Chapter Eight - Interpretations of social sustainability in UK food policy: The pliable pillar
Introduction
The task of achieving sustainability in all human endeavors—in other words the need to find a sustainable form of development—has been described as many things, including rubric, vision, philosophy, goal, movement, mandate and marketing ploy (Kates et al., 2005; Larsen, 2009), but represents “above all a crisis of governance” (Adger and Jordan, 2009): (i) Since the idea entered “policy circles” (Redclift, 2005: 212), after the publication of Our Common Future, the seminal report of the United Nations (UN) World Commission on the Environment and Development (WCED, 1987), policy makers at all levels have seen the need to accommodate it in their agendas. With its roots in pre-existing and often contradictory programmes for, on one hand, economic development and, on the other, environmental protection, Sustainable Development emerged as a fissiparous concept most often characterized as having three elements or “pillars”: environmental, economic and social. It has been widely observed that this tripartite formulation can be counterproductive, re-fragmenting what was intended to be a unifying policy (WCED, 1987) and leading to competitive or distracting trade-offs (Leach et al., 2010; Prudham, 2009; Redclift, 1987, Redclift, 2000). Nevertheless, the three pillars remain ubiquitous in discussions of sustainability and Sustainable Development: it has become commonplace for governance actors in many contexts to refer to and attempt to implement all three of them. This paper traces the emergence and interpretation of the social “pillar” of sustainability in one area of UK public policy, namely food policy, from the time of its emergence until 2015, which is the period for which data was collected.
Despite widespread insistence on its centrality to sustainability, the social dimension has been both the least studied and the most diversely defined, found to be vague, over-inclusive and hard to measure (Sharpe, 2016). Although some consensus has emerged around definitions, the concept is still seen to be dynamic and “fuzzy” (Bostrom and Klintman, 2014: 85). Summing up in 2013, Dempsey defined social sustainability as:
A nebulous term that has conceptual overlaps with numerous other terms: social capital, cohesion, solidarity, order and integration, to name a few. It is also considered an umbrella term, encompassing a wide and diverse range of factors or dimensions including education, mental and physical health, personal safety, access to services, facilities and resources, a sense of community, a sense of place attachment, poverty, human rights, social equity, participation and social exclusion.
(Dempsey, 2013: 1089).
Importantly, social sustainability has come to be seen as encompassing both substantive and procedural aspects. It is concerned both with the desired social outcomes of transitions to sustainability, such as adequate food or health; and with the desired social processes by which these outcomes are to be achieved and maintained, for example, through transparent and democratic procedures (Agyeman and Evans, 2004; Bostrom, 2012; Dillard et al., 2009). Equity, in both outcomes and procedures, is often cited as a key social element of sustainability, for both moral and instrumental reasons (Meadows et al., 1974; SDC, 2011). Crucially, these social outcomes must be achieved while simultaneously meeting environmental objectives—an aspiration for “green social policy” (Bostrom, 2012: 3–4).
Given that food is fundamental to health and wellbeing, and is inextricably entangled in questions of inequality and resource access, it is not surprising that the social dimension of sustainability has seemed relevant to food scholars and policymakers. “Sustainable food” has long been seen to comprise social elements, though these have been contested (Alkon and Agyeman, 2011; Allen, 1993; DuPuis and Goodman, 2005). From the wide array of substantive and procedural attributes associated with social sustainability in relation to food, a summary would include: food safety, adequacy, quality and affordability; the nutritional quality of food; the availability and quality of paid work in the food supply; the quality of relationships among participants in the food supply; the welfare of farm animals; fairness in the distribution both of access to food and the impacts of the food supply; notions of responsibility and accountability; and the importance of engagement as the prerequisite and enabler of sustainable innovation in food production and consumption.
The remainder of this paper examines how UK food policy engaged with the concept of social sustainability. It does so by looking first at how wider public policy for sustainability in the UK tackled the social “pillar” and then by looking at how these evolving interpretations were transposed into food policy. The study is based on a close analysis of publically available policy documents from the period. The data were gathered as part of a larger investigation of meanings and implementations of social sustainability in the UK industrial food supply (Sharpe, 2016).
Section snippets
A new policy concern emerges: 1994–2005
Sustainability policy in the UK grafted environmental policy onto pre-existing policies for economic growth and social welfare. Awareness of the adverse environmental effects of industrial activity and intensive agriculture led to an expanding body of environmental policy during the 1980s, consolidated in the Environmental Protection Act of 1990, and set out more fully in a 1990 environmental White Paper. This provided the UK's first definition of Sustainable Development: “Living on the earth's
Social sustainability in UK food policy
As Sustainable Development took root as a policy concern, it was gradually and unevenly incorporated into sectoral policy in several areas, including food. As with public policy more widely, this led to a variety of formulations of the social pillar.
A patchwork of policy measures
Thus, by, 2015, it seemed that policy-makers were divided over what constituted a sustainable food supply. What had seemed in 2010 to be a reasonable consensus around scope and actions had disintegrated. Social sustainability had no clear, settled meaning in food policy, and seemed to be in danger if being “defined out” of food sustainability discourse, as the latter concentrated on clean, resource-efficient production of increasing quantities of food.
Contributing to this ambiguity was the fact
Concluding comments
This paper has shown how food policy in the UK was adapted to take account of the emerging policy challenge of sustainability, which was usually accepted as having environmental, economic and social “pillars.” Once Sustainable Development had been recognized as a policy problem at the global level, where it had been championed by the UN (WCED, 1987), the UK became one of the first states to produce a national strategy (HMG, 1994). The prominence of sustainability in public policy (including
Rosalind Sharpe is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London.
David Barling is Professor of Food Policy and Security at the University of Hertfordshire.
References (93)
- et al.
Should we go ‘home’ to eat?: towards a reflexive politics of localism
J. Rural. Stud.
(2005) - et al.
Sustainability: Exploring the process and outcomes of governance
- et al.
‘Just sustainability: the emerging discourse of environmental justice in Britain?
Geogr. J.
(2004) - et al.
Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class and Sustainability
(2011) Introduction: connecting the social and the ecological in sustainable agriculture
- et al.
The re-emergence of national food security on the United Kingdom's strategic policy agenda: sustainability challenges and the politics of the food supply
Groceries Supply Code of Practice Guidance
A missing pillar? Challenges in theorising and practicing social sustainability: introduction to the special issue
Sustain. Sci. pract. policy
(2012)- et al.
Dilemmas for standardisers of sustainable consumption
Food: An Analysis of the Issues
(2008)
Food Matters: Towards a Strategy for the 21st Century
The Groceries (Supply Chain Practices) Market Investigation Order
First Report of the Council of Food Policy Advisers
Indicators of Sustainable Development for the United Kingdom
The Strategy for Sustainable Farming and Food: Facing the Future
Achieving a Better Quality of Life: Review of Progress towards Sustainable Development. Government Annual Report
Sustainable Development Indicators in your Pocket
Sustainable Farming and Food Strategy: Forward Look
Food Industry Sustainability Strategy
Food Industry Sustainability Strategy: Final Regulatory Impact Assessment
Food Security and the UK: An Evidence and Analysis Paper
Ensuring the UK's Food Security in a Changing World: A Defra Discussion Paper
UK Food Security Detailed Assessment
Department for the Environment
Written Ministerial Statement on Defra's Arm's Length Bodies
Indicators for a Sustainable Food System
Department for the Environment
Embedding Sustainability at the Heart of Government: Press Release Announcing ‘Mainstreaming Sustainable Development
Mainstreaming Sustainable Development: The Government's Vision and What this Means in Practice
Business Plan 2012–2015
Abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board: IA no Defra 1462
Sustainable Development Indicators
Government Buying Standard for Food and Catering Services, Updated 2015
Single Departmental Plan 2015–2020
Local Quality of Life Counts: A Handbook for a Menu of Local Indicators for Sustainable Development
Achieving a Better Quality of Life: A Review of Progress towards Sustainable Development
The Public Health Responsibility Deal
Introduction
Review of research on the influences on personal wellbeing and applications to policy: final report for Defra
Research on the Relationship between Wellbeing and Sustainable Development: Final Report for Defra
Embedding Sustainable Development across Government, after the Secretary of State's Announcement on the Future of the Sustainable Development Commission
Sustainable Food: 11th Report of Session 2010–12
New Inquiry: The Government's Approach to Sustainable Development
Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems
Lancet
Skills for Sustainable Communities
The Future of Food and Farming: Challenges and Choices for Global Sustainability. Final Project Report
Cited by (1)
THE IMPACT OF FOOD CHOICES ON HUMAN AND ANIMAL RIGHTS PROTECTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
2020, Millenium: Journal of Education, Technologies, and Health
Rosalind Sharpe is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London.
David Barling is Professor of Food Policy and Security at the University of Hertfordshire.