Sustainability, Capabilities and Human Security

Andrew Crabtree is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Management, Society and Communications, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum have made major contributions to development studies and social philosophy, yet sustainability issues have largely remained outside their domain despite sustainability's significance and complex relation to their central value of freedom. This volume explores sustainability from a capabilities perspective, with the motif of human security, inviting a lively discussion within the human development family. After introducing the two approaches, authors conceptualize relationships between capabilities and the environment, examine the scientific and normative validity of environmental indicators and analyse intergenerational justice. Climate change is used to exemplify that a human security approach can add an explanatory ontology to the ethical criticisms of contemporary ways of life that champion consumerism. That ontology recognizes shared life experiences, problems and life challenges - a community of fate. The volume ends with a discussion of how the approaches can inform and sometimes critique the Sustainable Development Goals.

Evaluates the capability of humans to simultaneously develop and achieve sustainability

1. Capabilities, Human Security and the Centrality of Sustainability.- 2. Human Development and Strong Sustainability: A Mutual Dialogue.- 3. Sustainability Indicators, Ethics and Legitimate Freedoms.- 4. Sustaining Human Well-Being Across Time and Space: Sustainable Development, Justice and the Capability Approach.- 5. Where Are Criteria of Human Significance in Climate Change Assessment?.- 6. Human Development Thinking About Climate Change Requires a Human Rights Agenda and an Ontology of Shared Human Security.- 7. Conclusion: The Sustainable Development Goals and Capability and Human Security Analysis.