The Sustainable Development Ladder and its StepsBaker proposed the Sustainable Development Ladder (SD Ladder) in 1997 to clearly categorize the wide variety of SD approaches (Pelenc et al, 2015). This scale uses different steps to classify attitudes toward nature from an anthropocentric to an ecocentric perspective. In total, there are four stages on the SD ladder: pollution control, weak sustainable development, strong sustainable development and the ideal model of sustainable development (Baker et al, 2016). In this order, pollution control is on the lowest rung of the ladder (on the very anthropocentric side) and the ideal model is on the high rung of the ladder (on the very ecocentric side). These steps on the ladder not only organize the different approaches to promoting SD, but they also organize the type of policy associated with these different approaches (Baker et al, 2016). Additionally, the scale displays connections and differences between different approaches to SD. In the next paragraphs, the different stages of the SD ladder and their corresponding philosophies will be discussed. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay First of all; on the more anthropocentric side of the scale is the pollution control approach. At the heart of this approach is the view that environmental protection is important, but that economic growth remains the top priority in all cases (Baker et al, 2016). Therefore, according to this approach, environmental protection does not pose limits to economic growth (Baker et al, 2016). This lack of limits to economic growth results in exploitation of natural resources without regard to natural boundaries, which will in turn lead to environmental deterioration (Baker et al, 2016). Yet, this does not necessarily have to be a very important problem according to the pollution control approach, since maintaining or increasing the total value for the benefit of future generations is considered the most important issue (Neumayer, 2012 ). From this point of view, it does not matter whether the current generation exhausts its resources, as long as there is sufficient technology to compensate for this (Solow, 1993). This way of treating nature demonstrates one of the most important normative principles of the first rung of the ladder, namely that nature has only instrumental value and no intrinsic value (Baker et al, 2016). The concept of low sustainable development. According to the weak sustainable development approach, natural capital can be preserved by giving economic value to natural resources and processes (Baker et al, 2016). In this way of thinking, natural resources can be exploited, but only if the gains from exploiting that natural resource exceed the environmental losses (Baker et al, 2016). The low SD approach allows this substitution of environmental capital by human capital since human capital is, in this approach, supposed to have not only the capacity to replace environmental capital, but also to generate the same types of well-being (Pelenc et al, 2015). This approach to nature appears to take environmental degradation more seriously than the pollution control approach (Kirkpatrick, 2015). Yet even if policies that promote the concept of low sustainability take into account the environmental costs of economic growth, economic growth remains the most important factor. absolute priority (Pelenc et al,,.