ABSTRACT
Here we reconsider our conceptual framework and approach to sustainability. We re-evaluate the model (from chapter 3) which links unsustainable outcomes with underlying causal mechanisms. Particular consideration is given to the ways in which these causal mechanisms are ‘activated’ by modes of social regulation and the ways in which this ‘conditions’ the nature of ‘development’. We then consider how this conditioning might be modified, and what relevance such an analysis may have as to how sustainable development is articulated in the general case. The chapter concludes with an overall evaluation of the approach to sustainability developed here and suggests how this approach might be further tested, refined and progressed.
