An Essay on

”IS ECONOMIC GROWTH INCOMPATIBLE WITH

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT”

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Introduction
A mindset is required for keeping a balance between unbounded economic growth and its
implications on sustainability. Russian biogeologist Vladimir Vernadsky first came to realise the
mutual interdependence between earth’s structure and the life of humanity, in his book “The
Biosphere “in 1926 (Vernadsky, Yanshin and Salisbury, 2018). Although at that time, his Eureka
seemed too far-fetched, but in the present day, humans are incredibly dependent on the resources
of the earth such as water, oxygen, and other natural elements albeit a strong connection between
economy and the earth is not exist. Coward and Maguire (2020) opined that the reason could be
our failure to gauge the mutuality in the face of our desire to acquire the utmost happiness
through materialism and economic growth.

Economic Growth and Sustainable Development

As per Barro and Sala-i-Martin (2021), economic growth is defined as the enhancement of the
real income of people which means the proportionate ratio of people’s income and the price of
the products for which they ate paying is increasing. It also means good sand service becomes
profuse and people are less poor (Barro and Sala-i-Martin, 2021). The factors of economic
growth include land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship (Wan, 2021). Sustainable development
can be linked to sustainability. Sustainable development refers to the development which will
meet present requirements without sacrificing the future (Redclift, 2021). The motto of
sustainable development is always to preserve and conserve our earth’s resources.

According to Tovey (2021), the debate regarding current sustainability is centered on the
acceptance of contemporary systems of capitalism. The problem is that, when humanity
contemplates economic growth, they are less likely to re-evaluate what humanity is achieving as
a society and whether it is concomitant with helping sustainability. For this reason, economic
growth is incompatible with sustainable development and the consequence is iterative changes
centred on solutions to multidimensional conundrums from resource and water scarcity to loss of
biodiversity. The advancement towards economic growth is welcomed as it will create a
foundation for the future but on the flip side, there is little consideration towards sustainability
so, as result, we are, metaphorically, fiddling while ancient Rome is burning (Alier, 2021).
Morita, Takatsuka and Yamamoto (2022) asserted that the negative sign of incompatibility of

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economic growth and sustainable development are there including changes in the weather
pattern, increasing debt levels, price hikes for foods and most importantly, increased gaps
between the poor and the rich, from South to North. These issues seem in isolation but they are
connected with the concept of sustainability as an alternative to corporate social responsibility.
With sustainability, the issue of environmental, social, ethical and economic issues is intertwined
and that’s the reason for bringing systems-based change in economic growth to link with
sustainability.

Humanity has gone through many ups and downs. According to George Monbiot (2022), the
author of the “Feral, The Age of Consent and Out of the Wreckage”, in the name of economic
growth, the world has done more damage to the planet and its living ecosystem, than what we
intend to achieve in the next 1000 years. He also added that, continues economic growth in the
UK did a little favor to a certain few (George Monbiot, 2022). The impact of economic growth
on sustainable development is mammoth and they are inevitable. Maintaining economic growth
while maintaining sustainability is a farfetched dream, especially in this age of materialism,
where most the growth schemes are centered on earning money and weighing the pockets of
capitalists. With economic growth, here comes high consumption of non-renewable resources,
global warming, increased level of pollution, and potential living conundrum with environmental
habitat (Gillard and Laudine, 2020). All of these are intertwined with sustainable development
and without their protection of them, sustainable development is not possible. Gillard and
Laudine (2020) stated that renewable resources can even become unsustainable if it used at a
faster rate than their regeneration. Besides, non-renewable resources can be sustainable if it is
used sustainably. But, as economic growth leads to the increased consumption level of both non-
renewable and renewable and resources, sustainable development seems unrealistic.

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A classic trade-off between economic growth and sustainable development can be illustrated
through the given figure:

Figure 1: Classic relationship between economic growth and sustainable development

Source: (Pettinger, 2022)

The PPF curve illustrating the relationship between non-renewable resources and the level of
consumption. Due to the increase in consumption due to economic growth, the cost hinted
toward a lower level of non-renewable resources which eventually leads to unsustainable
development. For instance, the rapidity of economic growth globally over the last century led to
reduction in the profusion of earth resources i.e. forests (trees were cut down due to Agricultural
demand or for getting wood) (Pettinger, 2022). All these lead to the development for a certain
period and becomes unsustainable in the coming years because the nature earth will be in danger
within a few years.

There are numerous external costs to economic growth such as pollution and increased amount
of carbon emissions (Amornkitvikai, Harvie and Karcharnubarn, 2022). Besides, there is also
increased use of fossil fuels which reduces the quality of air, for instance, London smog’s in the
year of 1950s. Considering the pollution, smog’s are an obvious danger that the world has
already faced but the effects of carbon dioxide emissions are less obvious which leads to less

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incentives taken by policymakers. Scientists stated that, with the increasing pace of economic
growth, global warming is also increasing which makes the environment for the future more
volatile (Amornkitvikai, Harvie and Karcharnubarn, 2022). All of the consequence is a glaring
concern that economic growth has long term negative impacts on sustainability not only for the
present circumstances but also for the future generations. The below figure shows the CO2
emissions per capita.

Figure 2: CO2 emissions per capita

Source: (Pettinger, 2022)

The above figure is showing a rise of 66% in per capita pollution from the year of 1960 to 2014.
The rate of Carbon emissions is also on the increasing trend with the recent rise is estimated at
above 5 per cent. As per Coper and Andy (2022), the era from 1960 to 2014 saw an era of
economic prosperity and despite the advancement of technology, the carbon emissions per capita
increasing cannot be possible to be avoided. A developing country which has experienced
massive economic growth during the era of 1960 to 2014, is the major player in emitting the bulk
amount of carbon. The top Carbon emitting counties are China with emissions of 7.38 tons, the
USA with 15.52 metric tons and Russia with 11.44 metric tons (Coper and Andy, 2022).

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 Figure 3: Highest CO2 emissions per capita by country.

Source: (Dong and Zhao, 2020)

Economic growth not only facilitates environmental unsustainability in the developed country
only. Some of the developing countries also experienced economic growth and their
development is not sustainable also due to their unsustainable attempts towards development
(Wan, 2021). For instance, Bangladesh also experienced economic growth from the year 2012 to
2018 and the country’s GDP during that time rose from 6.52 to 8.15 per cent (Trading
Economics, 2022). But the CO2 emissions per capita also increased substantially during this
period. A chart showing below the increase of CO2 emissions per capita in Bangladesh from
2012 to 2018;

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 0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Figure 4: CO2 emissions per capita of Bangladesh from 2012 to 2018.

Source: (Trading Economics, 2022)

Economic growth creates a loss for biodiversity which disturbs the ecological Systems of natural
habitats (Lewis, 2021). Besides, economic growth generates numerous toxins and waste which
can cause unknown consequences for the future. For instance, due to economic growth, a lot of
plastic accumulated in the environment cannot be disposed of. This has led to the increasing
amount of plastic both in the oceans and in the environment, that is harmful to sustainability and
also corrosive to the wildlife living in the wild. Several theories look at the incompatibility of
economic growth with sustainable development. The first to be mentioned is the limit theory,
which states that economic growth will eventually harm the environment and spoil the ultimate
target of sustainable development (Lewis, 2021). It cannot be possible to optimize both without
extensive long-term planning and strategy formulation.

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 Figure 5: Theories linked between economic growth and sustainable development

Source: (Baker, 2021).

Another theory, New toxics and Davidson further stated with a more non-optimistic approach
that, economic growth will lead to an increased amount of waste & toxins but this issue is
overturned because other severe issues damaging the environment eventually make it impossible
to focus (Steyn and Rao, 2020). Thus, economic growth leads to the destruction of future
economic sustainable development. The race to the bottom theory stated that the concern for
sustainability may not have been evaluated at the beginning. When the situation becoming to get
worse, although, the concern given at that moment is not adequate to prevent environmental
degradation and focus on sustainable development (Baker, 2021). Thus, the world goes on the
path of sustainable destruction.

However, economic growth can contribute to sustainable development, if the process of

economic growth undertakes to keep in mind sustainability. To make economic growth
compatible with sustainable development, a shift from non-renewable to renewable energies is
required. This will lead to the path of sustainable development. The report also suggested that the
price of renewable energy is getting cheaper (Baker, 2021). As economic growth has an external
cost, the price should be paid in terms of the carbon tax. This will foster efficient social and
environmental outcome and provide necessary steps to foster economic growth while minimizing
costs. It is not impossible to get a car running with electricity rather than petrol. Some companies
are also taking Initiatives to replace petrol-based cars with charge-based cars. Tesla is one of the
pioneers of electric cars. The numerous technological developments can lead to greater

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efficiency both in economics and sustainable development outcomes. Economic growth should
not only target GDP for measuring growth because it doesn’t represent the total picture of a
country’s economic growth. Anielski (2021) opined that wider range of factors could be included
such as living standards of people, environmental indicators, genuine progress indicators (GPI)
etc. This will provide a broader and more accurate picture of economic growth and sustainable
development target can be achievable within the intended timeframe.

Conclusion
Economic growth is important for a country and also from the global perspective due to the
advancement of technology and innovation. Economic growth presents many opportunities for
the respective countries and also for the whole world. But is it incompatible with sustainable
development because, in times of achieving economic growth, sustainability has to be sacrificed
for getting a competitive advantage. If sustainable development is not achieved, then the future
will be volatile and there will be no value for today’s economic growth. That is why, economic
growth should be concomitant with sustainable development so that future generations enjoy a
world of happiness with a greener environment, biodiversity and a healthy ecosystem.

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References
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Amornkitvikai, Y., Harvie, C. and Karcharnubarn, R., 2022. The impact of demographic
structure, human capital, migration and environmental degradation on economic growth. Journal
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Anielski, M., 2021. Alberta sustainability trends. Drayton Valley, Alta.: Pembina Institute for
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Baker, S., 2021. Sustainable development. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Barro, R. and Sala-i-Martin, X., 2021. Economic growth.

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Dong, Y. and Zhao, T., 2020. Difference analysis of the relationship between household per
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