1. Introduction

Attention to the role of the churches in civil society is not new, but it is in a new stage after the Brundtland Commission’s focus on "sustainable development" in its report, Our Common Future (1987), and the UN Conference on Environment and Development (1992). Both drew world attention to warning signs of the profound dangers facing life on the planet if present economic growth and consumption patterns remain unaltered. One school of thought is that there need be no contradiction between economic growth and an evironmentally sustainable society. The other is that the environmental consequences of present economic growth patterns require a trade-off. In all parts of the globe, "jobless growth" raises questions about both the social and environmental sustainability of present patterns of development. It is a constraint factor in facing the environmental challenge.

Two recent reports help to focus Christian thinking in response to signs of ecological peril. Sustainable Growth -- A Contradiction in Terms?, a report of the first Visser ‘t Hooft Memorial Consultation, was published by The Ecumenical Leadership Foundation in 1993. The second, published by the World Council of Churches in 1994, considers Accelerated Climate Change. Both help to document and articulate the nature of the trade-offs between growth and the environment and to sharpen and highlight the need for guidelines by which to make ethical choices.

The second Visser ‘t Hooft Memorial Consultation process builds on this thinking, sharpening focus on growing unemployment, marginalisation and poverty in light of the tension between environmental sustainability and economic growth. For example, if reducing the scale or the rate of growth of economic production can reduce pressures on the environment, will it not also exacerbate unemployment?

The contradiction in the assumption that GNP growth, as measured conventionally, is required to overcome unemployment and poverty even though it is not environmentally or socially sustainable in itself, forces a rethinking of the values which underpin production, consumption, and the role of work. The choices to be made in resolving the conflict between growth and the quality of life require new ethical references. Indeed, new social, political, economic institutions are needed to build a more human society in the present context.

2. Perspectives on the potential conflict between work and natural resources

The consultation will approach the potential conflict between human working activity and safeguarding of natural resources with the following perspectives and questions in mind:

• Placing limits on the use of natural resources
• are reduced scales of economic activity and employment inevitable tradeoffs to limits?
• ultimately, do limits fundamentally alter the role of technology?
• requires new definitions for the meaning of work for a sustainable society
• Concern for basic fairness
• poses the debate in terms of world sharing of resources as opposed to demands for national self-reliance
• acknowledges the demand for "equal access" to technology and challenges present protection systems for intellectual property
• questions the role and limits of private property in restricting access to the environment and to work
• takes perspectives of gender, intergenerational accountability, and geographic specificity into the meaning of equity
• Values
• conflicts between the ethics of production and consumption in meeting basic needs for all people
• the value of work other than as a source of income
• the intrinsic value of the natural environment as opposed to its value as a factor of production

3. Questions generated by the issues

These general issues imply a wide range of specific questions, such as:

• where there is so much unemployment, how can jobs be created?
• what type of consumption is good?
• what new institutional labour market arrangements are needed in different situations to make the economy more human?
• what response is needed to deal with the paradox of GNP growth not being accompanied by growth of employment?
• is there a contradiction between growing emphasis on the market combined with increasing pressures for state intervention?
• how can national corrections address global market failures?
• how can the contradictions between doing what is good for those in a nation state and good for those in the wider world be resolved?

The past thought and action of the Christian churches have contributed to the present situation. A number of open-ended, value-laden questions should be posed as to how the church should respond in the future. For example, in a consumer society where more is considered to be better than less, what does the Christian ascetic tradition have to say about underlying values? How can the development and use of technology improve the quality of life for all rather than simply increase production and consumption? How is the concept of work affected by certain [anthropocentric] Christian worldviews and theologies which contributed to human activities aimed at dominating, rather than having dominion over, Creation? Do Christian, especially Protestant, assumptions about the vocational value of work contribute to the sense of alienation or uselessness experienced by many who find themselves unemployed? What can the churches contribute to building new political, economic, and social institutions which foster a more human world community?

To clarify some of the critical questions, to tackle contradictions, and to devise strategies for action, The Visser ‘t Hooft Foundation, in cooperation with the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey and the Programme Unit on Justice, Peace and Creation of the World Council of Churches, is convening a small, international and interdisciplinary consultation of economists, theologians, persons from business and labour.

4. Informing the discussion: topics for preparatory papers

The preliminary list of preparatory papers to inform the starting point of discussion is as follows:

1. An introduction to the issues drawing on international views.
2. A view from Latin America
3. A view from Asia
4. A view from Africa
5. A view from Eastern Europe

6. Two questions for an economist: How can employment be increased without increasing environmental degradation? How can environmental degradation be decreased without decreasing employment?
7. The need for explicit values in economic analysis and policy making.
8. Impact of technology on work in a sustainable society
9. Contradictions, conflicts, and common policy ground between nation states and the international community.

10. Gender specific perspectives on work in a sustainable society

11. An overview of the churches’ teaching on work.
12. A critique of some church-based project-responses to unemployment.

Participants in the September 1994 Planning Session included: Mr Arie N. Bleijenberg (Centrum voor Engergie besparing, The Netherlands), Professeur Beat Bürgenmeier (Faculté des Sciences Economiques et Sociales, Université de Genève), Ms Lena Furberg (Department for Global Economy, Church of Sweden Mission & Church of Sweden Aid), Mr Larry Kohler (TRAVAIL, International Labor Organization), Dr Julio de Santa Ana (theologian, Brazil), Professor Francis Wilson (Southern Africa Labor and Development Research Unit, School of Economics, University of Capetown), Rev. Wilbert Forker (The Templeton Foundation), Père Louis Christiaens, s.j. (International Labor Organization), The Rev Jacques Nicole (Bossey Ecumenical Institute), Mr Rob Van Drimmelen (WCC Programme Unit on Justice, Peace and Creation), Dr Lukas Vischer (theologian, Switzerland), Ms Midge Béguin-Austin (Administrator, The Ecumenical Leadership Foundation), Ms Muriel Ritter (Foundation Associate, The Ecumenical Leadership Foundation).

Béguin-Austin, page 1 of 1