Sustainability in its shortest definition is the capacity to endure. To endure one does not only need material goods, but also a mental and spiritual resilience and set of skills on how to cope. When the quality and quantity of our material goods and biophysical environment starts to change, when our fellow South Africans are sick and dying prematurely and when our economy does not deliver the needed health and wealth to all of us, our hope for a better future is severely tested. It is the integrity of our hope that could and should be playing a fundamental role in a possible transition towards sustainability. In this talk ladies and gentleman, the question of South Africa’s sustainability is under scrutiny. I will first show you that from an ecological, from a human well-being, and even from an economic perspective there are several warning lights on the biophysical and material sustainability of this country. I will also show the remarkable optimism we have as South Africans and highlight the importance of hope. Third, and finally I will argue that we as humans have an ethical responsibility in the individual and collective choices we make. It is our attitudes and behaviours that sustain or destroy.

1. Factoring sustainability into South Africaʼs future
MP de Wit1
Introduction
[Slide 2]
Sustainability in its shortest definition is the capacity to endure. To endure one does not
only need material goods, but also a mental and spiritual resilience and set of skills on
how to cope. When the quality and quantity of our material goods and biophysical
environment starts to change, when our fellow South Africans are sick and dying
prematurely and when our economy does not deliver the needed health and wealth to all
of us, our hope for a better future is severely tested. It is the integrity of our hope that
could and should be playing a fundamental role in a possible transition towards
sustainability.
In this talk ladies and gentleman, the question of South Africaʼs sustainability is under
scrutiny. I will first show you that from an ecological, from a human well-being, and even
from an economic perspective there are several warning lights on the biophysical and
material sustainability of this country. I will also show the remarkable optimism we have as
South Africans and highlight the importance of hope. Third, and finally I will argue that we
as humans have an ethical responsibility in the individual and collective choices we make.
It is our attitudes and behaviours that sustain or destroy.
The method I use comes closest to environmental scanning and trend analysis,
techniques often employed in futures studies. There is no attempt to be comprehensive
and in this sense what I present to you today can best be seen and interpreted as the start
of a futures project.
First, letʼs look at some biophysical and economic signals and trends.
[Slide 3]
Biophysical and material stress
Biophysical indicators
Let us first look at what sustainability indicators on SA reveals to us. There are many
different indicators and none of them is perfect. Together, however, they paint a picture of
the state of sustainability in SA.
Starting with our ecological systems, let us recall that according to the Ecological Footprint
indicator, South Africa is in a heavy ecological deficit and ranked 91st out of 134 countries.
South Africans need 2.8 ha/pp/yr, that is 1 ha/pp/yr more than what is considered to be a
sustainable level. It is especially our carbon and land use footprints that are relatively high
compared to the rest of the world. Another indicator, the Environmental Performance
Index ranks South Africa as 115th out of 163 countries, mainly driven by a high burden of
disease, high carbon emissions and local air pollution effects on ecosystems.
1 Invited address delivered to World Future Society, 6 May 2010, BMW Pavillion, Cape Town.

2. Table I: Biophysical indicators of sustainability
Indicator Result for SA Key aspects Outcome
Ecological Footprint 2.8 ha/pp/yr vs. target of Carbon Ecologically unsustainable
1.8 ha/pp/yr Crop land
Grazing land
91st out of 134 countries
(2009)
Environmental 0.508/1.0 Environmental burden of Environmentally
Performance Index disease unsustainable
115th of 163 countries Climate change
(2010) Air pollution on
ecosystems
The relatively high carbon emissions in South Africa is a cause for concern. South Africa
emits 9.4 tons of CO2 per person per yr, compared to Brazil and Costa Ricaʼs 1.9 and
Turkeyʼs 3.8 t of CO2/pp, to cite three countries which have a comparable level of income.
South Africa produces 1.15 kg of CO2 for every dollar of GDP (adjusted for purchasing
power parity), which is one of the highest in the world. In comparison, the United States
produces 0.5 kg and China just over 1 kg of CO2 for every dollar of GDP (PPP adjusted)
produced.
Agricultural land comprises 82% of total land area, comparable to two countries with
similar incomes, namely Uruguay (85%) and Kazakhstan (77%), but much higher than
Brazil (31%) and Costa Rica (57%). Only 6.5% of the female labour force and 11% of the
male labour force are employed in agriculture in South Africa, a trend comparable to other
Latin American countries in the same income category as South Africa (i.e., Uruguay 4.8%
and 16%; Costa Rica 4.8% and 18%).
South Africa has only access to around 1000m3 of renewable water per person (920m3
internally), down from around 2700m3 in 1962. This is comparable to the situation in other
water-scarce countries in northern Africa and the Middle East.
The little bit of water we have is also not managed very well. According to a newly
released Green Drop report, 55% of the sewage treatment plants that were measured
“require drastic intervention soon, because they are grossly mismanaged, are dumping
raw sewage into waterways or simply don't monitor or report data on their operations at
all”.
[Slide 4]
Human wellbeing indicators
South Africa suffers from persistently high levels of unemployment and a very high burden
of disease. This is clear in low relative scores on the Human Development Index, the
Quality of Life Index and the Happy Planet Index - 129 out of 182, 92 out of 111, and 118
out of 143 countries respectively, indicating a humanely and politically unsustainable
situation. South Africa scores an average 55 out of 180 countries on the Corruption
Perceptions Index, but an increase in corruption has been perceived in the last few years
(Table II).

3. Table II: Indicators of human wellbeing
Indicator Result for SA Key aspects Outcome
Corruption 4.7/10 Increase in perceived corruption in Moderately sustainable
Perceptions last 2 years
Index 55th out of 180
countries (2008)
Subjective Well 41st out of 79 Happiness, life satisfaction Moderately sustainable
Being countries
Human 0.683/1.0 Life expectancy Humanely Unsustainable
Development Literacy
index 129th out of 182 Education
countries (2007)
Quality of Life 5.245/10 Material well-being, life expectancy, Humanely and politically
Index political stability, divorce rate, unsustainable
92nd out of 111 community life, climates,
countries (2005) unemployment, political freedom,
gender equality
Happy Planet 118th out of 143 Human well-being and Humanely Unsustainable
Index countries (2009) environmental impact
Life expectancy has fallen from 62 in 1992 to 49 in 2007. Countries who have a
comparable GDP PPP per capita to that of South Africa generally have much higher life
expectancies, e.g., Costa Rica (79), Uruguay (76) and Kazakhstan (67). Life expectancy in
South Africa is more or less the same than those in other poor African countries such as
Burundi, Somalia and Chad.
The reported number of new infectious cases of tuberculosis in South Africa is one of the
highest in the world (280 per 100 000), compared to just 20 per 100 000 in Brazil, and is
more than twice as much as reported in struggling Cambodia (134 per 100 000). Apart
from Swaziland (26%), Botswana (24%) and Lesotho (23%), South Africa has the fourth
highest HIV infection rate in the world (18%) (measured as % of adults from 15-49),
although rates have started to decline marginally since around 2004/5.
Whether South Africans are happy or not is not such an easy trend to spot. Subjective
measures of happiness, i.e. asking people directly how happy they are, tend to portray
South Africans as happier as what other aggregated indicators tend to portray. Measures
of subjective well-being for Brazil and Uruguay are still far above South Africa, with a
surprisingly high level of subjective well-being in Nigeria. Maybe this is a message of
hope. Despite unsustainable trends in our society, South Africans tend to hope for a better
future.
[Slide 5]
Material wellbeing indicators
It may appear as if South Africaʼs relatively good economic performance will be able to
circumvent these depressing environmental and human wellbeing trends. This is not the
case. We may be ranked 24th in the world in terms of GDP (Table III), but on a real basis
South African have been earning less and less Rands per capita from 1980 to around
2005 (Figure 1). It is only recently that real Rands per capita have started to increase

4. again. When expressed in terms of what these Rands can buy in terms of dollars, we are
still almost $500 per person per year worse off than in 1981 (Figure 2).
Table III: Indicators of material well-being
Indicator Result for SA Key aspects Outcome
GDP (PPP) 24th out of 178 countries Material well-being Relatively high ranking but
(2008) unsustainable
Figure 1: Gross National Income per capita (constant 2005 prices, Rand per annum)
Source: SA Reserve Bank

5. Figure 2: GDP per capita (PPP, constant, 2000$)
$10500
$9900
$9300
$8700
$8100
$7500
1972
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
Source: Nationmaster.com based on World Development Indicators
Unemployment rates in SA are also still among the highest in the world. What is
particularly worrisome is that only 16% of all males aged between 15 and 24 are
employed, one of the lowest rates in the world and on par with the Balkan countries
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia. Brazil, for example, employs 63% and Ethiopia a
whopping 79% of their young males.
[Slide 6]
Another disconcerting trend is that this steady drop in per capita income was also
associated with very low savings. Since 1976 South Africans have saved an average of
around 18% of gross national income, while consuming 15% in fixed capital (depreciation)
per annum. That left an average of 3% per year in net national savings. Adding to savings,
over this same period South Africa has spend an average of 6% of gross national income
(GNI) per year on education.
When accounting for ecological costs, South Africa depleted 3.8% of GNI in energy, 3.4%
of minerals, 0.2% of forest and damaged the worldʼs climate system to a cost of 1.4% of
GNI per year through CO2 emissions. Not counting for any other environmental and social
costs of economic growth, this means that the average adjusted net savings for South
Africa since 1976 has been -0.1% of GNI per annum (see Figure 3).
The implicit strategy was to invest in human capital to counter for this depletion in man-
made and natural capital. With a matric pass rate off just over 60% in 2009 this seems to
be a gamble that has not paid of very well. South Africa is also steadily eroding its
international competitiveness. Despite a rise in the adjusted net national savings rate since

6. 1993, it is lower than the world average and much lower than that achieved in China, India
and even Brazil.
Figure 3: Adjusted net savings, %
0.40
0.25
0.10
-0.05
-0.20
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
South Africa China Brazil Russia India AVG World
Source: Based on World Bank data
[Slide 7]
If all our main trading partners were also trending in this direction, one could be excused
for arguing for relative sustainability. Unfortunately this is not the case as measured
through the movements of South Africaʼs exchange rate with its main trading partners. The
exchange rate between two currencies specifies how much one currency is worth in terms
of another. For South Africa, a country with a free-floating currency, the exchange rate is
largely determined by the market forces of supply and demand for the currency. Increased
demand is a signal of either real increased business activity in the country or of
speculative demand. It is therefore interesting to see whether the long run demand for
South Africaʼs currency is increasing or decreasing.
The results are shown in Figure 4. Apart from increasing volatility, the nominal effective
exchange rate of the rand with 15 trading partners has decreased at an average of 1.32%
per quarter since the second quarter of 1990 up to the second quarter of 2009. This
means that a South African needs more Rands to buy the same amount of international
currency over time, an indication of the slowly eroding longer-term sustainability of South
Africa in comparison to its main trading partners.

7. Figure 4: Nominal effective exchange rate of the rand: Average for 15 trading
partners (quarterly % change)
15%
10%
5%
0%
-5%
-10%
-15%
-20%
1990/02
1991/01
1991/04
1992/03
1993/02
1994/01
1994/04
1995/03
1996/02
1997/01
1997/04
1998/03
1999/02
2000/01
2000/04
2001/03
2002/02
2003/01
2003/04
2005/02
2006/01
2006/04
2007/03
2008/02
2009/01
2009/04
Source: SA Reserve Bank, Series KB5376Q
As a nation, ladies and gentleman, we are depleting our energy and mineral stocks,
pumping very high amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere, grazing and cropping most of our
land and stressing our ecosystems with air pollutants. In addition, the average South
African can expect to live for a mere 49 years, crippled under a heavy burden of disease.
Our attempts to stem the tide by investing in education have not provided us with the
desired results. One would expect that all this depletion of our natural resources would
lead somewhere or to something positive, but our per capita income and our competitive
position against our main trading partners has been declining steadily in the last two
decades.
It is clear that from a biophysical, human well-being, and materialist perspective South
Africaʼs sustainability is under threat.
South Africans, however are showing a remarkable resilience and optimism about their
future. This is a topic to which we turn next.
[Slide 8]
Continued signs of optimism
In a Gallup World Polls survey conduced in April 2009 South Africans show a remarkable
degree of optimism relative to the rest of world. Whereas perceptions of life 5 years ago
from the date of the poll was ranked 4.6 on a ten point scale (ranked 97th in the world),
this has improved to 5.2 in 2009 (81st) and to 7.2 in 5 years from the date of the poll (48th)
(Fig 5).

8. Figure 5: Optimism in sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Pew Global Attitudes Project Survey
This relative optimism was echoed in surveys run by the Pew Global Attitudes Project
Survey in 2007, with more than 43% of South Africans thinking that their lives are better
than five years ago. By comparison with people in many other regions of the world, sub-

9. Saharan Africans in general are much more optimistic that their lives will change for the
better.
Earlier, in 2004 and 2005, the BBC World Service Polls revealed that South Africans were
among the most optimistic people surveyed (Figure 6). In 2004, South Africans were
remarkably optimistic about their family (65%) and their country (62%). In 2005, 57% of
South Africans believed that their country was getting better (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Familyʼs economic condition (% responding better, % responding worse)
Source: BBC World Service Poll, 2004. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/btglobalizationtradera/
142.php?lb=btgl&pnt=142&nid=&id=
[Slide 9]
Although not directly comparable, Ipsor Markinor surveys do point out that this optimism
dropped during the recession, but rebounded in 2009. At the end of 2009, 60% of males
and 53% of women believed that South Africa was going in the right direction (Table IV).

10. Table IV: South Africans believe the country is going in the right direction
Nov 09 May 09 May 08
Country is going Male 60% 45% 47%
in right direction
Female 53% 41% 44%
Source: IPSOR Markinor, Pulse of the People Public Opinion Series http://ipsos-markinor.co.za/news/views-
on-2010-the-year-ahead.
Although one can question the validity of using polls and surveys to measure the mood of
a nation, the trends are clear enough. Despite unsustainable trends in biophysical and
material well-being, it seems as if South Africanʼs belief in their future relative to other
nations has not waned, and might have even improved. Optimism have rebounded after
the economic recession and this is probably due in part to anticipation of the FIFA World
Cup next month.
The role of hope
Does that mean that South Africans are fooling themselves? Is all this optimism based on
a false hope? From a strict physical and material interpretation of reality one would tend to
agree. From such a point of view one would expect that it is just a matter of time before
the worsening trends in ecological indicators and human well-being would start catching
up with the misplaced optimism of South Africans.
This may or may not be the case, but one cannot come to such a fatalistic conclusion
before exploring the inherent purpose and objectives of South Africans. What are we
hoping for? And, how will this hope translate into ethical choices that would set us on the
high road towards sustainability?
Many materialists, rationalists and atheists despise hope as wishful thinking. Nietzsche
even referred to hope as the worst of all evils. One can only sympathize with such a
narrow materialist interpretation of reality. However, those who have a broader sense of
what reality means, see the central importance of hope in their lives. Hope, without
exception is linked to faith in something larger than oneself, things that are not obvious
and what one cannot comprehend. Hope is not a subjugation or submission to fate. That
is fatalism, which may be either linked to optimism or pessimism.
Look at what some others had to say on hope:
[Slide 10]
Once you choose hope, anything is possible - Christopher Reeve
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars - Oscar Wilde
To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death - Pearl S. Buck
Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we
wait for it patiently - Apostle Paul in letter to Romans (Rom 8:24-25, NIV)

11. From hope towards an ethics of sustainability
[Slide 11]
Ladies and gentleman, a few final words on what such hope might mean in the ethics of
sustainability.
Factoring sustainability into South Africaʼs future is in the first place to start acting on the
individual and collective hope we have as a nation. This hope is for a better future for
ourselves and for our children. This hope can translate into deep changes in attitude and
behaviour.
[Slide 12]
The physical and material trends of the last few decades do paint a bleak picture, no doubt
about that. This will require many adjustments, driving in so-called “material wedges” to
start bending the trends of material and resource use as well as the generation of pollution
and waste.
Some commentators from the rich developed world have referred to lifestyle adjustments
as fundamental to achieving sustainability. Some lifestyle wedges, such as pressures on
conspicuous consumption will also need to be used, but it certainly is not a message to the
20 million or so people eking out an existence in this country and the other 20 million
struggling to pay the bills every month.
The largest wedge, however, is the most fundamental one and that is to change our
attitudes and behaviour. And, this is the wedge closest to ourselves and the one within our
own control.
Being rich, poor or middle-class does not exclude one from changing attitudes and
behaviour towards sustainability. A message of humility and caution in the face of a
complex and often uncertain world applies to all of us. Let us take heart from the
ecological and economic limits imposed on our often arrogant drive towards more, bigger
and better. Let us also work within the limits and opportunities imposed on ourselves by
our minds, bodies, and families, and by the communities we are part of. We can only work
and do so much. Let us resist over-exploitation of our energy and not demand the
impossible from others. Let us not be coerced into activities that rob people of their dignity
and rob ecosystems from an ability to heal.
South Africa is our endowment and we are responsible for it. In some cases the transition
towards sustainability will be painful. In many instances we have been complacent for too
long. The electricity crisis for example has already crept up on us. Water may be next. We
are losing biodiversity at high rates. Multitudes of our fellow South Africans are sick and
dying. On average, we can expect to live not even for 50 years.
South Africans do remain optimistic, however, miraculous as that sometimes seems. Time
will tell whether that optimism (quoting Václav Havel) is...
not the conviction that something will turn out well,
but the certainty that something makes sense,
regardless of how it turns out.