Putting a price on our future is one way of setting our priorities for our own world. The BBC Reith Lectures 2000 delve into this and related environmental and social themes to answer the question 'What is it we seek to sustain?'

Why bother with sustainable development?

As economic systems became global in scale, scientific research has revealed more ecological interdependencies and environmental impacts that refuse to respect the boundaries of nation states. Social institutions too have begun to show strain induced by increased population, inequalities in development and burgeoning health issues. Armed with a new awareness of the complexity of living and social systems, an investigation of the assumptions that underpinned our common understanding of economic, social and environmental systems has begun. The debate divides between those who think that a new model of growth is needed (sustainable development), and those who question whether a new model is needed at all.

In short, it is the most exciting and challenging debate that human beings can be engaged in. Not because, from our partial view, the stakes are high, but because there has simply never been the opportunity to rethink all our ways of engaging with the world around us in such a fundamental way.

Are traditional models of economic theory enough?

Depending on who you talk to in the sustainable development debate, Economics is either a science, a discipline or a black art. Whatever the viewpoint, all acknowledge that the subject holds a key position in future approaches to global development. Despite its constant media exposure, the average understanding of it is negligible, and debate soon descends to the level of trading opinion and prejudice.

Is globalisation driven only by the 'developed' world?

Our assumptions about our world do not announce themselves as such, but masquerade as facts. Only further investigation can reveal the true nature of our untested ideas and concepts. Such has been our collective approach to the subject of globalisation that in the process we have accepted changing geopolitical boundaries, mass migrations and the increasing speed of the market in exploiting scarce resources. The result is an inevitable division of the world into winners and losers.

Do we value employment more than our environment?

When business organisations operate on an international basis, the balancing of considerations such as employment and environmental impacts becomes similarly scaled up in the process. Understanding how senior executives address the integration of such competing concerns not only equips individuals with the skills and abilities required but provides useful background information into the analytical and modelling techniques used by all those operating across national and regional boundaries.

Can 'development' be managed for direct health benefits?

Moving from Public Sector to public action takes more than a planned programme of aid and development. Interventions of whatever sort whether they are economic, humanitarian or environmental can have consequences beyond original goals and objectives. Not only that, but many interventions only have an effect for the duration of the initiative itself, calling for a further cycle of support and withdrawal. Yet managing the process of development shares a common root, no matter if they stem from governmental, non-governmental or private institutions.

Is free trade, really 'free'?

While there are those who would question the whole basis of development from a sustainable perspective, the prospect of change for the Third World will not simply go away. Such change will inevitably raise carbon copy problems of development previously faced by the leading economies; industrialisation, international trade, environmental degradation, health issues and cultural change to name but a few.

Why do we not have an effective strategy for eradicating poverty?

The continued existence of poverty is one of the most often cited indicators of failure when assessing the efficacy of our current economic and political systems. If the overall object of growth is the greatest good for the greatest number, then why are poverty, disease and famine still unresolved issues at the beginning of the 21st century? Is there something fundamentally flawed about our approach to international development, or is it something in the nature of the issues themselves that eludes a lasting solution?

What are the economics of sustainable levels of health?

When recent figures revealed that the global number of people underweight was surpassed by the number of those overweight, the common enemy becomes malnutrition. Increasing wealth could be said to be no guarantee of continued physical well being. Yet, health issues continue to be examined and debated from narrow perspectives, without putting them into the broader context of economic, environmental and social issues.

Does business focus too much on short-term gain?

Every organisation, like every biological organism, has a will to survive. The focus of business strategy therefore tends to be on the survival and prosperity of the company itself, at times to the detriment of longer term social or environmental aims. If we can create better strategic techniques and skills in long range planning, then the ability to integrate business survival with wider goals in a truly sustainable linkage becomes a possibility.

Why are there different attitudes to personal and public health issues?

Health is in some ways the easiest and the hardest concept to define; the easiest to define through its personal absence, the hardest to define in its public propagation and encouragement. Getting behind the contested concepts of health can reveal differences of attitude, cultural perspective and socio-economic variation, and it is in these differences that the barriers to progressive improvement often find their roots.