Redclift Sustainable Development Summary

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Redclift’s 2005 article, Sustainable Development (1987-2005): An Oxymoron Comes of Age, discusses the inability to develop in a sustainable way. The articles focuses on several different factors, ideas, and discussions that have affected the discourse of sustainable development. One focal point of this article is the Corporate Response to Sustainable Development. Corporations’ have had to deal with a growing public conscious to become more ‘green’ and ecologically friendly. These attempts do little improve the environment and fail to solve systematic issues.
One of Redclift’s claims is corporate attempts for sustainable development may not solve environmental problems as effectively as advocates believe. He offers three pieces of reasoning to support this claim. First, Corporations were encouraged to self-regulate themselves in the 1980s (Redclift 216). This idea led to ‘ecological modernization,’ which is the utilization of modern and clean technologies by businesses to grow their
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These programs do not solve the root issues of environmental degradation as well as failing to work on the surface. Corporations could be using these certification programs to take advantage and profit off of green-minded consumers, which would demonstrate their failure even more. This topic would be interesting for further inquiry. Furthermore, corporations can gain favor with some citizens and politicians in countries because of the financial benefits it can provide resulting in a lack of enforcement and desire for strict environmental standards in some countries. In conclusion, corporate attempts to become more sustainable have been quite fruitless and sustainable development may not be the best solution to solve the environmental problems the world

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