Estratègies per al desenvolupament sostenible - Generalitat de ...

of assets necessary for maintaining human wellbeing will change with time, as humanpreferences and available technology change. For this reason, the specific conceptof sustainability will also evolve. Nevertheless, the assets necessary to ensuresustainability are all of the following:Human assets or each individual’s abilities, skills and talents that depend largelyon education and health.Natural assets (renewable and non-renewable) that have different functions:(1) production and utility sources (forests, fish stocks, minerals and natural forcessuch as air and water currents);(2) accommodation of non-usable derivatives from production and consumption(air, water and soil that take in pollution from human activity). Nature provides criticalservices upon which vital wellbeing depends and which, despite all the technologicaladvances, cannot be replaced by human-made alternatives.Assets produced by people. These are physical products used for production andinclude machinery, equipment, buildings, physical networks and financial assets.Knowledge assets or “codified knowledge” which is easy to transfer in space andtime (unlike tacit knowledge that involves an individual’s experience and expertjudgement and cannot be easily transferred unless it is codified).Social or relational assets such as the institutions, trust, networks of interactionand shared values, all of which encourage co-operation among people and groups. 2Achieving sustainability will therefore require profound structural changes and waysof working. Economic growth models must be reviewed. Tax policies must bereformed. Wellbeing must be ensured, taking care that the levels of the assetsmentioned above remain constant or rise. There needs to be investment in innovation.Prices particularly should reflect the social and environmental costs of productionand consumption. Internationally, matters of inequality in access to assets andresources should be dealt with more openly and progressively. In short, sustainabledevelopment has great implications as far as governance is concerned: on a local1302 World Bank. Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World. World Development Report 2003. WashingtonDC: World Bank, 2003, p. 15-20.