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Reconsidering work in a perspective of sustainable development: to this theme is dedicated the consultation of European bishops on the environment being held in Venice “Work and responsibility for the creation. Sustainable development demands a new view of work”. This is the theme of the fourth consultation of the European Episcopal Conferences on responsibility for the creation being held in Venice from 23 to 26 May. The consultation is being promoted by the CCEE (Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe), with the collaboration of the office of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI) for the pastoral care of work and the Lanza Foundation. “It is the responsibility for the creation itself explain the promoters of the meeting that requires European Christians to reconsider work, and to channel it into forms respectful of the natural environment and the health of workers”. Responsibility for the future. It is possible to reconcile respect for the environment and the creation of new jobs: that’s the conviction of Ignazio Musu of the department of economics at the University of Ca’ Foscari in Venice, who is taking part in the meeting promoted by the CCEE (Council for the Episcopal Conferences of Europe) on work and responsibility for the creation. “We live says the expert in a world in which the material demands made by the average individual have rapidly increased”. The availability of resources, however, is limited and “subject to irreversibility”. That means that if it is possible to recreate a large part of the capital produced by man, “the same cannot be said of the natural environment”. A species brought to extinction today cannot he explains be resuscitated tomorrow. From an economic point of view, this simple proposition requires that the present generation “be altruistic, on the basis of its moral obligation to the generations that will follow it”. Coherent policies and social consensus. Sustainability points out Ignazio Musu also poses curbs to economic growth. It especially requires that we “change the nature of the prevalent economic model of development”, beginning with the production processes in such a way as to influence the preferences of consumers and the composition of the final demand. At first sight, this change in perspective could be considered as a cause of negative effects on employment as a result of the imposition of higher costs. “Nonetheless adds Musu there is sufficient empirical evidence to show that the negative environmental impact is more than offset by the growth in employment”, largely determined by the need of firms to employ new personnel for the control of pollution. Another way pointed by Musu for promoting a sustainable economy and at the same time increasing employment is through so-called “environmental fiscal reforms”: the idea is that of shifting a large part of the tax burden that weighs on employment to the ecological damage caused by work: this boosts employment at the same time as fostering the quality of the environment. But if these objectives are to be achieved, “a sum of coherent policies are needed and these concludes Musu – must be supported by the consensus of society”. Towards a new quality of life. Flexibility: that is the buzz-word that will most characterize labour relations in Europe in the next few years. The prospects of future labour, starting out from an analysis of the present situation, are described for us by Eckart Hildebrandt, of the Study Centre for Social Research in Berlin. By flexibility explains the expert is meant “the erosion of so-called normal labour relations”: the transition from a full-time, fixed and permanent job in a firm to the imposition of new types of labour contract such as part time, temporary work, or contracts for the provision of particular services. “Some characteristics of flexible work points out the German expert make it more difficult to respect the environment”. Some examples: insecurity leads to a potential danger for some social networks; the growing intensity of work and the daily stress to which the worker is subjected determine a reduction of “time for the surrounding world”, while at the same time an increase of commercial consumption causes “the declining appeal of forms of non-material and cultural leisure-time activities”. Environmental management. Up till the early 1970s recalls Father Philipp Schmitz, professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome it was thought that the safeguard of the environment inevitably led to the elimination of jobs, “due to the policy of environmental constraints and restrictions on investments that it entailed”. Only later did people begin to realize that “an active environmental policy pursued by the State, apart from risks, could also provide opportunities for the labour market”. Some firms, for example, began to understand that “the risks of environmental scandals” were too dangerous and “to avoid damage to their image they therefore felt themselves obliged to make investments in environmental safeguards. Environmental management thus became fashionable: indeed, commitment in the environmental sector represented a legitimization of technology and industry, which people are otherwise so keen to demonize”. However, this conviction had few effects in terms of employment: “For productivity reasons firms concluded that the reduction of their workforce was unavoidable”. The figures at least as far as Germany is concerned speak for themselves: in 1996 the German Ministry for the Environment spoke of an overall rate of employment in the ecological sector of just under a million people (2.7% of the workforce). The Christian meaning of work. The “relational character” of work must take precedence over its “economic significance”: if we wish to define work taking into account the well-being of man, this factor must be take into account, points out Father Schmitz. In this new perspective, lesser interest attaches to the values of the “market” than to “respect for human dignity, participation with equal rights and the possibility of a future for everyone”. The scenario where this work is performed is precisely that of a “sustainable society” where, “in the biblical sense, the order of the Sabbath reigns”, an institution devoted to the “safeguard of man, to a social order that makes possible an experience of community, as language of the heart and of the life and action of the community”. Father Schmitz stresses how important and how relevant it is to maintain this value of the Sabbath today: it could represent, he believes, an “institutional directive for the sustainable society”.
