dimension of sustainable development, which is very important. If we imagine the trajectory of the entire system heading towards social catastrophe, then both environmental protection and the best economic development will lead us nowhere at this point. The result will be such stratifications and conflicts that won’t allow us to continue our development.
Thank you very much for this definition, which is particularly relevant to me because it points to the problem of inequality. How does the concept of sustainable development manifest itself in your activities – teaching and working with students?
At the very beginning, when I started working at the University of Gdańsk as a student, I started working with Professor Toczyski. Then, in our [economics] faculty, in the 1980s and 1990s, we built the Sopot School of Social Economy, or in fact social policy. It was our main area of research, although we didn’t define them as sustainable development, but, for example, the issues of growth limits were very relevant to us. Later, our discipline of economics evolved. At the moment, in my opinion, social considerations or threads are missing. Of course, there are people dealing with sustainable development, but in the economic context, e.g. transport. Transport is an area in which ecological, rather than social, issues play an important role. However, my research went towards so-called spatial and public economics. While completing a two-year fellowship at Princeton University in the early 1990s, I encountered these issues. When I returned to Poland, I offered a lecture on the functioning of public choice in economics, which is used in the analysis of public decision-making, i.e. how the state influences the economy, how the state provides public goods, and what the tax system looks like. When talking about the goals that the state or public authority or public administration pursues, I take into account economic, ecological and social issues. The models used in economics are not able to fully take this into account, so I show that if we adopt mainstream economics, we will have elements of economic growth, but the Pareto optimum is different from the social optimum. The latter is defined differently and is based on a certain system of values.
I used the concept of sustainable development to its fullest extent in maritime spatial planning. The issues of sustainable development are crucial because when making spatial allocation we make very specific decisions that affect all three dimensions of sustainable development. The Polish legislation and legal acts clearly define what obligations we have towards the natural environment, e.g. Natura 2000 areas and reserves. We know that reefs are valuable, for example, because they contain biodiversity, but almost no research is carried out on the social part. Please note that when it comes to the social aspect, in the EU dimension we most often talk about bringing down unemployment or reducing income differences between people, i.e. the Gini coefficient, employment rate, unemployment rate – these are typical indicators of the social dimension. However, in the context of the sea, it isn’t applicable at all, because there are no people at sea, so if there are no people, these indicators can’t be used. I must say that I’m very happy because this year “Ocean and Coastal Management” published a study in which I participated together with the planning team of the Maritime Institute, trying to define the social dimension of sustainable development in the context of spatial planning at sea, i.e. spatial allocation at sea. We tried to answer the question of what the social aspect means and what it is, what it looks like in the literature, what the research gaps are, and I think this is my best contribution to the discussion on sustainable development from the scientific side.
As I understand it, the social aspect of marine spatial planning concerns the community that lives in the coastal region and uses the goods of this place, but also the intangible values that human contact with the sea brings.
Yes. In our research, in addition to regulatory activities, we take into account social aspects. A very interesting conclusion that can be drawn from the research is, e.g. the fact those entities that are listed in legal acts and have specific tasks in the planning process, e.g. local governments and ports, have a better bargaining position. However, the problem is to capture ordinary people who have a relationship with the sea and how to encourage them when they don’t think that they are able to influence government decisions… This is also happening. My colleague Doctor Joanna Piwowarczyk from the Polish Academy of Sciences deals with this.
Citizen does not know that it can have an impact.
Even if they come to consultations, they see an enormous plan and enormous interests and have an impression that their presence won’t matter much. We are aware that it is burdensome, people engage their own time in it and don’t have a full sense of agency, hence the great difficulty in taking into account ordinary people’s social interests towards the sea when planning maritime space. Mrs. Magdalena Matczak from the Maritime Institute of the Maritime University of Gdynia, the guru of maritime planning in Poland, has many interesting thoughts on this subject.
Thank you very much. Professor, in what direction should the university develop, and what actions could it take to develop in line with the spirit of sustainable development?
First of all, abandoning the point-based system of assessing scientists would be the basis for sustainable development. Currently, the system works against the integration of disciplines and the creation of intergenerational teams within the University… At least in the social sciences. For example, if I publish an article on sustainable development with someone from my department (e.g. a specialist in the ecological dimension of sustainable development), the points will be divided by the number of authors. If I do it with someone from outside, I will get all the points. This is not conducive to working with young people. It’s often the case that instead of considering who to carry out the study with and what kind of research, the final decisions are made on the basis of points.