RESEARCH What is Sustainability – Seeking a Definition (Part 1) by Terry Cummins, OAM, Ph.D., CEO, Terrence Cummins International Business Coaching & Consultancy
Without being too academic, in this article, the first of a series on sustain- ability, I review the key academic and grey literature relevant to the concept and what it means for elements of the dive industry. Clearly an understanding of what sustainability actually means is essential if we truly want to see recre- ational scuba diving and our industry overall, enjoy long- term sustainability (LTS). To do this we must first review the academic literature (e.g. seek-out the brain trust/fact seekers) which includes exam- ining material in academic journals, books by academic pub- lishers and government reports all of which have undergone significant peer review. We also need to review the grey lit- erature which includes newspaper articles and non-academic chronicles such as those found in dive publications. The re- spective features of both these forms of literature gives us important insights to sustainability concepts and the key contributing factors that are essential for us in the dive in- dustry to understand. The concept of sustainability is not new! We can track sus- tainable development and sustainable tourism concepts back to the World Commission on Environmental Development and the ‘Brundtland Report’ of 1987 on the global environ-
ment and economic development. From that report, Butler (1993), cited several key principals of sustainability including the idea and importance of holistic planning and strategy making, the importance of preserving essential ecological processes, the need to protect human heritage and biodiver- sity and the need to develop in such a way that productivity can be sustained over the long-term. Some researchers contended that the term “sustainable development” came into use in policy circles after the re- port’s publication and led directly to the term passing into government policy discourse and our everyday language. Meanwhile, and for a bit of reality check, Daly (1986), pro- posed that ‘sustainable development’ is an oxymoron since when development takes place, everything changes. This provoked much discussion amongst academics and tourism stakeholders as to what weight should be attached to both the benefits of development and LTS. Another very significant contribution to the literature was made by Elkington (1994) when he introduced the com- bined effects of a ‘Triple Bottom Line’ (TBL) on sustainable development where economic value is added to by environ- mental and social values while also acknowledging the role of governance. Several researchers, including myself (in a diving context), have added to the Triple Bottom Line with the identification of additional major factors impacting LTS
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