2.

6 The Concern with Sustainable Development

By the late 1980s there had emerged an increasing concern both in planning and
in regional economic development with sustainability issues and how to incorporate
the principles of sustainability as objectives in regional development strategies and
plans. In some ways sustainable development has become a catch cry which
represents many different things for the diverse actor interests in local communities
and regions. There may well be considerable benefits to be derived through the
application of the notion that environmental and social multipliers may enhance
economic multipliers in achieving local and regional development.
2.6.1 Guiding Principles for Sustainable Regional Development
All societies and cultures are governed by commonly held principles, rules and
values etc, which guide community and personal decisions about the collective and
personal use of resources and assets. These same principles are shaped, reinforced or
changed by custom, past experience and/or events elsewhere. Some of these have
been formulated by international agreements, such as the Rio Earth Summit and
Kyoto protocols.
The inter-relationship between these sets of principles potentially leads to
economic, social and business efficiencies. Governance is the primary mechanism for
achieving these efficiencies. Sustainability governance principles reflect values and
rules for the use of all other forms of capital resources at a society and
individual/firm/agency operational level.
2.6.2 The Required Drivers
There are at least four key drivers for the regional development process which
have a significant influence upon the nature and rate of development and how
sustainable it might be. These drivers are: institutions and governance, capital
investment in strategic infrastructure, catalytic processes such as network, and
business enterprises and their developments and market penetration. The goal of
regional development should be to focus these drivers in response to environmental
changes, opportunities identified, and risks that have the potential to affect a regions
competitive advantage.
Figures 2.12 provides a framework showing the necessary categories of support
for these drivers. All the drivers of development depend, to a greater or lesser extent,
on the capacity and capabilities of a regions institutional base, the level of
investment in strategic infrastructure in the broadest sense, and on the creation and
attraction of catalysts. Catalysts are organizations or individuals and in some cases
institutions such as leadership that pull together resources, factors of production and
finance to invest in projects and services that add value to regional economies.

Business
(Capital
Development &
Markets)
Catalysist
(Networks &
Intermediaries)
Infrastructure
(Capital
Investment)
Institutional
Governance
(Capacity
Building)

Catalysts introduce a new linking function heretofore not emphasized in

development economics. They are analogous to the effective organization and use of
capital and entrepreneurship in an enterprise.
The next step in fostering regional economic development is to ask the question:
What elements of support for these drivers need to be put in place to make
development happen?. Capacity building is needed to improve institutional
governance. Investment finance is needed to build strategic infrastructure and
networks are needed to foster the development of catalysts. Again the concept of
networks is new. Catalysts undertake a linking function networks assist them, with
information or systems, to undertake this linkage function more efficiently.
2.6.3 A Framework for Applying Best Practices to Achieve Sustainable Development
An overall framework which enable various applications of regional
development best practices to be grouped or sorted into the driver processes described
above. These groups of processes support the elements of regional development that
relate to the elements of sustainability that are represented by the triple-buttom-line, a
concern with environmental, economic, and social outcomes and in addition and
institutional arrangements and governance development. Not surprisingly,
applications of best practice supporting sustainable regional development will apply
across a range of governance frameworks.

The framework establishes a mechanism for integrating and coordinating related

development processes; for example, policies developed under institutional
governance at a regional level should align and link closely with national
development policies, while regional policy should inform and where expedient
introduce best practice at a national level.
The framework described is conceptual, but it does provide a basis for
simplifying our thinking about, and the management of, many complex sets of factors
and systems that are involved in regional economic development. Governance
decision-making process will become increasing complex in the future in the light of
stronger demands from communities for greater transparency and accountability in
public institutions and the growing impact of external environmental factors on
regional development.