Translation in Social and Environmental Sustainability: Case of Energy Sector in few Asian Countries

In 1987, the Brundtland Commission introduced the term “sustainable development” to highlight the needs for taking the future generations into account. The term has evolved from only focusing on the human kind to reconciliation between humans and nature. On one hand, this evolution opens space for nature and vulnerable people to be acknowledged, on the other hand, it raises difficulties in implementing the idea due to its heterogeneity. By the mid 1990s, for instance, there were more than 100 definitions of sustainability (Marshall and Toffel, 2005). Rather than following previous scholars trying to find a general definition for sustainability, we try to approach it through the idea of translation. From this perspective, diversity is being bounded via others’ right such as a practice is wrong whenever it might harm others and not because it looks different. Based on the argument above, we look at the energy sector within Asian countries in an attempt to increase variety in understanding sustainability.