The paper 'Three pillars of sustainability: in search of conceptual origins' was selected from a total of 113 eligible papers published in 2019.
Darren Robinson said of the award:
This article arose as part of a large interdisciplinary research programme funded by the Leverhulme Trust, in which we were seeking to better understand urban sustainability; to define, measure and model sustainability with a view to supporting the transition to more sustainable urban futures. As part of that programme we were keen to trace the roots of the now ubiquitous - social, economic and environmental - three pillar representation of sustainability. To our surprise, it turns out that there is no single point of origin, and no correspondingly rigorous theoretical underpinnings to this three pillar conception."
Darren Robinson
Director of Research, Sheffield School of Architecture
Short description of the paper:
Sustainability is often conceptualized in terms of ‘three pillars’, representing social, economic, and environmental aspects or goals. These are primarily actualized as competing priorities which must be integrated whilst balancing trade-offs, or as silos for grouping concepts, metrics, or workflows. Despite the ubiquity of this paradigm, its conceptual origins are far from clear. It is often referenced to the 1987 Brundtland report, however no explicit representation is found here, and usage predates this. This article goes in search of these conceptual origins, by reviewing the early sustainability literature, analyzing both academic and institutional documents from the 1980s to the early 2000s.
Through this, it is shown that there is no single origin of this conceptualization. Instead it is argued that it emerged historically from twin critiques of the economic status quo from both environmental and social perspectives. This is illustrated within the paper through the origins of the concept of ‘sustainable development’. The authors argue that the institutionalization of sustainable development, spearheaded by the United Nations since the publication of the Brundtland Report, has acted to neutralize this radical critique of the economic status quo, by promoting economic growth and development as a central component, or pillar, of sustainable development. It is further highlighted, that the absence of a theoretical rigorous conception of the three pillars acts to hamper efforts to operationalize sustainability.
You can read the paper here, and find out more about Springer’s Sustainability Science Best Paper Awards 2019.