PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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2.5 Two Ill-Defined Concepts?
We have now seen how controversial theoretical debates on transport investments
are. Overall, there is a continued ambiguity regarding the assumed relationship between
transport investments and economic development (i.e. growth). We have also learned to
question the internal consistency of the concept of sustainable development. The
supposedly harmonious relationship between the “three dimensions of sustainability”
namely economy, environment, and equity, remains the most problematic aspect of the
concept. Most comprehensive definitions of the concept tend to broaden the definition to
include a host of additional aspects, as is the case with the Vancouver definitions. Other
definitions simply over-emphasize one of the three dimensions, typically skewing it in
favor of economic goals.
As we will see in later chapters, there is no single one European Union document
that conclusively defines the term sustainable transport. It even took the European
community ten years after the Rio Summit to finally to come up with an official
Sustainable Development Strategy. Given the difficulty the international community has
had in conclusively defining and operationalizing either of these concepts, this is hardly
surprising. In the end, for any normative definition of an abstract concept such as
sustainability to be acceptable for an institution such as the EU, it would always have to
be tied this institution’s underlying rationales for policy-making. We therefore need to
move away from a normative, definitional approach to the topic of sustainability towards
a more structural one. We need to look at sustainability and sustainable transport as
discourse. Such a discourse-centered approach is the theme of the following chapters.