SA economy ‘unsustainable’ – Prof Mark Swilling

South Africa’s overreliance on natural resources and cheap energy spells trouble for the sustainability of the economy, Professor Mark Swilling of Stellenbosch University’s (SU) School of Public Leadership (SPL) argued on Wednesday (22 February 2012).

He was speaking at the first Stellenbosch Forum of the year, a lecture series aimed at making research more accessible. His input was based on a new book, Just Transitions – Explorations of Sustainability in an Unfair World, co-authored by him and SPL Extraordinary Lecturer Ms Eve Annecke.

Prof Mark Swilling and Ms Eve Annecke at the Stellenbosch Forum. PICTURE: JUSTIN ALBERTS

As Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan was preparing to present the annual budget speech in Parliament on Wednesday, Swilling criticised the government’s economic policies. He singled out aspects of President Jacob Zuma’s recent State of the Nation address.

“References to infrastructure investments to make it more efficient to ship our raw materials to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) at prices that will require state subsidies confirmed our worst fears,” he said.

“It seems we were allowed into that club on condition that we sell its resource-hungry members our minerals at discount prices. This undermines our capacity to grow in more job-creating and equitable ways.”

Since 2010, when South Africa was inducted into the ranks of the BRIC grouping of leading emerging economies, the structure has been known as BRICS. In their book, Swilling and Annecke maintain that South Africa’s role is little more than that of a “provider of primary resources”.

In his lecture yesterday, Swilling said: “Our analysis suggests that, actually, resource nationalism is a good idea rather than resource prostitution.”

He was equally critical of the government’s focus on cheap energy. Parastatal electricity generator Eskom is in the process of recommissioning three coal-fired power stations, and building two new large ones. UN figures show that South Africa already has the twelfth highest emissions of carbon dioxide in the world.

Swilling argued that “higher rather than lower energy prices will put in place the incentives for investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy that we need.”

Swilling and Annecke warn that coal reserves are likely to run out sooner than expected. They point out that recent peer-reviewed research caps the remaining supply of the fossil fuel in Southern Africa at 10 billion tonnes – not 28 billion tonnes as officially estimated.

“As many of the world’s largest companies gear up for the next industrial revolution, South Africans redouble their efforts to remain wedded to 20^th century technologies and economic systems,” Swilling said.

“We argue that South Africa’s developmental goals and its democratic institutions are threatened by our failure to break away from our dependence on the mineral-energy complex.”

Swilling and Annecke contend that alongside the rest of the world, South Africa is in the throes of a major transition as the crisis of the current industrial cycle deepens. A “new global green economy” beckons, but “a more ecologically viable and lower carbon world” is by no means a certainty. Smart policy choices will have to be made to “decouple” economic growth and development from escalating resource use.

“The alternative is a recipe for sluggish growth through intensified resource exploitation and debt-funded consumption that works for the elites but fails to create the job opportunities and material basis for poverty eradication.”

Annecke is founding Director of the Sustainability Institute, based at the Lynedoch EcoVillage, which was started by her and Swilling in 1999. Located on the R310 outside Stellenbosch, the village is described as the “first ecologically designed socially mixed intentional community in South Africa”.

Yesterday Annecke said that their “lived experience” here helped inform their insights about sustainability. The village has a growing number of homes with green features, such as solar water heaters, and a primary school and pre-school for the children of its residents and local farm workers.

The cover of 'Just Transitions'.

This is also where Swilling and Annecke teach their master’s programme, which offers students the opportunity to get first-hand experience in sustainable development.

“Back in 2004 already, our students started telling us, ‘Everybody knows the planet is in trouble. We want to learn what to do about it.’ So that’s what we are focusing on,” Annecke said.

Besides his role in the SPL, Swilling is Project Leader of SU’s Centre for the Transdisciplinary Study of Sustainability and Complexity, known as the TsamaHub. It forms part of the University’s HOPE Project, through which developmental challenges in society are being tackled. He is also a member the high-level International Resource Panel of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Just Transitions sells for R385. To order, email orders@onthedot.co.za or call +27 21 918 8500.