Beyond an absolving role for sustainable development: Assessing consumption as a basis for sustainable societies

Three decades after the launch of sustainable development as a key objective for the global community, the unsustainable exploitation of the planet's species, spaces and systems continues. This paper examines this failure by discussing the strategy of control over nature, and the idea of balance between human endeavour and nature, inherent in the term sustainable. The relevance of such ecological balance is assessed by comparing how consumption typically appears in modern human societies versus nature. This presents traits of the human actor which depart significantly from the traits of actors in typified natural settings, from which ideas of ecological balance are taken. Calling for an alternative framing of the relationship between human society and nature, possible adaptation towards a biological understanding of such a relationship is discussed through features of today's consumption, including its connection to needs, the role of labour, and the use of energy and technology.