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Project for an Alternative Future
Prosjekt Alternativ Framtid

Research and Information for Alternative Patterns of Production and Consumption

William M. Lafferty

The Project for an Alternative Future (PAF) is a government-financed program for research, documentation and information on problems related to ecology, peace and global solidarity. The project was established on an independent basis by the Norwegian parliament in 1982. The overall administrative responsibility for the project was, however, transferred to the Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities (NAVF) in 1989. With the consolidation of five separate councils into one Research Council of Norway (NFR) in 1993, the project was placed under the responsibility of the newly formed Section for Environment and Development. The project has an annual budget of approximately US $ 1 million, an in-house staff of 10-12 employees, and external contracts with 15-20 researchers and organisations. Its Governing Board is composed equally of members appointed by the Research Council and members representing 20 nongovernmental peace, environmental, religious and humanitarian organisations.

Research for an Alternative Future

The overall goals of the Project for an Alternative Future (PAF) may be summarised as follows:

To stimulate public interest and promote debate on alternative paths of social, economic and cultural development in Norway;
To relate the search for alternative futures to the goals and values of sustainable development, with special emphasis on racial, gender and global equality;
To stress the pursuit of peace, co-operation and solidarity rather than economic competition, ethnic differentiation and militarisation.

The guiding principles of the project can be described as a process of normative-empirical research combined with an integrated strategy for communication and debate. Through ³normative-empirical research², the project aims to combine an active concern for value-related goals with an ongoing commitment to objective research and documentation. The explicit values and goals of the project's mandate guide problem selection within an overall normative frame of reference. But it is the methods and techniques of balanced documentation and empirical research which provide knowledge as to how, where and when the values may be realised. It is important that values and ideals be subjected to normative analysis as well as empirical testing. But it is equally important that objectivity and academic discipline do not suppress the potential for transformative action and social change. The research process moves through dialectic turns whereby normative clarification and empirical documentation mutually strengthen the basis for practical action.

It is essential for the success of this strategy, however, that the research process be in constant touch with public dialogue and debate. It is an essential feature of the mandate for PAF that the goals of the project are to be reached through democratic processes. The knowledge produced by the project must, therefore, continually seek access to and recognition within the ongoing social, cultural, political and economic ³discourses². There are, at any one time, a relatively limited number of important debates or discourses which directly affect the course of future development, and it is the task of PAF to bring its knowledge and perspectives to bear on these communicative processes. Everything that is done in the project is conceived, therefore, in ³pedagogical² terms. The mediation of research and documentation is, if not the whole of ³the message², at least an increasingly vital part of successful communication in an era burdened by both ³media-overload² and ³info-glut². Whereas more traditional researchers often balk at the demands of ³popularisation², the staff of PAF view such demands as a necessary and challenging feature of the normative-empirical paradigm.

The Future as a Sustainable Global Society

The long-term goals of PAF were first enunciated in the original mandate given by the Norwegian Storting in 1982. These goals have since been modified to accommodate the administrative transfer of the project to the Research Council. The revised mandate from 1990 maintains, however, most of the original aspirations of the first period, with the one exception of PAF's role as an active participant in specific ³alternative² ventures or campaigns. The project does not, in other words, involve itself in economic or political activities which attempt to either realise alternative values in practice, or to directly influence relevant political decision. Though the project maintains fruitful contacts with (at present) 20 NGO's on a co-operative advisory basis, it does not itself become involved in the ad-hoc campaigns or lobbying efforts of these organisations.

Mainly this is due to a need for greater ³distance² with respect to research validity, but it also reflects changes in the NGO situation itself. Whereas PAF had an important, and relatively ³lonely², function as a ³meeting place² and informational resource for environmental and peace organisations in the early 1980's, these functions have largely been taken over by the NGO's themselves. Informational capacities have been greatly strengthened within the larger organisations, and the co-ordination and communication among NGO's has been aided by both the Joint Campaign for Environment and Development (Felleskampanjen for miljø og utvikling) and its successor organisation, The Forum for Development and Environment (as presented in the present booklet).

Perhaps the major change which has affected PAF's activity, however, is the tremendous growth in support, in Norway as well as internationally, for the goal of sustainable development. A close reading of the goals set down by PAF's original mandate (as listed below) together with the goals and values expressed in the path breaking report on Our Common Future (1987), reveals a clear commonalty. There are few, if any, aspects of the ³future² which PAF was designed to outline and propagate which are not outlined and forcefully propagated in the report from the Brundtland Commission. This means that, for practical research and informational purposes, the aspirations of the Project for an Alternative Future are to a large degree the same as the aspirations for Our Common Future. Sustainable development, and the more specific goals of a sustainable Norway within a sustainable global society, give clear and politically sanctioned expression to PAF's normative-empirical program.

This position is dependent on the following interpretation of the concept of sustainable development; an interpretation which PAF is in the process of developing into a more comprehensive set of normative-political guidelines.

The concept is seen as consisting of three major interrelated elements:

the carrying capacity of natural-resource bases within delimitable ecological ³niches²: local, national, regional and global;
a fair share of sustainable surpluses and sustainable productive activity, on both the national and global levels, for all members of living generations;
similar fair shares for the members of future generations.

The concept thus implies a normative interdependence between a dimension of ecological balance and a dimension of spatial and temporal justice. It is the opinion of PAF that the original expression of the sustainable ideal, as set forth in Our Common Future, contains the necessary elements for further developing the concept, and that these elements are equally valid and more necessary today than they were in 1987. The project also feels that the UNCED document, Agenda 21, makes a significant contribution toward the systematisation and specification of the core values and ideals of the concept. It thus becomes a major task of the project to clarify the internal ³trade-offs² (costs and benefits) among the different value elements, so to better convert the general ideals into value-optimising behaviours and policies. Once these are clarified - and many of the separate aspects of Agenda 21 have already achieved a high degree of consensus - the way is open for research and information designed to remove obstacles hindering the realisation of the goals.

Sustainable Consumption

As the other contributions to this report demonstrate - and as the Oslo Symposium on Sustainable Consump-tion Patterns (January 19-21, 1993) will surely bear witness to - the notion of ³sustainable consumption² as an integral part of sustainable development is clearly underdeveloped. Each of the contributions in this booklet points to different aspects of this neglect, and together they present a picture which reflects: (1) a considerable amount of moralising against the non-sustainable consumption patterns of the overdeveloped countries; (2) a growing body of descriptive information on the differences in consumption between North and South; (3) relatively few examples of specific actions or campaigns to change consumption patterns in Norway; and (4) very few examples of change-related research projects and/or results.

In the following, I will try to supplement this picture with information on the problem area from the point of view of PAF. By way of introduction to the project's own activities, I want to first present a brief overview of the Section for Environment and Development (Området for miljø og utvikling (MU)) within the Research Council of Norway. It is, I believe, under the auspices of this section that research on the conditions for sustainable consumption must be carried out. It is here that the basic elements of the concept of sustainability itself are reflected in a mandate and administrative structure which, on paper at least, bears the potential for producing the type of multidisciplinary knowledge requisite to the realisation of the ideal. Even though there are, as yet, very few projects (other than PAF) which directly address the problems of sustainable consumption, the goals and strategies of MU clearly point in the right direction.

Environment, Development - and Consumption

The new Section on Environment and Development within the NFR brings together for the first time a wide diversity of basic and applied research efforts from a number of different administrative domains. The Section has also recently undergone - in dialogue with the other five sections of NFR and strongly influenced by the section's own board of representatives from the academic, research, and ³user² communities - an internal process of self-reflective goal orientation so as to develop a set of basic principles, definitions, goals, strategies, etc. Of most central importance from the present point of view, are the introductory elements shown in the box on the next page.

Even though we do not find any explicit statement on production and consumption patterns in these formulations, we do find the concepts and values which point towards their implicit importance within the research orientation. ³Sustainable management of resources²; ³the cutting edge between considerations for the natural environment and societal processes of change²; the promotion of ³human dignity, quality of life and sustainable development²; and - most importantly from the perspective of interdependence - ³the interplay between people and environment, nationally and internationally² and the relationship between national economies at different levels of development.

The moral implications of a causal connection between over-consumption and under-consumption, between Northern ³wants² and Southern ³needs², is, to be sure, only implicit - but it is there nonetheless. Research on sustainable development cannot for long avoid this connection in either its empirical or moral manifestations, and since the signals from MU are that it does not wish to avoid it, the task remains of quickly moving the problem from the implicit to the explicit.

Here the fact that MU has also taken upon itself the role of ³central advisor² to three different ministries - Church, Education and Research, Environment, and Foreign Affairs - should provide the necessary policy-related impetus (not to mention the necessary funds) for making such a ³revelation² possible. A cursory inspection of the Section's project portfolio and budget for 1994 (as of November 1993), shows, however, that the enlightenment process still has a very long way to go. There are, in fact, no visible signs of consumption related research in the standard overviews of activity and finance. This does not mean, of course, that there is nothing of relevance being done within the different programs and projects, but it does provide a clear signal as to the salience of the problem area. Of the 82 million kroner allocated to ³programs² and the 47 million kroner allocated to ³projects², I find budget lines for no more than 13 million which might include research related to sustainable consumption. Subtracting PAF's own budget from this sum, and reasonably assuming that at most a quarter of the remaining funds might be related to the problem, we would have an activity level of roughly 2 million kroner or about 1.5 percent of the total program/project budget. Clearly, there is room for increasing both the visibility of and support for sustainable consumption within MU's domain.

Definitions
By ³environmental and developmental research² is meant:

Research which can contribute to strengthening the knowledge base for an effective policy of environmental protection and a sustainable policy of resource management.
Research devoted to the processes of societal change, including research relevant to an understanding of the cultural, social, economic, ecological, technological or political changes in the Third World, and which contribute to development.
Research which is directed towards the particular challenges to knowledge which arise at the cutting edge between considerations for the natural environment and processes of societal change.

Vision
The Section for Environment and Development aims to develop research-based knowledge which will promote human dignity, the quality of life and sustainable development.

Scope of Activity
The Section should initiate, co-ordinate, finance and propagate research on:

The external environment and the interplay between people and environment, both nationally and internationally.
Processes of development and change in developing countries and countries with transitional economies, as well as the relationship between these countries and the developed countries.

Sustainable Consumption as an Integral Part of the Project for an Alternative Future

That which to a large degree is lacking in the overall profile of environment-and-development research today, has, to an equally large degree, been a central feature of PAF's activity from the start. Perhaps the simplest way to illustrate this is to quote from the project's original mandate from 1982 (see separate box).

We see here numerous value expressions which would have to be included in any definition of ³sustainable consumption². Given the fact that the term ³sustainable consumption² was not popularised until very recently, we cannot say that PAF has been directly involved in such research. But considering further that the term ³consumption² is indexed only twice in Our Common Future (pp. 32-33), and that neither of them are related to the concept of sustainability, there is little to feel amiss over. On a general level, there can be no doubt that the basic values which we now try to infuse into the concept of ³sustainable consumption², have been the core values of PAF's ethos from the start. The project has always been more of a consumption-oriented organisation than either an environmental, peace, or solidarity organisation.

That this is so is due largely to a single inspirational influence: Erik Dammann. Dammann was, as previously mentioned, one of the principal architects behind the establishment of PAF in the early 1980's. He is, of course, most well known as the ³founding father² of the movement The Future in Our Hands (Framtiden i våre hender (FIVH)), which is presented elsewhere in this booklet. There can be little doubt, however, that Dammann's ideas have also strongly affected the early activities of the project.

Nor can there be any doubt that Dammann's written works are the single most important source for normative-empirical perspectives on the issue. From his first major work, ³The Future in Our Hands² (Dammann, 1972), until his most recent work, ³Money or Life² (Dammann, 1989), he has consistently and forcefully developed the ideas and values which we today seek in the concept of ³sustainable consumption². If anyone is entitled to a moral-intellectual claim on the essence of the concept, it is he. Long before authors like Alan Thein Durning (1993) were confronting us with the question ³How Much is Enough?², Dammann was not only hammering the point home intellectually, but organising large numbers of people in an attempt to answer it in a way which was both morally correct and pragmatically effective. That it has taken more than 20 years to mobilise the forces necessary for convening a top-level Symposium on Sustainable Consumption, is a strong indication of both Dammann's foresight and the political inertia of the system.

It is not only politicians who are slow movers when it comes to the sins of over-consumption, however. Dammann's influence within PAF has unfortunately been more abstract than concrete. Though it is possible to find traces of his values and ideas within the publications and reports of the project, there is much less than we have reason to expect. Partially this has to do with a choice of other normative priorities and project emphases, partially with the tremendous influence of the ³dig-up, clean-up, fix-up² aspect of the environmental movement. At a more fundamental level, however, the neglects of PAF here surely mirror the neglects of society in general during this period: Dammann's message and admonition to change is simply too threatening and personally costly for even ³the good guys² to take it seriously.

There has, however, been one major effort within PAF which has taken the consumption-and-lifestyle perspective seriously, and which has made a lasting contribution in both organisational technique and results, the subprogram entitled ³The Idea-Bank². The purpose of this project has been to develop a comprehensive archive of ³alternative² solutions to environmental and lifestyle problems. The information has been collected mainly from Scandinavia, but not exclusively so, and it has been catalogued and stored so as to be easily accessible through data-retrieval techniques. The Idea Bank is today a separate unit from PAF, operating as an informational service for anyone interested in alternative perspectives ³in practice². So as to indicate the potential of the Bank in relation to the problem of sustainable consumption, PAF, the Idea Bank, and the Western Norway Research Institute (Vestlandsforsk-ning) have come together to produce a separate ³catalogue² on the municipality as an agent for changed patterns of consumption (Hille et al., 1993). A Norwegian version of the catalogue will be presented shortly after the conclusion of the Symposium on sustainable Consumption, and an English-language version will be considered for a later date.

As for other PAF activities of direct relevance for the consumption problem, they can be presented under three headings which reflect the organisation of PAF's current research program: (1) An Alternative Economy, (2) An Alternative Politics, and (3) An Alternative Agenda.

The project shall try to develop a possible model for a future society where social goals and environmental and resource responsibility are given priority over material and economic standards. The model should, as far as possible, promote the following:

co-operation with developing countries so as to maximise the self-development of the under-privileged majority in these countries;
a society founded on ecological principles which aim to prevent an over-exploitation of natural resources and environmental damage, and which preserve the aesthetic, recreational and scientific values of nature;
a stable level of economic performance, founded on human and natural resources;
equal opportunities with respect to education, occupation and residence, and the security to retain both work and place of residence;
a distribution of income, property and employment which can secure equal access to social and material goods, creative expression, effective and universal participation in decisions affecting one¹s own working conditions, technology and production, as well as the development of one¹s own local environment;
complete gender equality;
freedom from unwanted attempts to influence the perception of needs and wants, and a greater priority for socially useful production;
transportation and communications which reduce noise, accidents and resource usage, and which guarantee equal rights for pedestrians, bicyclists, children and the elderly;
a lowest possible level of conflict in relations with other nations; a lowest possible potential for suffering the negative effects of international crisis situations; and a satisfactory defence with respect to both of these goals and preconditions.

(Mandat for utredning av ³Alternativ Framtid², 1982)

An Alternative Economy

It is within the subprogram for ³An Alternative Economy² that the most ambitious and most relevant work for sustainable consumption takes place. The program is at present divided into two sections, one which aims to transmit the perspectives and results of so-called ³ecological² or ³new² economics to the Norwegian public, and one which carries out original research of a ³green² nature within the general conceptual and methodological boundaries of ³established² economic planning. The border between the two is not always clear (nor should it be), but, on a relatively simplistic level, it can be said that whereas the purpose of the first section is to subordinate economics to ecology in the service of holistic normative theory, the purpose of the second is to translate ecological premises into the practical tools of economic policy-making.

The priority activity within the first section is the production of an anthology of ³new-economics² thought. This will take the form of a comprehensive ³reader² in Norwegian, aimed primarily at political opinion-makers and academic curricula. We are also planning the translation of several of the key texts in this area, primarily works of Hazel Henderson, Herman Daly, and a number of other women economists.

The activity within the second section is being carried out at a much higher level of both funding and activity. It is safe to say, I believe, that this subproject - under the name of ³A Project for a Sustainable Economy² (Prosjekt for en bærekraftig økonomi) - is the most comprehensive effort to date to introduce ³green² indicators and ³green² premises into the core activities of public economic analysis, modelling, and policy-making. The project arose as a co-operative venture between PAF and The Norwegian Society for the Conservation of Nature (Norges Naturvernforbund, NNV). At an early date, it was decided to engage the well-known Norwegian economist, Stein Hansen, to develop a project design which took its point of departure in the work carried out by the Ministry of Finance in preparing (every four years) a ³long-term plan² for the Norwegian economy.

The general idea was to prepare a project which could aid in the transition from a nonsustainable to a sustainable economy within a relatively short period of time (ca. 40 years). How might things be done differently on a concrete basis? Which premises would have to be changed? Which indicators would have to be introduced, dropped, supplemented in the standard models used for planning and budgeting? What would the overall costs and benefits of alternative approaches look like?

Given the scale of this project within PAF, as well as its ultimate relevance for the problem of sustainable consumption, I have asked the Project Manager, Stein Hansen, to prepare a separate overview of the project for this booklet. His report is appended below. We hope it will serve to make more people aware of the ideas and approaches being developed within the project. We are fully aware that the goals of the project are both ambitious and difficult to achieve within a relatively short time. We feel, however, that the design provides a solid point of departure for developing the perspectives and tools necessary for a more sustainable economy, and we hope that the project itself initiates a broad-based dialogue among economists and social scientists of all persuasions.

An Alternative Politics

This sub-program conducts research and documentation on the conditions hindering more effective political measures/policies for sustainable development and peace in Norway. The subprogram combines social-science survey techniques and institutional analysis of policy-making with normative analysis of the ethics and politics of sustainable development. The empirical emphasis is placed on: (1) descriptive analysis of the distribution of sustainable values in the population; (2) the relation between these values and other values and ideological elements; (3) the relationship between emerging and existing social movement; and (4) the vital role of NGO's in aggregating and converting alternative values into policy influence on both the national and international levels.

With respect to normative analysis, the focus is on: (1) the role of ideology in modern and post-modern societies; (2) the relationship between environmental demands and democratic processes; and (3) clarification of the conceptual basis as well as the normative and practical implications of the notion of ³sustainable development². As an extension of this latter work, the project will also carry out an initial evaluation of Norwegian governmental policy with respect to the goals and values expressed in Agenda 21.

Of most direct relevance for the issue of sustainable consumption here is the role of consumption values and preferences as one aspect of a sustainable-development value profile. The task is to determine who among the population are willing to change consumption patterns in line with the admonitions from political leaders. For there can be no doubt (as documented elsewhere in this booklet) that leading Norwegian politicians, including the current Prime Minister, are on record with clear moral demands for changed consumption patterns. If we are to become sustainable, we must, they say, consume both less and differently. We must be willing to make sacrifices for both a sustainable environment and a sustainable global economy.

PAF has responded to these admonitions by surveying the population on a broad number of relevant issues. One such issue was tapped by a survey question where a national sample of over 3,000 respondents was asked to choose between the following two statements:

A. ³Norway has gone too far in its attempt to control and tax production. A consideration for employment and international competitiveness should take priority over a consideration for a cleaner environment.²

B. ³Norway must maintain a leading position in the struggle for a cleaner environment. It is better to share work and reduce the standard of living than to abandon important environmental goals.² The results of the survey were that 56% chose alternative (A), 32% chose alternative (B) and 12% were ³undecided². At face value, these results are surely encouraging for the prospects of moving towards greater sustainability. Yet when the results were released to the media, the reaction was anything but positive in just those circles where we had expected support. In a radio debate between the undersigned and one of the Labour Party's most prominent spokesman on the environment, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg (previous State Secretary of the Environment and current Minister of Industry and Commerce), the results were not welcomed but problematised. Stoltenberg's reaction (which was later echoed by other politicians) was that we simply couldn't believe that a majority was really willing to reduce their own standard of living and share work rather than abandon the struggle for a cleaner environment. The same politicians who swear by opinion polls when they support their own parties and positions, were suddenly in a sceptical mood when it came to results which point towards support for sustainable policies. Instead of being grateful for a public which takes the moral dimension of sustainability seriously, the tone was suddenly one of politicising against the public.

This is but one example of the prospects and problems encountered in normative-empirical research in the area of sustainable consumption. It is a key part of the research/information process that such perspectives and such conflicts be promulgated as both public and academic discourse. The results of our surveys have already received broad media attention, and the first in-depth analyses have also been published in PAF's own journal Alternativ Framtid (³Alternative Future²) (see Seippel, 1993). We will in the future intensify our efforts to document the evaluative and motivational foundations for changed consumption patterns, and we believe that, in the long run, these results will contribute to political processes which will be increasingly difficult to discount. The prospect of realising ³an alternative politics² is directly dependent on both a better understanding of, and greater support for, patterns of sustainable personal consumption.

It can also be mentioned in this regard that PAF represents Norway (and, at present, the Nordic countries) in the emerging project for a ³Global Omnibus Environmental Survey² (GOES). The project is part of the much larger project on ³Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change² (HDP), which is one of three major basic-research projects under development on a global scale. (The other two are the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).) Both GOES and HDP will clearly produce and co-ordinate knowledge on a comparative global scale which will be of central importance for the problems of sustainable production and consumption. PAF will host a planning session for the GOES-team in May 1994, and it is hoped that the first of what will be a series of standardised surveys on environmental and lifestyle issues will be carried out in 15 to 20 nations, North and South as well as East and West, by 1996.

As for the broader HDP-program, Norway is here involved with direct funding from the Section on Environment and Development (NFR) and through research contacts at the Oslo-based Centre for International Climate and Energy Research (CICERO). The NFR has recently asked CICERO to prepare an overview of social-science relevant research for HDP in Norway, and this report should also serve as a point of departure for new co-ordinated efforts on production and consumption research. Both the HDP and GOES programs have had difficulties in securing adequate funding, but it is now thought that the Clinton-Gore administration in Washington may infuse new life into the programmes. If so, there could, in a relatively short time, be established research and documentation activities with global perspectives of vital importance for the production-consumption debate.

An Alternative Agenda

The subprogram for ³an alternative agenda² is both more comprehensive and more varied than the two previous programs. It aims to produce books, monographs, reports and articles on selected topics of relevance for the overall project goals. The underlying idea is to summarize and synthesize existing knowledge in each area so as to provide a basis for specific policy and action proposals. Current topics include: ³Media and the Environment², ³Media Strategies in the Communication of Conflict and Enemy-Images², ³Sustainability and the Rationality of Caring², ³Women and Development², ³Power and Dependency in the Pursuit of Sustainable Development², ³Norway's Role as a National Actor in Environment and Development Arenas², ³Ecological Farming and Sustainability², and ³The Municipality and Rural Community as Arenas for Sustainable Development². The majority of these projects are organised as either individual contracts or collaborative efforts with being carried out as either contract research in collaboration with external researchers, academic institutes, and voluntary organisations.

A project of particular relevance for sustainable consumption is a collaborative venture with Norway's leading movement for life-style change, The Future in Our Hands (Framtideni våre hender (FIVH)). The project aims to combine the research and documentation capacities of PAF with the mobilising potential and information network of FIVH. The core idea of the project - which is entitled ³Work, environment and sharing² - is that we are very close to, if not at, the limits of both what the environment can tolerate and what traditional economic growth can produce of additional full-time jobs and material consumption. It is the contention of the project that the standard notion of creating new jobs through increased consumer demand and investment is no longer viable (either theoretically or normatively), and that we must try to develop the conditions which make both job sharing and product/service sharing more desirable and feasible.

The logic of the project lies in a conviction that moral admonition to change lifestyles and consumption patterns is not enough. We must produce knowledge and information which point towards realisable solutions, solutions which recognise the importance of self-interested motivation at the same time that they demonstrate alternative paths of development where self-interest can be satisfied in a more sustainable way. The project has thus far produced two shorter reports on job-sharing and automobile-sharing (FIVH, 1993a and 1993b), and a larger report on job-sharing will appear in February 1994.

In connection with the two job-sharing reports, we have conducted national opinion polls on attitudes and preferences with regard to work. The results from the last survey, which was conducted in December 1993 with a sample of 3,000, show consistent high levels of willingness on the part of the population to reduce working hours, either with or without compensation, so as to create greater work opportunities for a larger number of people. More than 60% of those who now have jobs are willing to accept different combinations of reduced pay/reduced work, and a clear majority feels that the government should actively intervene to regulate the amount of overtime that should be allowed. These data are now being analysed in detail as to socio-economic background variables, branch, region, and political preference. They should provide a solid basis for what is clearly emerging as the central issue in the development of sustainable production patterns: the amount and distribution of work.

Finally, it should be mentioned in this context that PAF has previously made a basic contribution to the discussion of energy alternatives for the Scandinavian countries. Olav Benestad (1991) and a number of his colleagues have, in a report on ³Energy 2030: Low-Energy Scenarios for Denmark, Norway and Sweden², outlined basic energy parameters for the three countries and also tried to draw implications for consumer motivation for change. This report will be followed up in the near future with an overview of energy alternatives for Norway which places more direct emphasis on national energy policy within the context of sustainable values and the North-South linkage.

Alternative Information and Communication

Finally - and very briefly - it should again be pointed out that PAF conducts its research and documentation activities within an overall strategy of integrated communicative res-ponsibility. We have a commitment to ³get the message out² as effectively and broadly as possible. The project engages, therefore, in ongoing organisational development with regard to our informational and communicative tasks. Under the professional guidance of a separate Head of Information, the entire staff participates in the production and presentation of our books, monographs, reports, working papers and other informational activities. The project produces its own quarterly journal (Alternativ Framtid), issues a monthly newsletter, and tries to keep abreast of relevant international developments with an eye towards Norwegian translations.

The project is also in the process of establishing its own permanent connection to INTERNET, so that in the near future all staff members will be ³on-line² with respect to the numerous environment-and-development networks, bulletin-boards, and data-bases around the world. Given the necessary resources, we hope to develop PAF's IT-potential (Information Technology) into an information service for external users, primarily the NGO's which are members of the Forum for Environment and Development (ForUM), but also for other researchers, students and public officials who do not have easily accessible IT-channels.

Finally, it should be mentioned that PAF is engaged in: (1) a film project which aims to dramatise the North-South conflict as represented in the works of Erik Dammann (a co-operative venture with the Foundation ³Money or Life² and Yellow Cottage A.S.); (2) a short-story competition entitled ³Brave New World?² (in co-operation with Gyldendal Publishers); and (3) a new book series, ³The Alternative Library² (Det alternativ bibliotek), (in co-operation with the University Press of Norway (Universitetsforlaget)). All three of these activities contain materials and perspectives which will serve to place the issue of nonsustainable consumption more prominently and more firmly on the public agenda.

By way of a conclusion, let me emphasize two final points:

The purpose of this presentation is to indicate what PAF is engaged in within the area of sustainable production and consumption. We feel that we are doing something, but we know only too well that what we are doing is in no way sufficient. We too must look at our priorities in this light.

The Project for an Alternative Future receives public moneys to engage in critical research and debate on existing political, economic, social and cultural conditions. The political forces which have been responsible for PAF's existence from the outset, are, by and large, the same political forces which have shared responsibility for governing Norway since PAF was established. A majority within the Norwegian parliament has, in other words, taken responsibility for funding a project with a mandate to develop alternatives to official governmental policy. This too is a necessary - though highly unusual and thereby laudable - aspect of sustainable development.

References

Bennestad, Olav (1991). Energy 2030: Lavenergiscenarier for Danmark, Norge og Sverige (³Energy 2030: Low-Energy Scenarios for Denmark, Norway and Sweden²). Oslo: Project for an Alternative Future. FIVH (1993a). 6-timersdagen med delvis lønnskompensasjon: Et virkemiddel for syssel-setting, miljø og utjevning (³The 6-hour Day with Partial Wage-Compensation: A Possible Means to Employment, Environment and Equity²). By Steinar Johannessen and Tor Traasdahl. FIVH-rapport 6:93.

FIVH (1993b). Felleseie av personbil: Om internasjonale erfaringer og muligheter i Norge. (³Joint Ownership of Private Automobiles: On International Experiences and the Possibilities for Norway²). By John Hille. FIVH-rapport 9:93.

Dammann, Erik (1972). Framtiden i våre hender. Oslo: Gyldendal Forlag.

Dammann, Erik (1989). Pengene eller livet. Oslo: Dreyer Forlag.

Durning, Alan Thein (1993). How Much is Enough? The Consumer Society and the Future of the Earth. New York: W.W. Norton.

Hille, John: with Olav Kasin and Helena Nynæs (1993). Redusert forbruk - Kommunal handling:En idékatalog med eksempler fra Norden, Nederland og Tyskland. ("Reduced Consumption through Municipal Action: A Catalogue of Ideas with Examples from Norden, the Netherlands and Germany")

Seippel, Ørnulf (1993), ³Bærekraftige verdier². Alternativ Framtid. Nr. 4: 5-13.

Background

All governments have ambitious economic growth targets expressed in their national budgets and long-term strategic development programs. Thus far we have seen little in the way of either national or internationally co-ordinated action of a substantive nature which points towards that type of global development which all heads of state paid lip service to at UNCED in 1992. It appears as if everyone is waiting for their ³neighbour² to take the first step. No single nation is responsible beyond its borders, and no internationally accepted body exists that has been given the authority and power to choose the future path of development and enforce it.

During the preparatory phases for UNCED, Friends of the Earth of Norway (NNV) became increasingly aware of how dependent their lobbying activities were on the ability to communicate with economic planners with regard to the economic models being used for national long-term planning and budgeting. Independently and at the same time, the Project for an Alternative Futures (PAF) underwent managerial and organisational changes, and the new Director toyed with the idea of focusing the research program on more quantitative analyses of alternative futures centred around the concept of sustainable development. Shortly before UNCED, the heads of NNV and PAF got together and decided to launch a co-operative project addressing the scope for, and impacts of, sustainable-development requirements within Norway's long-term planning apparatus.

During UNCED, discussions between NNV and economic consultant Stein Hansen, who was a member of the Norwegian UNCED delegation, served to clarify a number of issues regarding a possible (and realistic) design for such a project. Following UNCED, an agreement was reached between PAF and NNV to prepare a specific project proposal and to seek financial support from a number of central funding agencies. Stein Hansen was contracted to head the project, assisted by PAF-economist, Ingeborg Rasmussen and NNV-economist, Pål Føyn Jespersen.

By early 1993, several agencies had declared their interest in the project - The Research Council of Norway, the Ministries of Finance and the Environment, and the ³Program Board² for research funds made available as part of the national ³Agricultrual Agreement² (Jordbruksavtalen) - and the project was officially launched as the ³Project for a Sustainable Economy². Though some scepticism was voiced as to the feasibility of such an ambitious and unusual undertaking, there also emerged a growing political acceptance of the need for an integral treatment of key sustainability issues along with a mutual and open dialogue across the conventional barriers between environmental NGOs and the governmental actors responsible for environment-and-development policy.

A series of presentations and clarifying meeting and seminars were arranged in the first half of 1993 to present the concept and design of the project to the political, research, and media communities, and to bring expectations to a realistic level. Most of the major economic research centres around the country, including the Central Bureau of Statistics (SSB), expressed an interest in the project, either as direct participants or in a reference capacity. On this basis, the actual project work begun in the second half of 1993, and is expected to last until mid-1995.

The Scope of the Project

The project aims at confronting, on the one hand, a set of key indicators of sustainable development as identified by Norwegian natural scientists and environmentalists from NNV; and, on the other, economic constraints and assumptions characterising a small, open natural-resource rich economy with a small and fairly constant, but far from demographically stable population. In other words, it aims at economic analyses of the economic, structural and social impacts of imposing natural and environmental constraints and conditions on production and consumption volumes and patterns in economic development. This should be accomplished, moreover, in such a way that present generations can assure future generations of the same opportunities and options currently available. Such precautionary assurances correspond closely to what has gradually emerged as a ³hard-core² operationalization of the sustainable-development ideal.

It is expected that such sustainability requirements will require substantial structural changes and adaptations in industry and consumption patterns. The project will apply the same set of macroeconomic planning and policy-analysis models for the Norwegian economy in the medium and long-term as those that are currently being used by the Ministries of Finance and Environment. This requires that key project participants from NNV and PAF familiarise themselves with the key characteristics and constraints of these models, in order that a dialogue between the analysts at SSB and the suppliers of ecological assumptions and constraints from NNV and natural scientists from academic and research facilities can jointly develop a setting for alternative model runs.

It is quite clear, however, that some sectors of the Norwegian economy which account for relatively little from a macroeconomic perspective (in terms of contribution to GNP, employment, etc.), emerge as very important sectors from the perspective of sustainability indicators to be monitored during future economic development. The project must thus address issues of balance and validity, where available macroeconomic models treat agriculture primarily in the aggregate, while the issues of most crucial importance to the environmentally concerned partners are primarily visible at disaggregated levels. Clearly, this problem cannot be addressed by trying to redesign existing macro models. Instead, the project will seek to meet the challenges of tracing the various development impacts of such constraints by means of complementary studies where partial or sectoral models will be applied. These models will have to be dissaggregated with regard to those sustainability concerns which the present nation-wide macro models have not been designed to handle.

The project has established several areas of such partial and complementary studies in response to widespread sustainability concerns:

Alternative development indicators to GNP: Theoretical issues, operational potentials and constraints. What can alternative indicators provide (or not provide) in the form of sound policy guidance?
Valuing and pricing of the environment: Economic instruments vs. sanction and legal controls, with special emphasis on how theoretical and measurement issues create practical obstacles to clear policy advice. Impacts on agriculture will be a central focus of this activity.
Sustainable investments policy: Theoretical and operational clarification. The scope and limitations on so-called ³environmentally compensating investments².
Impacts on the Norwegian economy, agriculture, food production, and environmental indicators (e.g. biodiversity) of changing international agri-cultural trade regimes: Analysis initially to be based on sectoral econometric models and quadratic programming models, but environmental and biodiversity impacts must be discussed to a large extent ³outside² these models.
The scope (potentials and limitations) for affecting production and consumption volumes and patterns in a more sustainable direction by means of resource-focused tax reforms: Theoretical issues related to what is meant by taxing ³resource rents², and the scope and limitations for using such rents as a tax base to replace taxation of labour and savings. The present use of such taxes in Norway as well as a longer term perspective on the possible role(s) of rent taxation for environmental and resource management.
Related to the above studies is the analyses of impacts on labour markets and industry from relatively rapid changes in environmental policies in Norway: This project will complement the SSB-model runs by looking more explicitly at the incremental impacts of speeding the structural transformation process towards environmentally more benign production and consumption patterns by means of economic policy instruments.
The issue of complementarity vs. competition as regards employment and environment considerations in economic development: To what extent do ³win-win² situations emerge as a result of distorted markets? What is the scope for job creation through so-called environmental investments and maintenance activities? In particular; what are the employment impacts of environmentally controversial investments in the energy sector?

These complementary research activities will be carried out by senior researchers and their support staff at various economic institutes at different Norwegian universities and colleges. The idea is that these studies should, in various ways, clarify the final adaptation of the environmental constraint and policy measures that will be imposed on the various versions of the SSB-models (MSG and MODAG) which will be used.

Why Such a Study Now?

A series of Governmental White Paper statements at the time of UNCED make it clear that present resource use and consumption patterns in Norway and similar countries are nonsustainable. It is further emphasised that global resource limitations - productive as well as absorptive - are limited, and that it is unlikely that the Earth can handle both projected population growth, poverty eradication in the South, and continued high levels of materialist consumption in the North at the same time.

The project takes, therefore, the 1994-97 Long-Term Programme of the Norwegian government as a point of departure. This study present a series of alternative long-term development paths for the next 40 years. Some of these scenarios assume higher carbon taxes to help meet declared CO2 stabilisation goals. Others maintain a more ³business-as-usual² profile. The main finding of letting Norway develop in such different directions over the next 40 years is, however, that regardless of which scenario is used, we will be roughly twice as rich in terms of private consumption as we are today. True enough, consumption patterns will change, and even for those consumption activities we retain, we will be using considerably less resources per unit consumed. A doubling of consumption can thus take place (in theory) with only a 10% increase in resource use.

The project is not disputing the validity of these projections - insofar as one accepts the underlying assumptions. However, the project takes the position that all of the scenarios presented in the Long-Term Program are at odds with political and governmental demands for more sustainable development. The project addresses, therefore, the challenges posed by such statements by attempting to curb material demand through economic policy measures which will change both consumption and extractive production patterns significantly.

By doing this in the context of economy-wide models for medium term and long-term development, this project expects to reveal interesting findings regarding the various impacts or costs/sacrifices which a typical rich economy must make today in order to secure: (a) acceptable choice options for our children and grandchildren, and (b) environmental ³space² for the billions of poor people in the South so as to achieve fundamental standards of living for themselves and their offsprings.

It is expected that the acceptability of the results of the project will be severely constrained by the very open and vulnerable nature of the Norwegian economy. In other words, it is unlikely that acting in isolation will be of very much use to the poor and our own offspring. Norway must continue to press for international concerted action, and by presenting results of serious action-oriented projects of this nature, it is hoped that other like-minded nations will accept the challenge and join forces. Frankly speaking what other alternatives are around in the long run anyway?

By mid-1995, the project will present a set of quantitative results for a much more structured debate about the options we face and the consequences of our choices.

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