Environmental activism has traditionally been concerned with "preventing harm", particularly the harm that is associated with the side effects of social and economic activities. The solutions it advocates tend to be prohibitory: close down this, stop that, don’t do the other. In some cases, these are indeed the only viable courses of action – particularly in the face of lethargic government agencies, recalcitrant industries and entrenched interests. More often, simple alternatives are possible that reduce the negative impacts without losing many of the economic benefits.

Promoters of the concept of sustainable development seek, on the other hand, to optimise more broadly the outcomes of economic activities by maximising their benefits and minimising their costs, both in the here and now and for the future. Instead of merely reacting to the actions of others so as to prevent harm, their efforts are directed proactively to "do good". Sustainable development needs, however, more complex solutions than those offered by environmental activists. It usually requires a different set of technologies, institutional mechanisms and decision systems that lead to better overall results for all. Distributional issues further complicate the calculations: who gets the benefits and who pays the costs? Often a truly sustainable path needs a fundamental redesign of development choices – often involving hard social and economic decisions.

At the third end, actors such as government and business whose interests are vested in continuing the status quo resist the notion that there is any harm to be prevented or that there is any "societal good" that they are not already committed to producing. These are, of course the dominant forces of society and their resistance to change is the key to preventing the creation of a more socially just, environmentally sound and economically efficient society. Where it becomes difficult to deny the possibility that the existing course is not the best of all possible courses, they politely accept the need for change but subtly undermine it. Non-implementation of such a change is usually blamed by everyone on "lack of political will" a catchall term that is entirely without meaning.

Sustainable development needs a holistic understanding of how the issues of economics, environment and society interact. For example, locking the solution for any economic/environmental problem in to a single technology or mechanism entails its own problems – of uncertainty, risk and the creation of new vested interests. Particularly when the technology is unfamiliar or unestablished in the local economy. In principle, simplistic solutions to existing problems can be expected to end up by creating even bigger problems, often with longer gestation periods and higher financial costs. Well known examples include DDT, the miracle insecticide and the freons (the chloro-fluoro-carbons), the miracle chemical compounds that made cheap refrigeration and air conditioning possible. Decades later, use of these substances – widely spread throughout the global economy – had to be prohibited for destruction of biodiversity and as the causes of global warming.

Another source of sub optimal outcomes is the mixing up of the functions of government, where the judiciary is doing the work of the executive, the executive is doing the work of the legislature and the legislature is doing no work at all. Given the massive breakdown in our body politic, it is understandable that some vacuum-filling has to take place, but we cannot expect the results to be perfect.

A third problem comes from compartmentalisation of governance, decision making and even of thinking: looking at the economic, environmental and social issues separately and in isolation and basing decisions on only one or some of these. Just as environment is fundamentally important for the health of our citizens, so is the economy for providing livelihoods and fulfilling basic needs. The economics of infrastructural investments is quite as important as the human ecology of reducing pollution: nowhere, for example, are entire bus fleets bought in one year: they have to be phased in so they can be phased out 15 years later in an orderly manner.

The recent chaos on the roads of India’s capital, Delhi, highlights many of the basic differences between environmental activism and sustainable development. Polluting industries had to be translocated and public transport vehicles had to be converted to use compressed natural gas (CNG). The process has impacted the lives of virtually every citizen of Delhi and has, for several days, immobilised a large number of people, causing economic and rebound environmental damages far exceeding normal breakdown of city services.

Given the past record of the State and Central governments, one can only applaud the Supreme Court in setting deadlines and trying to enforce them. Nevertheless, one must recognise that in the long term, the proper responsibility for setting the basic principles and making the societal trade offs between benefits and costs are the domain of the legislature and the responsibility for regulating and ensuring compliance is the domain of the executive branch of government. Perhaps because neither the legislature nor the government has performed its duties, the Courts have found it necessary to carry out functions that are really not theirs to do. One can rationalise this, but only at the expense of ensuring sub-optimal outcomes for everyone.  q