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Knowledge Systems for Sustainable Development

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    • INTRODUCTION
      • IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF LOUIS PASTEUR By Philippe Kourilsky, Director-General, Institut Pasteur, Professor at the Collège de France

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF LOUIS PASTEUR By Philippe Kourilsky, Director-General, Institut Pasteur, Professor at the Collège de France

It comes as no surprise that the Institut Pasteur is hosting today the Institut Veolia Environnement's first "Future Environmental Trends Conference", because since its beginnings, at the end of the 19th Century, the Institut Pasteur has been involved in what we now call « sustainable development ».

Indeed, health is both one of the fundamental conditions of sustainable development, and one of its results. Firmly based ona network of scientific and medical cooperation represented by 23 Pasteur Institutes spread over the five continents, more than ever, the Institut Pasteur is committed to working on many of the disciplines that public health is concerned with:

  • fighting transmissible diseases
  • education in sanitation
  • epidemiology
  • screening and monitoring endemic diseases
  • preventive medicine: prevention, vaccination...
  • hygiene
  • the environment: microbiology, environmental pollution (contamination of food, water).

Scientific research must be placed at the head of the list of public and private commitments if we are to attain the objectives of more sustainable development for future generations. It is through scientific innovation that societies will best be able to make the economy sustainable.

I shall briefly illustrate that statement:

Scientists and industrialists share the same awareness of the challenges of the future.
Scientific innovation is our best chance of making economies more sustainable, and of solving the sanitary and environmental challenges of our times, while we await the emergence of new global and equitable forms of governance.

Sustainable development offers a model to which we entirely subscribe
From Rio to Johannesburg, in the space of ten years, powerful awareness has grown of the planet's limits and the risks we incur by giving freedom of action to forms of development that are insufficiently careful of the interests of future generations and of rare resources. The United Nations, with the Global Compact, have set the "Millennium Objectives" as regards health, education, standard of living, energy policies and democratic governance, and it is of value because it submits a road map to all the public and private decision makers who feel that our common medium and long term future is a matter for their concern.

In recent times, a corrective concept to market economy has evolved: sustainable development, and this does set out the need to balance everyone's right to prosperity and the duty to protect collective assets. It offers "a dynamic compromise between the pursuit of economic and social progress and the preservation of prevailing laws of nature". We strongly believe in the pertinence and value of this concept which is a further step towards responsible management. In the pursuit of our own activities, we are also moving in the same direction.

Scientific progress must regain its place at the centre of solutions for the future, and cease to be under suspicion.
Two hundred years ago, the world experienced an unbelievable conjunction between a cycle of discoveries in the physical and fundamental sciences, and a cycle of progress in medicine and biology. Louis Pasteur lived at the same time as the inventors of genius and the intrepid entrepreneurs who brought us the benefits of rail travel and electricity and simultaneously enforced prophylaxis and an understanding of microscopic life forms.

Was this the result of coincidence or of beneficial interaction? In any event, to reflect on our recent progress is to see that the drivers of extended life expectancy and improved quality of life owe everything to a combination of exceptional scientific breakthroughs and massive economic investment on the part of developed societies.

We must not forget that we owe to science our capacity to feed, care for, transport, shelter, and inform millions of people who up to this time had to be content with an autarchic and poverty-stricken existence.

This is Pasteur's lesson and we need to remember it to this day. It is true that he was in conflict with his times but he nevertheless managed to impress upon his contemporaries the force of rationality and faith in the benefits of progress, although society at the time hesitated on the brink of new developments.

If we truly wish to meet the challenges of a "sustainable" world, we must invest in science to a large extent.

A large number of scientific challenges still confront us. To quote some of them: antibiotic resistance, the issue of vaccine pressure, and our lack of knowledge as regards fighting AIDS, cancer, and the genetic vulnerability of certain populations.

At present, the people of the South are the first to suffer from our shortcomings. The conflict that arose over access to medicinal drugs can be viewed as an advance warning of North-South discord that had not been anticipated.

The sustainable model will be firmly based on cooperation between all the actors working on vital programmes.
The challenges of health and progress now call for commitment and innovation on the part of scientists.

The time has come to reaffirm the universality of researchers' missions, in time and in space, which must incite them, more than ever, to make fundamental learning available to all.

Like large corporations - Veolia publishes an annual report on accountability and sustainable development - which are now required to produce a "balance sheet", it could be a useful exercise to call on important scientific organisations to be more introspective as regards their purpose and the efficacy of their contribution to the common good.

The Institut Pasteur does keep this in mind. We are well aware today that research programmes, public and private, must take into account human priorities and that the action of international organisations does not absolve independent research from seeking the answers to problems which endanger the sustainability of certain regions and certain populations, as is the case in Africa at this time. This is why the Institut Pasteur feels that it remains faithful to its mission and to that vision when it works in close cooperation with international programmes on vaccination, research on AIDS and endemic diseases.

Science was the best product to emerge from the first industrial revolution. Is science the realistic and effective solution to these challenges that confront us, that we are well able to describe, but cannot deal with? We believe the answer is yes, and that is why we also believe that to mobilise scientific learning is the best and fastest way of finding lasting solutions to these issues, if we commit the necessary resources.

Our two organisations are cooperating by pooling their thoughts in this Conference on the Environment, Health, and Education.

Later, I would like us to arrive at exchanges of information and research programmes, in connection with the major issues we are involved in: safety and hygiene in the supply of water, management of sanitation policies, training and education as regards hygiene and management of water resources.

Indeed, both organisations are waging a battle against legionellosis, which is a major risk to public health, connected to liquid and gas flows. The Pasteur expertise in microbiology and Veolia's technical proficiency can surely help to curb this scourge.

The object is to encourage, through "scientific alliances", ambitious international commitment with the sole aim of seeking in order to find, and to get as involved as may be needed to eliminate the risks and threats that we cannot accept.

Such is the spirit in which these two institutions are tackling the issue of sustainable development. They know what unites them, despite radically different justification and organisation, and they know that this is necessary for their continuing existence in the future and the continued validation of their true calling.

Institut Pasteur

Institut Pasteur is a non-profit private foundation dedicated to the prevention and treatment of disease, primarily infectious diseases, through research, education and public health activities. Set up throughout the world with almost 8 500 individuals, the "Réseau International des Instituts Pasteur" shares the same missions, fighting against the diseases specific to the countries in which they are located. In order to enable the results of its research to be of rapid benefit to the general public, in the form of new products, technologies or services, Institut Pasteur has established close partnerships with industry in a number of fields including: human health, the environment, the food industry, hygiene.