Title:
SUSTAINABILITY THOUGHTS 102: HOW THE SHIFT FROM TRADITIONAL MARKETS TO SUSTAINABILITY MARKETS WOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKE HAD THE 1987 BRUNDTLAND COMMISSION RECOMMENDED THEN A SUSTAINABILITY FIX?

Authors:
Lucio Muñoz* ,Canada

Abstract:
It can be said that the traditional market is a free market that brings together traditional producers(K) and traditional consumers(L) under the assumption of full social and environmental externality neutrality. And this create a circular traditional economy illusion, the idea that production activity can take without generating production and consumption externalities. The fact that the social and environmental externalities associated with the traditional market are real leads to a disconnect between social and environmental externalities and traditional market pricing. In order to correct this disconnect, the 1987 Brundtland Commission recommended the use of sustainable development thinking, which was the wrong recommendation since the externality problem affecting the traditional market was and is a sustainability issue, not a sustainable development issue. There were 3 possible corrections to this sustainability problem: i) a full social and environmental externality correction or sustainability fix; ii) a partial correction through green markets or an environmental sustainability fix; and iii) a partial correction through red markets or a social sustainability fix. The discussion above raises some interesting questions depending of the type of fix that is recommended. With respect to the first possibility, the question is how the shift from the traditional market model of Adam Smith towards sustainability markets would have looked like had the 1987 Brundtland Commission recommended then a sustainability fix? The main goal of this paper is to provide an answer to this question