‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

SECTION E:

A FRAMEWORK 
FOR ECO-
GOVERNANCE 
AND 
MANAGEMENT

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13 
Constitution 
for Eco-
governance
 
From interest balancing 
to ethical frameworks
It has been argued that our decision systems and support tools do not suit the nature of sustainability 
issues. Common patterns were seen in development standards and criteria, rating tools, design 
methods, development assessment, auditing and reporting methods, futures tools, trading systems, 
and bioregional planning. Some recurring themes among these decision systems and tools are that 
they prioritize:
•
Choosing over design
• 
Efficiency over ecology
• 
Technical over ethical issues
• 
Mitigation over direct action
• 
Assessing future over ongoing impacts
• 
Incremental targets over affirmative actions
• 
Offsets over value-adding 
We have seen that sustainability is not just one among many optional values in a zero sum competition 
of ideas. A sustainable society will not happen unless it is achieved in a manner that makes everyone 
better off. This requires not only environmental quality, but opportunity for a diversity of responsible 
lifestyle choices and perpetual, secure access to the means of survival. In a context of diminishing 
political and social choice, substantive democracy will require greater respect for diversity and basic 
human rights, as well as acceptance of new responsibilities. This, in turn, requires a new form 
of development that improves the health and wellbeing of, and relationships between, human and 
natural systems, and eliminates the inequitable impacts and resource transfers that are embedded in 
existing
development. At the same time, any attempt to impose a particular belief system or set of 
values would be authoritarian and inconsistent with diversity. Thus, a 
constitution
of sustainability 
principles is proposed that couches ecological issues in terms of long-standing and widely-shared 
precepts of human rights and responsibilities, rather than in a particular ethic.

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220
Positive Development