Sustainability
Sustainability is the ability to exist constantly. In the 21st century, it refers generally to the capacity for the biosphere and human civilization to coexist. It is also defined as the process of people maintaining change in a homeostasis balanced environment, in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.[1] For many in the field, sustainability is defined through the following interconnected domains or pillars: environment, economic and social,[2] which according to Fritjof Capra[3] is based on the principles of Systems Thinking. Sub-domains of sustainable development have been considered also: cultural, technological and political.[4] According to Our Common Future, sustainable development is defined as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."[6][7] Sustainable development may be the organizing principle of sustainability, yet others may view the two terms as paradoxical (i.e., development is inherently unsustainable).[8][9][10]
Sustainability can also be defined as a socio-ecological process characterized by the pursuit of a common ideal.[11] An ideal is by definition unattainable in a given time and space. However, by persistently and dynamically approaching it, the process results in a sustainable system.[11] Many environmentalists and ecologists argue that sustainability is achieved through the balance of species and the resources within their environment. As is typically practiced in natural resource management, the goal is to maintain this equilibrium, available resources must not be depleted faster than resources are naturally generated.
Modern use of the term sustainability is broad and difficult to define precisely.[12] Originally, sustainability meant making only such use of natural, renewable resources that people can continue to rely on their yields in the long term.[13] The concept of sustainability, or Nachhaltigkeit in German, can be traced back to Hans Carl von Carlowitz (1645–1714), and was applied to forestry.[14]
Healthy ecosystems and environments are necessary to the survival of humans and other organisms. Ways of reducing negative human impact are environmentally-friendly chemical engineering, environmental resources management and environmental protection. Information is gained from green computing, green chemistry, earth science, environmental science and conservation biology. Ecological economics studies the fields of academic research that aim to address human economies and natural ecosystems.[15]
Moving towards sustainability is also a social challenge that entails international and national law, urban planning and transport, supply chain management, local and individual lifestyles and ethical consumerism. Ways of living more sustainably can take many forms from reorganizing living conditions (e.g., ecovillages, eco-municipalities and sustainable cities), reappraising economic sectors (permaculture, green building, sustainable agriculture), or work practices (sustainable architecture), using science to develop new technologies (green technologies, renewable energy and sustainable fission and fusion power), or designing systems in a flexible and reversible manner,[16][17] and adjusting individual lifestyles that conserve natural resources.[18]
In sum, "the term 'sustainability' should be viewed as humanity's target goal of human-ecosystem equilibrium (homeostasis), while 'sustainable development' refers to the holistic approach and temporal processes that lead us to the end point of sustainability."[19] Despite the increased popularity of the use of the term "sustainability," the possibility that human societies will achieve environmental sustainability has been, and continues to be, questioned—in light of environmental degradation, climate change, overconsumption, population growth and societies' pursuit of unlimited economic growth in a closed system.[20][21]
Etymology
The name sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere (tenere, to hold; sub, under). Sustain can mean "maintain", "support", "uphold" or "endure".[22][23]
Components
Three dimensions of sustainability
The 2005 World Summit on Social Development identified sustainable development goals, such as economic development, social development, and environmental protection.[25] This view has been expressed as an illustration using three overlapping ellipses indicating that the three pillars of sustainability are not mutually exclusive and can be mutually reinforcing.[26] In fact, the three pillars are interdependent, and in the long run, none can exist without the others.[27] The three pillars have served as a common ground for numerous sustainability standards and certification systems in recent years, in particular in the food industry.[28][29] Standards which today explicitly refer to the triple bottom line include Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade and UTZ Certified.[30][31] Some sustainability experts and practitioners have illustrated four pillars of sustainability or a quadruple bottom line. One such pillar is future generations, which emphasizes the long-term thinking associated with sustainability. There is also an opinion that considers resource use and financial sustainability as two additional pillars of sustainability.[32]
|
Sustainable development consists of balancing local and global efforts to meet basic human needs without destroying or degrading the natural environment.[34][35] The question then becomes how to represent the relationship between those needs and the environment.
A study from 2005 pointed out that environmental justice is as important as sustainable development.[36] Ecological economist Herman Daly asked, "what use is a sawmill without a forest?"[37] From this perspective, the economy is a subsystem of human society, which is itself a subsystem of the biosphere, and a gain in one sector is a loss from another.[38] This perspective led to the nested circles figure of 'economics' inside 'society' inside the 'environment'.
The simple definition that sustainability is something that improves "the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting eco-systems",[39] though vague, conveys the idea of sustainability having quantifiable limits. But sustainability is also a call to action, a task in progress or "journey" and therefore a political process, so some definitions set out common goals and values.[40] The Earth Charter[41] speaks of "a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace". This suggested a more complex figure of sustainability, which included the importance of the domain of 'politics'.
More than that, sustainability implies responsible and proactive decision-making and innovation that minimizes negative impact and maintains balance between ecological resilience, economic prosperity, political justice and cultural vibrancy to ensure a desirable planet for all species now and in the future.[5] Specific types of sustainability include, sustainable agriculture, sustainable architecture or ecological economics.[42] Understanding sustainable development is important but without clear targets it remains an unfocused term like "liberty" or "justice".[43] It has also been described as a "dialogue of values that challenge the sociology of development".[44]
Circles of sustainability and the fourth dimension of sustainability
While the United Nations Millennium Declaration identified principles and treaties on sustainable development, including economic development, social development, and environmental protection, it continued using three domains: economics, environment, and social sustainability. More recently, using a systematic domain model that responds to the debates over the last decade, the Circles of Sustainability approach distinguished four domains of economic, ecological, political and cultural sustainability;[45] this in accord with the United Nations, Unesco, Agenda 21, and in particular the Agenda 21 for culture which specifies culture as the fourth domain of sustainable development.[46] The model is now being used by organizations such as the United Nations Cities Programme[47] and Metropolis.[48] In the case of Metropolis, this approach does not mean adding a fourth domain of culture to the dominant triple bottom line figure of the economy, environment and the social. Rather, it involves treating all four domains—economy, ecology, politics, and culture—as social (including economics) and distinguishing between ecology (as the intersection of the human and natural worlds) and the environment as that which goes far beyond what we as humans can ever know.[49]
Seven modalities
Another model suggests humans' attempt to achieve all of their needs and aspirations via seven modalities: economy, community, occupational groups, government, environment, culture, and physiology.[50] From the global to the individual human scale, each of the seven modalities can be viewed across seven hierarchical levels. Human sustainability can be achieved by attaining sustainability in all levels of the seven modalities.
Shaping the future
Integral elements of sustainability are research and innovation activities. A telling example is the European environmental research and innovation policy. It aims at defining and implementing a transformative agenda to greening the economy and the society as a whole so to make them sustainable. Research and innovation in Europe are financially supported by the programme Horizon 2020, which is also open to participation worldwide.[51] Encouraging good farming practices ensures farmers fully benefit from the environment and at the same time conserving it for future generations. Additionally, instigating innovative and sustainable travel and transportation solutions must play a vital role in this process.[52][53] During the 2019 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Activist Rodrigo Ayala brought up a couple mechanisms to allow sustainability to become integrated into society. The need to gather as a society to plant more trees in our backyards is necessary and therefore a task for the next generation.
Resilience
Resilience in ecology is the capacity of an ecosystem to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic structure and viability. Resilience-thinking evolved from the need to manage interactions between human-constructed systems and natural ecosystems sustainably even though to policymakers a definition remains elusive. Resilience-thinking addresses how much planetary ecological systems can withstand assault from human disturbances and still deliver the service's current and future generations need from them. It is also concerned with commitment from geopolitical policymakers to promote and manage essential planetary ecological resources to promote resilience and achieve sustainability of these essential resources for benefit of future generations of life.[54] The resiliency of an ecosystem, and thereby, its sustainability, can be reasonably measured at junctures or events where the combination of naturally occurring regenerative forces (solar energy, water, soil, atmosphere, vegetation, and biomass) interact with the energy released into the ecosystem from disturbances.[55] Yet, we must acknowledge the fact that resilience is reactive. Hence, the importance to move beyond resilience and antifragility, namely, Tropophilia [56].
The most practical view of sustainability is in terms of efficiency [57]. In fact, efficiency equals sustainability since zero efficiency (when possible) means zero waste. Another not so practical view of sustainability is closed systems that maintain processes of productivity indefinitely by replacing resources used by actions of people with resources of equal or greater value by those same people without degrading or endangering natural biotic systems.[58] In this way, sustainability can be concretely measured in human projects if there is a transparent accounting of the resources put back into the ecosystem to replace those displaced. In nature, the accounting occurs naturally through a process of adaptation as an ecosystem returns to viability from an external disturbance. The adaptation is a multi-stage process that begins with the disturbance event (earthquake, volcanic eruption, hurricane, tornado, flood, or thunderstorm), followed by absorption, utilization, or deflection of the energy or energies that the external forces created.[59][60]
In analysing systems such as urban and national parks, dams, farms and gardens, theme parks, open-pit mines, water catchments, one way to look at the relationship between sustainability and resiliency is to view the former with a long-term vision and resiliency as the capacity of human engineers to respond to immediate environmental events.[61]
History
The name sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere (tenere, to hold; sub, under). Sustain can mean "maintain," "support," "uphold," or "endure".[22][23] The history of sustainability traces human-dominated ecological systems from the earliest civilizations to the present day.[62] This history is characterized by the increased regional success of a particular society, followed by crises that were either resolved, producing sustainability, or not, leading to decline.[63][64]
In early human history, the use of fire and desire for specific foods may have altered the natural composition of plant and animal communities.[65] Between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago, agrarian communities emerged which depended largely on their environment and the creation of a "structure of permanence."[66]
The Western industrial revolution of the 18th to 19th centuries tapped into the vast growth potential of the energy in fossil fuels. Coal was used to power ever more efficient engines and later to generate electricity. Modern sanitation systems and advances in medicine protected large populations from disease.[67] In the mid-20th century, a gathering environmental movement pointed out that there were environmental costs associated with the many material benefits that were now being enjoyed. In the late 20th century, environmental problems became global in scale.[68][69][70][71][72] The 1973 and 1979 energy crises demonstrated the extent to which the global community had become dependent on non-renewable energy resources.
In the 1970s, the ecological footprint of humanity exceeded the carrying capacity of earth, therefore the mode of life of humanity became unsustainable.[73]
In the 21st century, there is increasing global awareness of the threat posed by the human greenhouse effect, produced largely by forest clearing and the burning of fossil fuels.[74][75]
There are at least three letters from the scientific community about the growing threat to Sustainability and ways to remove the threat.
- In 1992, scientists wrote the first World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, which begins: "Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course." About 1,700 of the world's leading scientists including most of the Nobel Prize laureates in the sciences signed it. The letter mentions severe damage to atmosphere, oceans, ecosystems, soil productivity, and more. It warns humanity that life on earth as we know it can become impossible, and if humanity wants to prevent the damage, some steps need to be taken: better use of resources, abandon of fossil fuels, stabilization of human population, elimination of poverty and more.[76]
- In 2017, the scientists wrote a second warning to humanity. In this warning, the scientists mention some positive trends like slowing deforestation, but despite this, they claim that except ozone depletion, none of the problems mentioned in the first warning received an adequate response. The scientists called to reduce the use of fossil fuels, meat, and other resources and to stabilize the population. It was signed by 15,364 scientists from 184 countries, making it the letter with the most scientist signatures in history.[77]
- In November 2019, more than 11,000 scientists from 153 countries published a letter in which they warn about serious threats to sustainability from climate change if big changes in policies will not happen. The scientists declared "climate emergency" and called to stop overconsumption, move away from fossil fuels, eat less meat, stabilize the population, and more.[78]
Principles and concepts
The philosophical and analytic framework of sustainability draws on and connects with many different disciplines and fields; in recent years an area that has come to be called sustainability science has emerged.[79]
Scale and context
Sustainability is studied and managed over many scales (levels or frames of reference) of time and space and in many contexts of environmental, social, and economic organizations. The focus ranges from the total carrying capacity (sustainability) of planet Earth to the sustainability of economic sectors, ecosystems, countries, municipalities, neighborhood, home gardens, individual lives, individual goods, and servicesthis includes the use of natural resources prudently to meet current needs without affecting the ability of the future generation from meeting their needs., occupations, lifestyles, and behavior patterns. In short, it can entail the full compass of biological and human activity or any part of it.[80] As Daniel Botkin, author and environmentalist, has stated: "We see a landscape that is always in flux, changing over many scales of time and space."[81]
The sheer size and complexity of the planetary ecosystem has proven problematic for the design of practical measures to reach global sustainability. To shed light on the big picture, explorer and sustainability campaigner Jason Lewis has drawn parallels to other, more tangible closed systems. For example, he likens human existence on Earth — isolated as the planet is in space, whereby people cannot be evacuated to relieve population pressure and resources cannot be imported to prevent accelerated depletion of resources — to life at sea on a small boat isolated by water. In both cases, he argues, exercising the precautionary principle is a key factor in survival.[82]
Consumption
A major driver of human impact on Earth systems is the destruction of biophysical resources, and especially, the Earth's ecosystems. The environmental impact of a community or humankind as a whole depends both on population and impact per person, which in turn depends in complex ways on what resources are being used, whether or not those resources are renewable, and the scale of the human activity relative to the carrying capacity of the ecosystems involved. Careful resource management can be applied at many scales, from economic sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, and industry, to work organizations, the consumption patterns of households and individuals and to the resource demands of individual goods and services.[83][84]
One of the initial attempts to express human impact mathematically was developed in the 1970s and is called the I PAT formula. This formulation attempts to explain human consumption in terms of three components: population numbers, levels of consumption (which it terms "affluence", although the usage is different), and impact per unit of resource use (which is termed "technology", because this impact depends on the technology used). The equation is expressed:
- I = P × A × T
- Where: I = Environmental impact, P = Population, A = Affluence, T = Technology[85]
According to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, human consumption, with current policy, by the year 2100 should be 7 times bigger than in the year 2010.[86]
Circularity
In recent years, concepts based on (re-)cycling resources are increasingly gaining importance. The most prominent among these concepts might be the Circular economy, with its comprehensive support by the Chinese and the European Union. There is also a broad range of similar concepts or schools of thought, including cradle-to-cradle laws of ecology, looped and performance economy, regenerative design, industrial ecology, biomimicry, and the blue economy. These concepts seem intuitively to be more sustainable than the current linear economic system. The reduction of resource inputs into and waste and emission leakage out of the system reduces resource depletion and environmental pollution. However, these simple assumptions are not sufficient to deal with the involved systemic complexity and disregards potential trade-offs. For example, the social dimension of sustainability seems to be only marginally addressed in many publications on the Circular Economy, and some cases require different or additional strategies, such as purchasing new, more energy-efficient equipment. A review of a team of researchers from Cambridge and TU Delft identified eight different relationship types between sustainability and the circular economy, namely:[87]
- a conditional relation
- a strong conditional relation
- a necessary but not sufficient conditional relation
- a beneficial relationship
- a (structured and unstructured) subset relation
- a degree relation
- a cost-benefit/trade-off relation
- a selective relation
Measurement
Sustainability measurement is the quantitative basis for the informed management of sustainability.[88] The metrics used for the measurement of sustainability (involving the sustainability of environmental, social and economic domains, both individually and in various combinations) are evolving: they include indicators, benchmarks, audits, sustainability standards and certification systems like Fairtrade and Organic, indexes and accounting, as well as assessment, appraisal[89] and other reporting systems. They are applied over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.[90][91]
Some of the best known and most widely used sustainability measures include corporate sustainability reporting, Triple Bottom Line accounting, World Sustainability Society, Circles of Sustainability, and estimates of the quality of sustainability governance for individual countries using the Environmental Sustainability Index and Environmental Performance Index.
Two of the most known ways to measure environmental sustainability is Planetary boundaries[92] and Ecological footprint.[93] If the boundaries are not crossed and the ecological footprint is not exceeding the carrying capacity of the biosphere, the mode of life of humanity is sustainable.
Population
According to the most recent (July 2015) revision of the official United Nations World Population Prospects, the world population is projected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, up from the current 7.3 billion (July 2015), to exceed 9 billion people by 2050, and to reach 11.2 billion by the year 2100.[94] Most of the increase will be in developing countries whose population is projected to rise from 5.6 billion in 2009 to 7.9 billion in 2050. This increase will be distributed among the population aged 15–59 (1.2 billion) and 60 or over (1.1 billion) because the number of children under age 15 in developing countries is predicted to decrease. In contrast, the population of the more developed regions is expected to undergo only slight increase from 1.23 billion to 1.28 billion, and this would have declined to 1.15 billion but for a projected net migration from developing to developed countries, which is expected to average 2.4 million persons annually from 2009 to 2050.[95] Long-term estimates in 2004 of global population suggest a peak at around 2070 of nine to ten billion people, and then a slow decrease to 8.4 billion by 2100.[96]
Emerging economies like those of China and India aspire to the living standards of the Western world, as does the non-industrialized world in general.[97] It is the combination of population increase in the developing world and unsustainable consumption levels in the developed world that poses a stark challenge to sustainability.[98]
Carrying capacity
At the global scale, scientific data now indicates that humans are living beyond the carrying capacity of planet Earth and that this cannot continue indefinitely. This scientific evidence comes from many sources but is presented in detail in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the planetary boundaries framework.[99] An early detailed examination of global limits was published in the 1972 book Limits to Growth, which has prompted follow-up commentary and analysis.[100] A 2012 review in Nature by 22 international researchers expressed concerns that the Earth may be "approaching a state shift" in its biosphere.[101]
The ecological footprint measures human consumption in terms of the biologically productive land and sea area needed to provide for all the competing demands on nature, including the provision of food, fiber, the accommodation of urban infrastructure and the absorption of waste, including carbon from burning fossil fuel. In 2019, it required on average 2.8 global hectares per person worldwide, 75% more than the biological capacity of 1.6 global hectares available on this planet per person (this space includes the space needed for wild species).[70] The resulting ecological deficit must be met from unsustainable extra sources and these are obtained in three ways: embedded in the goods and services of world trade; taken from the past (e.g. fossil fuels); or borrowed from the future as unsustainable resource usage (e.g. by over exploiting forests and fisheries).
The figure (right) examines sustainability at the scale of individual countries by contrasting their Ecological Footprint with their UN Human Development Index (a measure of standard of living). The graph shows what is necessary for countries to maintain an acceptable standard of living for their citizens while, at the same time, maintaining sustainable resource use. The general trend is for higher standards of living to become less sustainable. As always, population growth has a marked influence on levels of consumption and the efficiency of resource use.[85][102] The sustainability goal is to raise the global standard of living without increasing the use of resources beyond globally sustainable levels; that is, to not exceed "one planet" consumption. The information generated by reports at the national, regional and city scales confirm the global trend towards societies that are becoming less sustainable over time.[69][103]
Romanian American economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, a progenitor in economics and a paradigm founder of ecological economics, has argued that the carrying capacity of Earth — that is, Earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels — is bound to decrease sometime in the future as Earth's finite stock of mineral resources is presently being extracted and put to use.[104]:303 Leading ecological economist and steady-state theorist Herman Daly, a student of Georgescu-Roegen, has propounded the same argument.[105]:369–371
At the enterprise scale, carrying capacity now also plays a critical role in making it possible to measure and report the sustainability performance of individual organizations. This is most clearly demonstrated through use of Context-Based Sustainability (CBS) tools, methods and metrics, including the MultiCapital Scorecard, which have been in development since 2005.[106][107] Contrary to many other mainstream approaches to measuring the sustainability performance of organizations – which tend to be more incrementalist in form – CBS is explicitly tied to social, environmental and economic limits and thresholds in the world. Thus, rather than simply measure and report changes in relative terms from one period to another, CBS makes it possible to compare the impacts of organizations to organization-specific norms, standards or thresholds for what they (the impacts) would have to be in order to be empirically sustainable (i.e., which if generalized to a larger population would not fail to maintain the sufficiency of vital resources for human or non-human well-being).[108][109]
Global human impact on biodiversity
.jpg)
At a fundamental level, energy flow and biogeochemical cycling set an upper limit on the number and mass of organisms in any ecosystem.[110] Human impacts on the Earth are demonstrated in a general way through detrimental changes in the global biogeochemical cycles of chemicals that are critical to life, most notably those of water, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus.[111]
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is an international synthesis by over 1000 of the world's leading biological scientists that analyzes the state of the Earth's ecosystems and provides summaries and guidelines for decision-makers. It concludes that human activity is having a significant and escalating impact on the biodiversity of the world ecosystems, reducing both their resilience and biocapacity. The report refers to natural systems as humanity's "life-support system", providing essential "ecosystem services". The assessment measures 24 ecosystem services and concludes that only four have shown improvement over the last 50 years, 15 are in serious decline, and five are in a precarious condition.[112]
In 2019, a summary for policymakers of the largest, most comprehensive study to date of biodiversity and ecosystem services was published by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The report was finalized in Paris. The main conclusions:
1. Over the last 50 years, the state of nature has deteriorated at an unprecedented and accelerating rate.
2. The main drivers of this deterioration have been changes in land and sea use, exploitation of living beings, climate change, pollution, and invasive species. These five drivers, in turn, are caused by societal behaviors, from consumption to governance.
3. Damage to ecosystems undermines 35 of 44 selected UN targets, including the UN General Assembly's Sustainable Development Goals for poverty, hunger, health, water, cities' climate, oceans, and land. It can cause problems with food, water and humanity's air supply.
4. To fix the problem, humanity will need a transformative change, including sustainable agriculture, reductions in consumption and waste, fishing quotas and collaborative water management.[113][114]
In 2019, research was published showing that insects are destroyed by human activities like habitat destruction, pesticide poisoning, invasive species and climate change at a rate that will cause the collapse of ecological systems in the next 50 years if it cannot be stopped.[115]
Sustainable development goals
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the United Nations General Assembly's current harmonized set of seventeen future international development targets.
The Official Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted on 25 September 2015 has 92 paragraphs, with the main paragraph (51) outlining the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and its associated 169 targets. This included the following seventeen goals:[116]
- Poverty – End poverty in all its forms everywhere[117]
- Food – End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture[118]
- Health – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages[119]
- Education – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all[120]
- Women – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls[121]
- Water – Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all[122]
- Energy – Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all[123]
- Economy – Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all[124]
- Infrastructure – Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation[125]
- Inequality – Reduce inequality within and among countries[126]
- Habitation – Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable[127]
- Consumption – Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns[128]
- Climate – Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts, ensuring that both mitigation and adaptation strategies are in place[129]
- Marine-ecosystems – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development[130]
- Ecosystems – Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss[131]
- Institutions – Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels[132]
- Sustainability – Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development[133]
As of August 2015, there were 169 proposed targets for these goals and 304 proposed indicators to show compliance.[134]
The Sustainable Development Goals replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expired at the end of 2015. The MDGs were established in 2000 following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations. Adopted by the 189 United Nations member states at the time and more than twenty international organizations, these goals were advanced to help achieve the following sustainable development standards by 2015.
- To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- To achieve universal primary education
- To promote gender equality and empower women
- To reduce child mortality
- To improve maternal health
- To combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
- To ensure environmental sustainability (one of the targets in this goal focuses on increasing sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation)
- To develop a global partnership for development
Sustainable development
According to the data that member countries represented to the United Nations, Cuba was the only country in the world in 2006 that met the World Wide Fund for Nature's definition of sustainable development, with an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita, 1.5, and a Human Development Index of over 0.8, 0.855.[135][136]
Education for Sustainable Development
Education for sustainable development (ESD) is commonly understood as education that encourages changes in knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to enable a more sustainable and just society for all. ESD aims to empower and equip current and future generations to meet their needs using a balanced and integrated approach to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.
The concept of ESD was born from the need for education to address the growing environmental challenges facing the planet. Education should c Sustainability in higher education is not only limited to embedding intended learning outcomes about sustainable development into the curriculum of higher educational institutions. However, a sustainable campus should integrate the educational and managerial aspects of the sustainable development along with its three dimensions (environmental, economical, social responsibility) into its different practices.[137]
Environmental dimension
Healthy ecosystems provide vital goods and services to humans and other organisms. There are two major ways of reducing negative human impact and enhancing ecosystem services and the first of these is environmental management. This direct approach is based largely on information gained from earth science, environmental science and conservation biology. However, this is management at the end of a long series of indirect causal factors that are initiated by human consumption, so a second approach is through demand management of human resource use.
Management of human consumption of resources is an indirect approach based largely on information gained from economics. Herman Daly has suggested three broad criteria for ecological sustainability: renewable resources should provide a sustainable yield (the rate of harvest should not exceed the rate of regeneration); for non-renewable resources there should be equivalent development of renewable substitutes; waste generation should not exceed the assimilative capacity of the environment.[138]
Environmental management
At the global scale and in the broadest sense environmental management involves the oceans, freshwater systems, land and atmosphere, but following the sustainability principle of scale it can be equally applied to any ecosystem from a tropical rainforest to a home garden.[139][140] In 2019, 2 weeks before the elections to the European Parliament, the World Wide Fund for Nature stated that the European Union is unsustainable in his current mode of life and economy and asked him to fix it by "Shift to sustainable consumption and food systems, make Europe climate-neutral by 2040, restore our Nature, protect the Ocean, invest in a sustainable future"[141]
Atmosphere
At a March 2009 meeting of the Copenhagen Climate Council, 2,500 climate experts from 80 countries issued a keynote statement that there is now "no excuse" for failing to act on global warming and that without strong carbon reduction "abrupt or irreversible" shifts in climate may occur that "will be very difficult for contemporary societies to cope with".[142][143] Management of the global atmosphere now involves assessment of all aspects of the carbon cycle to identify opportunities to address human-induced climate change and this has become a major focus of scientific research because of the potential catastrophic effects on biodiversity and human communities (see Energy below).
Other human impacts on the atmosphere include the air pollution in cities, the pollutants including toxic chemicals like nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides, volatile organic compounds and airborne particulate matter that produce photochemical smog and acid rain, and the chlorofluorocarbons that degrade the ozone layer. Anthropogenic particulates such as sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere reduce the direct irradiance and reflectance (albedo) of the Earth's surface. Known as global dimming, the decrease is estimated to have been about 4% between 1960 and 1990 although the trend has subsequently reversed. Global dimming may have disturbed the global water cycle by reducing evaporation and rainfall in some areas. It also creates a cooling effect and this may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming.[144]
Reforestation is one of the ways to stop desertification fueled by anthropogenic climate change and non-sustainable land use. One of the most important projects is the Great Green Wall that should stop the expansion of Sahara desert to the south. By 2018 only 15% of it is accomplished, but there are already many positive effects, which include: "Over 12 million acres (5 million hectares) of degraded land has been restored in Nigeria; roughly 30 million acres of drought-resistant trees have been planted across Senegal; and a whopping 37 million acres of land has been restored in Ethiopia – just to name a few of the states involved." "many groundwater wells refilled with drinking water, rural towns with additional food supplies, and new sources of work and income for villagers, thanks to the need for tree maintenance".[145][146][147]
Freshwater and oceans
Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface. Of this, 97.5% is the salty water of the oceans and only 2.5% freshwater, most of which is locked up in the Antarctic ice sheet. The remaining freshwater is found in glaciers, lakes, rivers, wetlands, the soil, aquifers, and atmosphere. Due to the water cycle, freshwater supply is continually replenished by precipitation, however, there is still a limited amount necessitating the management of this resource. Awareness of the global importance of preserving water for ecosystem services has only recently emerged as, during the 20th century, more than half the world's wetlands have been lost along with their valuable environmental services. Increasing urbanization pollutes clean water supplies and much of the world still do not have access to clean, safe water.[148] Greater emphasis is now being placed on the improved management of blue (harvestable) and green (soil water available for plant use) water, and this applies at all scales of water management.[149]
Ocean circulation patterns have a strong influence on climate and weather and, in turn, the food supply of both humans and other organisms. Scientists have warned of the possibility, under the influence of climate change, of a sudden alteration in circulation patterns of ocean currents that could drastically alter the climate in some regions of the globe.[150] Ten per cent of the world's population—about 600 million people—live in low-lying areas vulnerable to sea-level rise.
Land use
Loss of biodiversity stems largely from the habitat loss and fragmentation produced by the human appropriation of land for development, forestry and agriculture as natural capital is progressively converted to man-made capital. Land use change is fundamental to the operations of the biosphere because alterations in the relative proportions of land dedicated to urbanisation, agriculture, forest, woodland, grassland and pasture have a marked effect on the global water, carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical cycles and this can impact negatively on both natural and human systems.[151] At the local human scale, major sustainability benefits accrue from sustainable parks and gardens and green cities.[152][153]
Since the Neolithic Revolution about 47% of the world's forests have been lost to human use. Present-day forests occupy about a quarter of the world's ice-free land with about half of these occurring in the tropics.[154] In temperate and boreal regions forest area is gradually increasing (except for Siberia), but deforestation in the tropics is of major concern.[155] According to a study published in Nature Scientific Reports if deforestation continue in current rate in the next 20 - 40 years, it will probably trigger a full or almost full extinction of humanity. To avoid it humanity should pass from a civilization dominated by the economy to "cultural society" that "privileges the interest of the ecosystem above the individual interest of its components, but eventually in accordance with the overall communal interest"[156]
Food is essential to life. Feeding more than seven billion human bodies takes a heavy toll on the Earth's resources. This begins with the appropriation of about 38% of the Earth's land surface[157] and about 20% of its net primary productivity.[158] Added to this are the resource-hungry activities of industrial agribusiness—everything from the crop need for irrigation water, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides to the resource costs of food packaging, transport (now a major part of global trade) and retail. Environmental problems associated with industrial agriculture and agribusiness are now being addressed through such movements as sustainable agriculture, organic farming and more sustainable business practices.[159]
Management of human consumption
The underlying driver of direct human impacts on the environment is human consumption.[160] This impact is reduced by not only consuming less but also making the full cycle of production, use, and disposal more sustainable. Consumption of goods and services can be analyzed and managed at all scales through the chain of consumption, starting with the effects of individual lifestyle choices and spending patterns, through to the resource demands of specific goods and services, the impacts of economic sectors, through national economies to the global economy.[161] Analysis of consumption patterns relates resource use to the environmental, social and economic impacts at the scale or context under investigation. The ideas of embodied resource use (the total resources needed to produce a product or service), resource intensity, and resource productivity are important tools for understanding the impacts of consumption. Key resource categories relating to human needs are food, energy, materials and water.
In 2010, the International Resource Panel, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), published the first global scientific assessment on the impacts of consumption and production[162] and identified priority actions for developed and developing countries. The study found that the most critical impacts are related to ecosystem health, human health and resource depletion. From a production perspective, it found that fossil-fuel combustion processes, agriculture and fisheries have the most important impacts. Meanwhile, from a final consumption perspective, it found that household consumption related to mobility, shelter, food, and energy-using products causes the majority of life-cycle impacts of consumption.
Energy
The Sun's energy, stored by plants (primary producers) during photosynthesis, passes through the food chain to other organisms to ultimately power all living processes. Since the industrial revolution the concentrated energy of the Sun stored in fossilized plants as fossil fuels has been a major driver of technology which, in turn, has been the source of both economic and political power. In 2007 climate scientists of the IPCC concluded that there was at least a 90% probability that atmospheric increase in CO2 was human-induced, mostly as a result of fossil fuel emissions but, to a lesser extent from changes in land use. Stabilizing the world's climate will require high-income countries to reduce their emissions by 60–90% over 2006 levels by 2050 which should hold CO2 levels at 450–650 ppm from current levels of about 380 ppm. Above this level, temperatures could rise by more than 2 °C to produce "catastrophic" climate change.[163][164] Reduction of current CO2 levels must be achieved against a background of global population increase and developing countries aspiring to energy-intensive high consumption Western lifestyles.[165]
Reducing greenhouse emissions, is being tackled at all scales, ranging from tracking the passage of carbon through the carbon cycle[166] to the commercialization of renewable energy, developing less carbon-hungry technology and transport systems and attempts by individuals to lead carbon-neutral lifestyles by monitoring the fossil fuel use embodied in all the goods and services they use.[167][168] Engineering of emerging technologies such as carbon-neutral fuel[169][170][171] and energy storage systems such as power to gas, compressed air energy storage,[172][173] and pumped-storage hydroelectricity[174][175][176] are necessary to store power from transient renewable energy sources including emerging renewables such as airborne wind turbines.[177]
Renewable energy also has some environmental impacts. They are presented by the proponents of theories like Degrowth, Steady-state economy and Circular economy as one of the proofs that for achieving sustainability technological methods are not enough and there is a need to limit consumption[178][179]
Water
Water security and food security are inextricably linked. In the decade 1951–60 human water withdrawals were four times greater than the previous decade. This rapid increase resulted from scientific and technological developments impacting through the economy—especially the increase in irrigated land, growth in industrial and power sectors, and intensive dam construction on all continents. This altered the water cycle of rivers and lakes, affected their water quality and had a significant impact on the global water cycle.[180] Currently towards 35% of human water use is unsustainable, drawing on diminishing aquifers and reducing the flows of major rivers: this percentage is likely to increase if climate change impacts become more severe, populations increase, aquifers become progressively depleted and supplies become polluted and unsanitary.[181] From 1961 to 2001 water demand doubled—agricultural use increased by 75%, industrial use by more than 200%, and domestic use more than 400%.[182] In the 1990s it was estimated that humans were using 40–50% of the globally available freshwater in the approximate proportion of 70% for agriculture, 22% for industry, and 8% for domestic purposes with total use progressively increasing.[180]
Water efficiency is being improved on a global scale by increased demand management, improved infrastructure, improved water productivity of agriculture, minimising the water intensity (embodied water) of goods and services, addressing shortages in the non-industrialized world, concentrating food production in areas of high productivity, and planning for climate change, such as through flexible system design. A promising direction towards sustainable development is to design systems that are flexible and reversible.[16][17] At the local level, people are becoming more self-sufficient by harvesting rainwater and reducing use of mains water.[149][183]
Food
The American Public Health Association (APHA) defines a "sustainable food system"[184][185] as "one that provides healthy food to meet current food needs while maintaining healthy ecosystems that can also provide food for generations to come with minimal negative impact to the environment. A sustainable food system also encourages local production and distribution infrastructures and makes nutritious food available, accessible, and affordable to all. Further, it is humane and just, protecting farmers and other workers, consumers, and communities."[186]
Industrial agriculture cause environmental impacts, health problem associated with obesity in the rich world and hunger in the poor world. This has generated a strong movement towards healthy, sustainable eating as a major component of overall ethical consumerism.[187][188]
The environmental effects of different dietary patterns depend on many factors, including the proportion of animal and plant foods consumed and the method of food production.[189][190][191][192] The World Health Organization has published a Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health report which was endorsed by the May 2004 World Health Assembly. It recommends the Mediterranean diet which is associated with health and longevity and is low in meat, rich in fruits and vegetables, low in added sugar and limited salt, and low in saturated fatty acids; the traditional source of fat in the Mediterranean is olive oil, rich in monounsaturated fat. The healthy rice-based Japanese diet is also high in carbohydrates and low in fat. Both diets are low in meat and saturated fats and high in legumes and other vegetables; they are associated with a low incidence of ailments and low environmental impact.[193]
At the global level the environmental impact of agribusiness is being addressed through sustainable agriculture and organic farming. At the local level there are various movements working towards local food production, more productive use of urban wastelands and domestic gardens including permaculture, urban horticulture, local food, slow food, sustainable gardening, and organic gardening.[194][195]
Sustainable seafood is seafood from either fished or farmed sources that can maintain or increase production in the future without jeopardizing the ecosystems from which it was acquired. The sustainable seafood movement has gained momentum as more people become aware of both overfishing and environmentally destructive fishing methods.
Materials, toxic substances, waste
As the global population and affluence has increased, so has the use of various materials increased in volume, diversity, and distance transported. Included here are raw materials, minerals, synthetic chemicals (including hazardous substances), manufactured products, food, living organisms, and waste.[196] By 2050, humanity could consume an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year (three times its current amount) unless the economic growth rate is decoupled from the rate of natural resource consumption. Developed countries' citizens consume an average of 16 tons of those four key resources per capita, ranging up to 40 or more tons per person in some developed countries with resource consumption levels far beyond what is likely sustainable.[197]
Sustainable use of materials has targeted the idea of dematerialization, converting the linear path of materials (extraction, use, disposal in landfill) to a circular material flow that reuses materials as much as possible, much like the cycling and reuse of waste in nature.[198] This approach is supported by product stewardship and the increasing use of material flow analysis at all levels, especially individual countries and the global economy.[199] The use of sustainable biomaterials that come from renewable sources and that can be recycled is preferred to the use on non-renewables from a life cycle standpoint.
Synthetic chemical production has escalated following the stimulus it received during the Second World War. Chemical production includes everything from herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers to domestic chemicals and hazardous substances.[200] Apart from the build-up of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere, chemicals of particular concern include: heavy metals, nuclear waste, chlorofluorocarbons, persistent organic pollutants and all harmful chemicals capable of bioaccumulation. Although most synthetic chemicals are harmless there needs to be rigorous testing of new chemicals, in all countries, for adverse environmental and health effects. International legislation has been established to deal with the global distribution and management of dangerous goods.[201][202] The effects of some chemical agents needed long-term measurements and a lot of legal battles to realize their danger to human health. The classification of the toxic carcinogenic agents is handled by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Every economic activity produces material that can be classified as waste. To reduce waste, industry, business and government are now mimicking nature by turning the waste produced by industrial metabolism into a resource. Dematerialization is being encouraged through the ideas of industrial ecology, ecodesign[203] and ecolabelling. In addition to the well-established "reduce, reuse and recycle", shoppers are using their purchasing power for ethical consumerism.[84]
The European Union is expected to table by the end of 2015 an ambitious Circular Economy package which is expected to include concrete legislative proposals on waste management, ecodesign, and limits on landfills.
In 2019 a new report "Plastic and Climate" was published. According to the report, plastic will contribute greenhouse gases in the equivalent of 850 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO
2) to the atmosphere in 2019. In the current trend, annual emissions will grow to 1.34 billion tons by 2030. By 2050 plastic could emit 56 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, as much as 14 percent of the earth's remaining carbon budget.[204]
Economic dimension
On one account, sustainability "concerns the specification of a set of actions to be taken by present persons that will not diminish the prospects of future persons to enjoy levels of consumption, wealth, utility, or welfare comparable to those enjoyed by present persons".[205] Sustainability interfaces with economics through the social and ecological consequences of economic activity.[37] Sustainability economics represents: "... a broad interpretation of ecological economics where environmental and ecological variables and issues are basic but part of a multidimensional perspective. Social, cultural, health-related and monetary/financial aspects have to be integrated into the analysis."[206] According to the World Economic Forum, half of the global GDP is strongly or moderately dependent on nature. For every dollar spent on Nature restoration there is a profit of at least 9 dollars. Example of this link is the COVID-19 pandemic, which is linked to nature destruction and caused severe economic damage.[207]
However, the concept of sustainability is much broader than the concepts of sustained yield of welfare, resources, or profit margins.[208] At present, the average per capita consumption of people in the developing world is sustainable but population numbers are increasing and individuals are aspiring to high-consumption Western lifestyles. The developed world population is only increasing slightly but consumption levels are unsustainable. The challenge for sustainability is to curb and manage Western consumption while raising the standard of living of the developing world without increasing its resource use and environmental impact. This must be done by using strategies and technology that break the link between, on the one hand, economic growth and on the other, environmental damage and resource depletion.[209]
A recent UNEP report proposes a green economy defined as one that "improves human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities": it "does not favor one political perspective over another but works to minimize excessive depletion of natural capital". The report makes three key findings: "that greening not only generates increases in wealth, in particular, a gain in ecological commons or natural capital but also (over a period of six years) produces a higher rate of GDP growth"; that there is "an inextricable link between poverty eradication and better maintenance and conservation of the ecological commons, arising from the benefit flows from natural capital that are received directly by the poor"; "in the transition to a green economy, new jobs are created, which in time exceed the losses in "brown economy" jobs. However, there is a period of job losses in transition, which requires investment in re-skilling and re-educating the workforce".[210]
Several key areas have been targeted for economic analysis and reform: the environmental effects of unconstrained economic growth; the consequences of nature being treated as an economic externality; and the possibility of an economics that takes greater account of the social and environmental consequences of market behavior.[211]
Decoupling environmental degradation and economic growth
| Part of a series about |
| Environmental economics |
|---|
| Concepts |
| Policies |
|
| Dynamics |
| Carbon related |
Historically there has been a close correlation between economic growth and environmental degradation: as communities grow, so the environment declines. This trend is clearly demonstrated on graphs of human population numbers, economic growth, and environmental indicators.[212]</ref> Unsustainable economic growth has been starkly compared to the malignant growth of a cancer[213] because it eats away at the Earth's ecosystem services which are its life-support system. There is a concern that, unless resource use is checked, modern global civilization will follow the path of ancient civilizations that collapsed through overexploitation of their resource base.[214][215] While conventional economics is concerned largely with economic growth and the efficient allocation of resources, ecological economics has the explicit goal of sustainable scale (rather than continual growth), fair distribution and efficient allocation, in that order.[216][217] The World Business Council for Sustainable Development states that "business cannot succeed in societies that fail".[218]
In economic and environmental fields, the term decoupling is becoming increasingly used in the context of economic production and environmental quality. When used in this way, it refers to the ability of an economy to grow without incurring corresponding increases in environmental pressure. Ecological economics includes the study of societal metabolism, the throughput of resources that enter and exit the economic system in relation to environmental quality.[217][219] An economy that can sustain GDP growth without harming the environment is said to be decoupled. Exactly how, if, or to what extent this can be achieved is a subject of much debate. In 2011 the International Resource Panel, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), warned that by 2050 the human race could be devouring 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year—three times its current rate of consumption—unless nations can make serious attempts at decoupling.[220] The report noted that citizens of developed countries consume an average of 16 tons of those four key resources per capita per annum (ranging up to 40 or more tons per person in some developed countries). By comparison, the average person in India today consumes four tons per year. Sustainability studies analyse ways to reduce resource intensity (the amount of resource (e.g. water, energy, or materials) needed for the production, consumption and disposal of a unit of good or service) whether this be achieved from improved economic management, product design, or new technology.[221]
There are conflicting views on whether improvements in technological efficiency and innovation will enable a complete decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation. On the one hand, it has been claimed repeatedly by efficiency experts that resource use intensity (i.e., energy and materials use per unit GDP) could in principle be reduced by at least four or five-fold, thereby allowing for continued economic growth without increasing resource depletion and associated pollution.[222][223] On the other hand, an extensive historical analysis of technological efficiency improvements has conclusively shown that improvements in the efficiency of the use of energy and materials were almost always outpaced by economic growth, in large part because of the rebound effect (conservation) or Jevons Paradox resulting in a net increase in resource use and associated pollution.[224][225] Furthermore, there are inherent thermodynamic (i.e., second law of thermodynamics) and practical limits to all efficiency improvements. For example, there are certain minimum unavoidable material requirements for growing food, and there are limits to making automobiles, houses, furniture, and other products lighter and thinner without the risk of losing their necessary functions.[226] Since it is both theoretically and practically impossible to increase resource use efficiencies indefinitely, it is equally impossible to have continued and infinite economic growth without a concomitant increase in resource depletion and environmental pollution, i.e., economic growth and resource depletion can be decoupled to some degree over the short run but not the long run. Consequently, long-term sustainability requires the transition to a steady state economy in which total GDP remains more or less constant, as has been advocated for decades by Herman Daly and others in the ecological economics community.
A different proposed solution to partially decouple economic growth from environmental degradation is the restore approach.[227] This approach views "restore" as a fourth component to the common reduce, reuse, recycle motto. Participants in such efforts are encouraged to voluntarily donate towards nature conservation a small fraction of the financial savings they experience through a more frugal use of resources. These financial savings would normally lead to rebound effects, but a theoretical analysis suggests that donating even a small fraction of the experienced savings can potentially more than eliminate rebound effects.[227]
Nature as an economic externality
The economic importance of nature is indicated by the use of the expression ecosystem services to highlight the market relevance of an increasingly scarce natural world that can no longer be regarded as both unlimited and free.[228] In general, as a commodity or service becomes more scarce the price increases and this acts as a restraint that encourages frugality, technical innovation and alternative products. However, this only applies when the product or service falls within the market system.[229] As ecosystem services are generally treated as economic externalities they are unpriced and therefore overused and degraded, a situation sometimes referred to as the Tragedy of the Commons.[228]
One approach to this dilemma has been the attempt to "internalize" these "externalities" by using market strategies like ecotaxes and incentives, tradable permits for carbon, and the encouragement of payment for ecosystem services. Community currencies associated with Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), a gift economy and Time Banking have also been promoted as a way of supporting local economies and the environment.[230][231] Green economics is another market-based attempt to address issues of equity and the environment.[232] The global recession and a range of associated government policies are likely to bring the biggest annual fall in the world's carbon dioxide emissions in 40 years.[233]
Economic opportunity
Treating the environment as an externality may generate short-term profit at the expense of sustainability.[234] Sustainable business practices, on the other hand, integrate ecological concerns with social and economic ones (i.e., the triple bottom line).[235][236] The growth that depletes ecosystem services is sometimes termed "uneconomic growth" as it leads to a decline in quality of life.[237][238] Minimizing such growth can provide opportunities for local businesses. For example, industrial waste can be treated as an "economic resource in the wrong place". The benefits of waste reduction include savings from disposal costs, fewer environmental penalties, and reduced liability insurance. This may lead to increased market share due to an improved public image.[239][240] Energy efficiency can also increase profits by reducing costs.
The idea of sustainability as a business opportunity has led to the formation of organizations such as the Sustainability Consortium of the Society for Organizational Learning,[241] the Sustainable Business Institute,[242] and the World Council for Sustainable Development.[243] The expansion of sustainable business opportunities can contribute to job creation through the introduction of green-collar workers.[244] Research focusing on progressive corporate leaders who have integrated sustainability into commercial strategy has yielded a leadership competency model for sustainability,[245][246] and led to emergence of the concept of "embedded sustainability"—defined by its authors Chris Laszlo and Nadya Zhexembayeva as "incorporation of environmental, health, and social value into the core business with no trade-off in price or quality—in other words, with no social or green premium".[247] Laszlo and Zhexembayeva's research showed that embedded sustainability offers at least seven distinct opportunities for business value creation: a) better risk-management, b) increased efficiency through reduced waste and resource use, c) better product differentiation, d) new market entrances, e) enhanced brand and reputation, f) greater opportunity to influence industry standards, and g) greater opportunity for radical innovation.[248] Nadya Zhexembayeva's 2014 research further suggested that innovation driven by resource depletion can result in fundamental advantages for company products and services, as well as the company strategy as a whole, when right principles of innovation are applied.[249]
Market approach
Market approach refers to incentive-based policy that encourages conservative practices or pollution reduction strategies. Types of Market instruments are Pollution charge, Subsidies, Deposit/refund systems and Pollution permit trading systems.[250]
Ecosocialist approach
One school of thought, often labeled ecosocialism or ecological Marxism, asserts that the capitalist economic system is fundamentally incompatible with the ecological and social requirements of sustainability.[251] This theory rests on the premises that:
- Capitalism's sole economic purpose is "unlimited capital accumulation" in the hands of the capitalist class[252]
- The urge to accumulate (the profit motive) drives capitalists to continually reinvest and expand production, creating indefinite and unsustainable economic growth[253][254]
- "Capital tends to degrade the conditions of its own production" (the ecosystems and resources on which any economy depends)[255]
Thus, according to this analysis:
- Giving economic priority to the fulfillment of human needs while staying within ecological limits, as sustainable development demands, is in conflict with the structural workings of capitalism[256]
- A steady-state capitalist economy is impossible;[257] further, a steady-state capitalist economy is socially undesirable due to the inevitable outcome of massive unemployment and underemployment[258]
- Capitalism will, unless overcome by revolution, run up against the physical limits of the biosphere and self-destruct[259]
By this logic, market-based solutions to ecological crises (ecological economics, environmental economics, green economy) are rejected as technical tweaks that do not confront capitalism's structural failures.[260][261] "Low-risk" technology/science-based solutions such as solar power, sustainable agriculture, and increases in energy efficiency are seen as necessary but insufficient.[262] "High-risk" technological solutions such as nuclear power and climate engineering are entirely rejected.[263] Attempts made by businesses to "greenwash" their practices are regarded as false advertising, and it is pointed out that implementation of renewable technology (such as Walmart's proposition to supply their electricity with solar power) has the effect opposite of reductions in resource consumption, viz. further economic growth.[264] Sustainable business models and the triple bottom line are viewed as morally praiseworthy but ignorant to the tendency in capitalism for the distribution of wealth to become increasingly unequal and socially unstable/unsustainable.[255][265] Ecosocialists claim that the general unwillingness of capitalists to tolerate—and capitalist governments to implement—constraints on maximum profit (such as ecotaxes or preservation and conservation measures) renders environmental reforms incapable of facilitating large-scale change: "History teaches us that although capitalism has at times responded to environmental movements ... at a certain point, at which the system's underlying accumulation drive is affected, its resistance to environmental demands stiffens."[266] They also note that, up until the event of total ecological collapse, destruction caused by natural disasters generally causes an increase in economic growth and accumulation; thus, capitalists have no foreseeable motivation to reduce the probability of disasters (i.e. convert to sustainable/ecological production).[267]
Ecosocialists advocate for the revolutionary succession of capitalism by ecosocialism—an egalitarian economic/political/social structure designed to harmonize human society with non-human ecology and to fulfill human needs—as the only sufficient solution to the present-day ecological crisis, and hence the only path towards sustainability.[268] Sustainability is viewed not as a domain exclusive to scientists, environmental activists, and business leaders but as a holistic project that must involve the whole of humanity redefining its place in Nature: "What every environmentalist needs to know ... is that capitalism is not the solution but the problem, and that if humanity is going to survive this crisis, it will do so because it has exercised its capacity for human freedom, through social struggle, in order to create a whole new world—in coevolution with the planet."[269]
Social dimension
2 emissions, for example in Costa Rica, a country which also ranks high on the Happy Planet Index.
Sustainability issues are generally expressed in scientific and environmental terms, as well as in ethical terms of stewardship, but implementing change is a social challenge that entails, among other things, international and national law, urban planning and transport, local and individual lifestyles and ethical consumerism.[270] "The relationship between human rights and human development, corporate power and environmental justice, global poverty and citizen action, suggest that responsible global citizenship is an inescapable element of what may at first glance seem to be simply matters of personal consumer and moral choice."[271]
Peace, security, social justice
Social disruptions like war, crime and corruption divert resources from areas of greatest human need, damage the capacity of societies to plan for the future, and generally threaten human well-being and the environment.[271] Broad-based strategies for more sustainable social systems include: improved education and the political empowerment of women, especially in developing countries; greater regard for social justice, notably equity between rich and poor both within and between countries; and intergenerational equity.[98] Depletion of natural resources including fresh water[272] increases the likelihood of "resource wars".[273] This aspect of sustainability has been referred to as environmental security and creates a clear need for global environmental agreements to manage resources such as aquifers and rivers which span political boundaries, and to protect shared global systems including oceans and the atmosphere.[274]
To achieve sustainability, global peace will probably be needed, because economic growth is one of the main factors that determine the military capability. Without peace and international cooperation, a country that will limit its economic growth will achieve lower military capability. If there are countries that continue to grow economically, the result may be the conquest of the first country by the ones that continue to grow.[275] In such conditions there is very low probability that a steady state economy can exist. Economic growth will continue what can pose problems to sustainability.[160]
The Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) mention on his site that the cold war was measured in GDP, and because of it was unsustainable, referring to the book of Robert Collins, named: "More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America".[276] The book is dealing with economic growth in the US in the time of the cold war and claim that it was due to the will of "pay for the arms build-up and proof of the superiority of the United States' market economy"[277]
In 2017 China leaders declare that they want to build an ecological civilization, what has very big significance to the planet, but some are sceptic about it, partly because economic growth is necessary to increase the military capability of China.[278][279]
In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond argue that Surplus product, while linked with the creation of a ruling class and social stratification, create the possibility to labour division, what means that people could be specialized on warfare, making weapons, and this enabled the countries with more surplus product to conquest countries with less.[280]
Poverty
A major hurdle to achieve sustainability is the alleviation of poverty. It has been widely acknowledged that poverty is one source of environmental degradation. Such acknowledgment has been made by the Brundtland Commission report Our Common Future[281] and the Millennium Development Goals.[282] There is a growing realization in national governments and multilateral institutions that it is impossible to separate economic development issues from environment issues: according to the Brundtland report, "poverty is a major cause and effect of global environmental problems. It is therefore futile to attempt to deal with environmental problems without a broader perspective that encompasses the factors underlying world poverty and international inequality."[283] Individuals living in poverty tend to rely heavily on their local ecosystem as a source for basic needs (such as nutrition and medicine) and general well-being.[284] As population growth continues to increase, increasing pressure is being placed on the local ecosystem to provide these basic essentials. According to the UN Population Fund, high fertility and poverty have been strongly correlated, and the world's poorest countries also have the highest fertility and population growth rates.[285] The word sustainability is also used widely by western country development agencies and international charities to focus their poverty alleviation efforts in ways that can be sustained by the local populace and its environment. For example, teaching water treatment to the poor by boiling their water with charcoal, would not generally be considered a sustainable strategy, whereas using PET solar water disinfection would be. Also, sustainable best practices can involve the recycling of materials, such as the use of recycled plastics for lumber where deforestation has devastated a country's timber base. Another example of sustainable practices in poverty alleviation is the use of exported recycled materials from developed to developing countries, such as Bridges to Prosperity's use of wire rope from shipping container gantry cranes to act as the structural wire rope for footbridges that cross rivers in poor rural areas in Asia and Africa.
Human relationship to nature
According to Murray Bookchin, the idea that humans must dominate nature is common in hierarchical societies. Bookchin contends that capitalism and market relationships, if unchecked, can reduce the planet to a mere resource to be exploited. Nature is thus treated as a commodity: "The plundering of the human spirit by the market place is paralleled by the plundering of the earth by capital."[286] Social ecology, founded by Bookchin, is based on the conviction that nearly all of humanity's present ecological problems originate in, indeed are mere symptoms of, dysfunctional social arrangements. Whereas most authors proceed as if our ecological problems can be fixed by implementing recommendations which stem from physical, biological, economic, etc., studies, Bookchin's claim is that these problems can only be resolved by understanding the underlying social processes and intervening in those processes by applying the concepts and methods of the social sciences.[287]
A pure capitalist approach has also been criticized in Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change by referring to climate change as "the greatest example of market failure we have ever seen."[288][289]
With the United States of America, The Government and the Economy has had a long-lasting impact on the environment, but in a problematic way. Policy issues regarding the environment have shown that the country regards the protection of the environment as a "second-hand issue". One causation from this is a certain dilemma called "collective action problem" or collective action dilemmas." These occur when individuals, firms, or governments would be better off if they cooperated in the pursuit of a common goal, but, for one reason or another, one or more of those involved choose a less optimal course of action.[290] Matthew Potoski and Aseem Prakash have made a model establishing 4 cells that are explaining each benefit for the government or the economic process. For the government, one cost might be the loss of public confidence and trust, while a firm might lose market share and profitability [290]
Deep ecology is a movement founded by Arne Naess that establishes principles for the well-being of all life on Earth and the richness and diversity of life forms. The movement advocates, among other things, a substantial decrease in human population and consumption along with the reduction of human interference with the nonhuman world. To achieve this, deep ecologists advocate policies for basic economic, technological, and ideological structures that will improve the quality of life rather than the standard of living. Those who subscribe to these principles are obliged to make the necessary change happen.[291] The concept of a billion-year Sustainocene has been developed to initiate policy consideration of an earth where human structures power and fuel the needs of that species (for example through artificial photosynthesis) allowing Rights of Nature.[292]
Human settlements
1. Reduce dependence upon fossil fuels,
underground metals, and minerals
2. Reduce dependence upon synthetic chemicals
and other unnatural substances
3. Reduce encroachment upon nature
One approach to sustainable living, exemplified by small-scale urban transition towns and rural ecovillages, seeks to create self-reliant communities based on principles of simple living, which maximize self-sufficiency particularly in food production. These principles, on a broader scale, underpin the concept of a bioregional economy.[294] These approaches often utilize commons based knowledge sharing of open source appropriate technology.[295]
Other approaches, loosely based around New Urbanism, are successfully reducing environmental impacts by altering the built environment to create and preserve sustainable cities which support sustainable transport and zero emission housing. Residents in compact urban neighborhoods drive fewer miles, and have significantly lower environmental impacts across a range of measures, compared with those living in sprawling suburbs.[296] Compact urban neighborhoods would also promote a great people climate, whereby increasing the accessibility to bike, walk or take public transport within neighborhoods would increase the amount of interaction between people. With more diversification between people, this increases people's happiness and leads to a better standard of living.[297] In sustainable architecture the recent movement of New Classical Architecture promotes a sustainable approach towards construction, that appreciates and develops smart growth, architectural tradition and classical design.[298][299] This in contrast to modernist and globally uniform architecture, as well as opposing solitary housing estates and suburban sprawl.[300] Both trends started in the 1980s. The concept of circular flow land use management has also been introduced in Europe to promote sustainable land use patterns that strive for compact cities and a reduction of greenfield land take by urban sprawl.
Large scale social movements can influence both community choices and the built environment. Eco-municipalities may be one such movement.[301] Eco-municipalities take a systems approach, based on sustainability principles. The eco-municipality movement is participatory, involving community members in a bottom-up approach. In Sweden, more than 70 cities and towns—25 percent of all municipalities in the country—have adopted a common set of "Sustainability Principles" and implemented these systematically throughout their municipal operations. There are now twelve eco-municipalities in the United States and the American Planning Association has adopted sustainability objectives based on the same principles.[293]
There is a wealth of advice available to individuals wishing to reduce their personal and social impact on the environment through small, inexpensive and easily achievable steps.[302][303] But the transition required to reduce global human consumption to within sustainable limits involves much larger changes, at all levels and contexts of society.[304] The United Nations has recognised the central role of education, and have declared a decade of education for sustainable development, 2005–2014, which aims to "challenge us all to adopt new behaviours and practices to secure our future".[305] The Worldwide Fund for Nature proposes a strategy for sustainability that goes beyond education to tackle underlying individualistic and materialistic societal values head-on and strengthen people's connections with the natural world.[306]
Human and labor rights
Application of social sustainability requires stakeholders to look at human and labor rights, prevention of human trafficking, and other human rights risks.[307] These issues should be considered in production and procurement of various worldwide commodities. The international community has identified many industries whose practices have been known to violate social sustainability, and many of these industries have organizations in place that aid in verifying the social sustainability of products and services.[308] The Equator Principles (financial industry), Fair Wear Foundation (garments), and Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition are examples of such organizations and initiatives. Resources are also available for verifying the life-cycle of products and the producer or vendor level, such as Green Seal for cleaning products, NSF-140 for carpet production, and even labeling of organic food in the United States.[309]
Cultural dimension
Tourism
Sustainability is central to underpinning feelings of authenticity in tourism.[310] Experiences can be enhanced when substituting the contrived for the genuine, and at the same time inspire a potentially deleterious appetite for follow-up visits to the real thing: objectively authentic sites untouched by repair or rejuvenation. Feelings of authenticity at a tourist site are thus implicitly linked to sustainable tourism; as the maximisation of existential "felt" authenticity at sites of limited historical provenance increases the likelihood of return visits.[311]
Well-Being and sustainability
The World Health Organization recognized that achieving sustainability is impossible without addressing health issues. Sustainable world is needed for sustainable health and some ways to reach more GDP (part of the Sustainable Development Goals) can harm health.[312] There is a rise in some interconnected health and sustainability problems, for example, in food production. Measures for achieving environmental sustainability can improve health[313]
- In 2018, 130 science and medical academies published a report, saying that the global food system is failing us: it produces too much food what creates huge environmental destruction from one side and a huge health damage from overweight and obesity from the other while creating big numbers of malnourished people in the same time.[314]
A report from the Lancet commission says the same. The experts write: " What we're doing now is unsustainable," "The only thing we can hope is that a sense of urgency will permeate. We're running out of time." "Until now, undernutrition and obesity have been seen as polar opposites of either too few or too many calories," "In reality, they are both driven by the same unhealthy, inequitable food systems, underpinned by the same political economy that is single-focused on economic growth, and ignores the negative health and equity outcomes. Climate change has the same story of profits and power,"[315]
Obesity was a medical problem for people who overconsumed food and worked too little already in ancient Rome, and its impact slowly grew through history.[316]
- Promoting active living and reducing sedentary lifestyle, for example, by cycling, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and improve health[317][318]
- Reducing the use of screens can help fight many diseases, including depression[319] and lower greenhouse gas emission[320]
- Reducing Light pollution can reduce GHG emissions and improve health[321][322]
In some cases reducing consumption can increase the life level. In Costa Rica the GDP is 4 times smaller than in many countries in Western Europe and North America, but people live longer and better. An American study shows that when the income is higher than 75,000$, an increase in profits does not increase well being. For better measuring the well being, the New Economics Foundation’s has launched the Happy Planet Index.[323]
Religion and sustainability
At the beginning of the 21th century, Pope Francis, published the encyclical "Laudato si'", a document calling humanity to preserve the sustainability of the biosphere. The encyclical is taught in the academy of the Sustainable Development Goals[324] The document is also called: "on care for our common home".[325] In the encyclical the pope call to fight climate change and ecological degradation as a whole. He claimed that humanity is facing a severe ecological crisis and blamed consumerism and non responsible development. The encyclical is addressed to "every person living on this planet".[326]
Threats to sustainability
In 2009 a group of scientists leaded by Johan Rockström from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Will Steffen from the Australian National University described nine planetary boundaries. Transgressing even one of them can be dangerous to sustainability. Those boundaries are:
| Planetary Boundaries[327] | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Earth-system process | Control variable[328] | Boundary value | Current value | Boundary crossed | Preindustrial value | Commentary |
| 1. Climate change | Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (ppm by volume)[329] | |||||
| Alternatively: Increase in radiative forcing (W/m2) since the start of the industrial revolution (~1750) | ||||||
| 2. Biodiversity loss | Extinction rate (number of species per million per year) | |||||
| 3. Biogeochemical | (a) anthropogenic nitrogen removed from the atmosphere (millions of tonnes per year) | |||||
| (b) anthropogenic phosphorus going into the oceans (millions of tonnes per year) | ||||||
| 4. Ocean acidification | Global mean saturation state of aragonite in surface seawater (omega units) | |||||
| 5. Land use | Land surface converted to cropland (percent) | |||||
| 6. Freshwater | Global human consumption of water (km3/yr) | |||||
| 7. Ozone depletion | Stratospheric ozone concentration (Dobson units) | |||||
| 8. Atmospheric aerosols | Overall particulate concentration in the atmosphere, on a regional basis | |||||
| 9. Chemical pollution | Concentration of toxic substances, plastics, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, and radioactive contamination into the environment | |||||
In 2015, the scientists published an update. They changed the name of the boundary "Loss of biodeversity" to "Change in biosphere integrity" meaning that not only the number of species but also the functionning of the biosphere as a whole is important and "Chemical pollution" to "Introduction of novel entities," including in it not only pollution but also "organic pollutants, radioactive materials, nanomaterials, and micro-plastics". According to the update 4 of the boundaries are crossed: "climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen)".[341] In 2019 they tried to develop a new version of the boundaries including in the boundary "Introduction of novel entities" genetically modified organisms, pesticides and even artificial intelligence[342]
In 2005 Jared Diamond published a book titled: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, in which he described 12 main problems that can be dangerous to sustainability:[343]
- Deforestation and habitat destruction
- Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
- Water management problems
- Overhunting
- Overfishing
- Effects of introduced species on native species
- Overpopulation
- Increased per-capita impact of people
- Anthropogenic climate change
- Buildup of toxins in the environment
- Energy shortages
- Full human use of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity
Solutions: paths to sustainability
Strategies for reaching sustainability can generally be divided into three categories. Most governments and international organizations that aim to achieve sustainability employ all three approaches, though they may disagree on which deserves priority. The three approaches, embodied in the I = PAT formula,[85] can be summarized as follows:
Affluence: Many believe that the best path to sustainability is reducing consumption. This theory is represented most clearly in the idea of a steady-state economy, meaning an economy without growth. Methods in this category include, among others, the phase-out of lightweight plastic bags, promoting biking, and increasing energy efficiency. For example, according to the report "Plastic and Climate", the plastic could emit greenhouse gas emissions, as much as 15% of the earth's remaining carbon budget, by 2050 and over 50% by 2100, except the impacts on phytoplankton.[344][204] The report says that for solving the problem, reduction in consumption will be essential.[345] In 2020 research was published by a group of scientists, saying that affluence is the biggest threat to sustainability. The research was published on the site of the World Economic Forum.[346]
Population: Others think that the most effective means of achieving sustainability is population control, for example by improving access to birth control and education.[347]
Technology: Still others hold that the most promising path to sustainability is new technology. This theory may be seen as a form of technological optimism. One popular tactic in this category is transitioning to renewable energy.[348][349] Others methods to achieve sustainability, associated with this theory are climate engineering (geo – engineering), genetic engineering (GMO, Genetically modified organism), decoupling.
Also legislation should not be a barrier to sustainability. Law literature has indicated legislative innovation might be needed.[350]
Organizations whose main purpose is to maintain sustainability are generally defined as environmental organizations. They are part of the environmental movement.
By sector
- Agriculture:
- Sustainable agriculture
- Organic agriculture
- Regenerative agriculture
- Ecosystems (forests etc.):
- Transportation:
- Sustainable transport:
- Bicycle,
- Public transport
- Walking
- Sustainable urban transport
- Economy:
- Urban planning, buildings:
- Sustainable urban planning
- Urban open space
- Green building
- Sustainable cities
See also
- Bibliography of sustainability
- Computational sustainability
- Foresight (psychology)
- List of sustainability topics
- Outline of sustainability
- Sustainability advocates (category)
- Sustainability advertising
- Water footprint
Topics
- United Nations Agenda 21
- Applied sustainability
- Appropriate technology
- Carfree city
- Circles of Sustainability
- Citizen Science (citizen cleanup projects)
- Cradle-to-cradle design
- Earth system governance
- Ecopsychology
- Environmental issue
- Environmental racism
- Extinction
- Global catastrophic risk
- Human overpopulation
- Introduced species
- Micro-sustainability
- Pledge two or fewer (campaign for smaller families)
- Resource efficiency
- Sociocultural evolution
- Sustainability and systemic change resistance
- Sustainable capitalism
- Sustainable city
- Sustainable design
- Sustainable development
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Sustainable forest management
- Sustainable living
- Sustainable sanitation
- Sustainability science
- Sustainability standards and certification
- Sustainability studies
- World Cities Summit
References
- "What is sustainability". www.globalfootprints.org. Retrieved 2 May 2018.
- EPA. "Sustainability Primer" (PDF).
- Capra, Fritjof (25 October 2015). "The Systems View of Life A Unifying Conception of Mind, Matter, and Life". Cosmos and History. 11 (2): 242–249.
- James, Paul (2014). Urban Sustainability in Theory and Practice. doi:10.4324/9781315765747. ISBN 978-1-315-76574-7.
- United Nations General Assembly (1987) Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. Transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to document A/42/427 – Development and International Co-operation: Environment. Retrieved on: 15 February 2009.
- United Nations General Assembly (20 March 1987). "Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future; Transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to document A/42/427 – Development and International Co-operation: Environment; Our Common Future, Chapter 2: Towards Sustainable Development; Paragraph 1". United Nations General Assembly. Retrieved 1 March 2010.
- Brown, James H. (1 October 2015). "The Oxymoron of Sustainable Development". BioScience. 65 (10): 1027–1029. doi:10.1093/biosci/biv117.
- "Sustainability and Sustainable Development". Circular Ecology. Retrieved 17 July 2018.
- Williams, Colin C; Millington, Andrew C (June 2004). "The diverse and contested meanings of sustainable development". The Geographical Journal. 170 (2): 99–104. doi:10.1111/j.0016-7398.2004.00111.x. S2CID 143181802.
- Wandemberg, JC (August 2015). Sustainable by Design. Amazon. p. 122. ISBN 978-1516901784. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
- Lackey, Robert (1995). "Ecosystem health, biological diversity, and sustainable development: research that makes a difference" (PDF). Renewable Resources Journal. 13 (2): 8–13.
- "Sustainability Theories". World Ocean Review. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
- "Hans Carl von Carlowitz and Sustainability". Environment and Society Portal. Retrieved 20 June 2019.
- Bakari, Mohamed El-Kamel (2017). The Dilemma of Sustainability in the Age of Globalization: A Quest for a Paradigm of Development. New York: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-1498551397
- Fawcett, William; Hughes, Martin; Krieg, Hannes; Albrecht, Stefan; Vennström, Anders (2012). "Flexible strategies for long-term sustainability under uncertainty". Building Research. 40 (5): 545–557. doi:10.1080/09613218.2012.702565. S2CID 110278133.
- Zhang, Stephen X.; Babovic, Vladan (January 2012). "A real options approach to the design and architecture of water supply systems using innovative water technologies under uncertainty". Journal of Hydroinformatics. 14 (1): 13–29. doi:10.2166/hydro.2011.078. S2CID 54548372.
- Black, Iain R.; Cherrier, Helene (November 2010). "Anti-consumption as part of living a sustainable lifestyle: daily practices, contextual motivations and subjective values". Journal of Consumer Behaviour. 9 (6): 437–453. doi:10.1002/cb.337.
- Shaker, Richard Ross (September 2015). "The spatial distribution of development in Europe and its underlying sustainability correlations". Applied Geography. 63: 304–314. doi:10.1016/j.apgeog.2015.07.009.
- State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? worldwatch.org
- Strong sustainable consumption governance — precondition for a degrowth path? degrowth.org
- Harper, Douglas. "sustain". Online Etymology Dictionary.
- Onions, Charles, T. (ed) (1964). The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 2095.
- Scott Cato, M. (2009). Green Economics. London: Earthscan, pp. 36–37. ISBN 978-1-84407-571-3.
- United Nations General Assembly (2005). 2005 World Summit Outcome, Resolution A/60/1, adopted by the General Assembly on 15 September 2005. Retrieved on: 17 February 2009.
- Forestry Commission of Great Britain. Sustainability. Retrieved on: 9 March 2009
- Morelli, John (2011). "Environmental Sustainability: A Definition for Environmental Professionals". Journal of Environmental Sustainability. 1: 1–10. doi:10.14448/jes.01.0002.
- Manning, S., Boons, F., Von Hagen, O., Reinecke, J. (2011). "National Contexts Matter: The Co-Evolution of Sustainability Standards in Global Value Chains." Ecological Economics, Forthcoming.
- Reinecke, J., Manning, S., Von Hagen, O. (2012). "The Emergence of a Standards Market: Multiplicity of Sustainability Standards in the Global Coffee Industry" Organization Studies, Forthcoming.
- SAI Platform 2010. Sustainability Indicators Archived 31 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine. Sustainable Agricultural Initiative. Retrieved on: 4 September 2011.
- Alvarez, G. Sustainable Agriculture and Value networks. Lausanne, Switzerland: Latitude. Retrieved on: 4 October 2011.
- Dhakal, Krishna P.; Oh, Jun S. (2011). "Integrating Sustainability into Highway Projects: Sustainability Indicators and Assessment Tool for Michigan Roads". T&DI Congress 2011. American Society of Civil Engineers. pp. 987–996. doi:10.1061/41167(398)94. ISBN 9780784411674.
- Adams, W.M. (2006). The Future of Sustainability: Re-thinking Environment and Development in the Twenty-first Century. Report of the IUCN Renowned Thinkers Meeting, 29–31 January 2006 (PDF). Retrieved 16 February 2009.
- Kates, R.; Parris, T.; Leiserowitz, A. Harvard (2005). "What is Sustainable Development? Goals, Indicators, Values, and practice" (PDF). Environment. 47 (3): 8–21.
- International Institute for Sustainable Development (2009). What is Sustainable Development?. Retrieved on: 18 February 2009.
- Michael Redclift (2005). "Sustainable development (1987–2005): an oxymoron comes of age". Sustainable Development (Submitted manuscript). 13 (4): 212–227. doi:10.1002/sd.281.
- Daly, H. & J. Cobb (1989). For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and a Sustainable Future. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-4703-1.
- Porritt, J. (2006). Capitalism as if the world mattered. London: Earthscan. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-84407-193-7.
- IUCN/UNEP/WWF (1991). "Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living." Gland, Switzerland. Retrieved on: 29 March 2009.
- Milne, Markus J.; Kearins, Kate; Walton, Sara (17 August 2016). "Creating Adventures in Wonderland: The Journey Metaphor and Environmental Sustainability". Organization. 13 (6): 801–839. doi:10.1177/1350508406068506. S2CID 143576337.
- The Earth Charter Initiative (2000). "The Earth Charter." Retrieved on: 5 April 2009.
- Costanza, Robert; Patten, Bernard C. (December 1995). "Defining and predicting sustainability". Ecological Economics. 15 (3): 193–196. doi:10.1016/0921-8009(95)00048-8.
- Blewitt, J. (2008). Understanding Sustainable Development. London: Earthscan. pp. 21–24. ISBN 978-1-84407-454-9.
- Ratner, Blake D. (February 2004). "'Sustainability' as a Dialogue of Values: Challenges to the Sociology of Development". Sociological Inquiry. 74 (1): 50–69. doi:10.1111/j.1475-682X.2004.00079.x.
- James, Paul; Magee, Liam (2016). "Domains of Sustainability". In A. Farazmand (ed.). Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer.
- United Cities and Local Governments, "Culture: Fourth Pillar of Sustainable Development".
- Circles of Sustainability. citiesprogramme.com
- World Association of the Major Metropolises, Metropolis. Retrieved on 13 March 2016.
- Metropolis Action Plan 2018–2020, at www.metropolis.org James, Paul; Magee, Liam (2016). "Domains of Sustainability". In A. Farazmand (ed.). Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer.
- Thomas, Steve A. (2016). The Nature of Sustainability. Chapbook Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan. ISBN 9781943359394.
- See Horizon 2020 – the EU's new research and innovation programme
- Lathia, Rutvik Vasudev (December 2016). "Book Review of Sustainable Transportation Options for the 21st Century and Beyond". Journal of Cleaner Production. 139: 1391. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.09.030.
- Mitchell, Val; Ross, Tracy; Sims, Ruth; Parker, Christopher J. (2015). "Empirical investigation of the impact of using co-design methods when generating proposals for sustainable travel solutions". CoDesign. 12 (4): 205–220. doi:10.1080/15710882.2015.1091894. S2CID 53686378.
- Walker, Brian and Salt, David (2012) Resilience Practice: Building Capacity to Absorb Disturbance and Maintain Function. Island Press.
- Falk, Ben (2013) The resilient farm and homestead. Chelsea Green Publishing. p. 3. ISBN 978-1603584449
- Wandemberg, JC (2017) Tropophilia:Beyond Resilience & AntiFragility ISBN 978-1976877407
- Wandemberg, JC (2015) Sustainable By DesignISBN 978-1980250951
- Melvin K. Hendrix, Sustainable Backyard Polyculture: Designing for ecological resiliency. Smashwords Edition, 2014.
- Walker, Brian and Salt, David (2006) Resilience Thinking: Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world. Island Press. p. xiii. ISBN 978-1597260930.
- Holling, Crawford S. (1978) Adaptive environmental assessment and management. Wiley. p. 11. ISBN 978-1932846072
- Walker and Salt, Ibid.
- Caradonna, Jeremy L. (2014) Sustainability: A History. Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0199372409
- Beddoea, R.; Costanzaa, R.; Farleya, J.; Garza, E.; Kent, J.; Kubiszewski, I.; Martinez, L.; McCowen, T.; Murphy, K.; Myers, N.; Ogden, Z.; Stapleton, K.; Woodward, J. (2009). "Overcoming systemic roadblocks to sustainable health". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (28): E80, author reply E81. Bibcode:2009PNAS..106E..80K. doi:10.1073/pnas.0902558106. PMC 2710687. PMID 19584255.
- Wright, R. (2004). A Short History of Progress. Toronto: Anansi. ISBN 0-88784-706-4.
- Scholars, R. (2003). Stories from the Stone Age. Beyond Productions in association with S4C and S4C International. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved on: 16 April 2009.
- Clarke, W. C. (1977). "The Structure of Permanence: The Relevance of Self-Subsistence Communities for World Ecosystem Management," in Subsistence and Survival: Rural Ecology in the Pacific. Bayliss-Smith, T. and R. Feachem (eds). London: Academic Press, pp. 363–384. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-083250-7.50017-0. ISBN 978-0-12-083250-7.
- Hilgenkamp, K. (2005). Environmental Health: Ecological Perspectives. London: Jones & Bartlett. ISBN 978-0-7637-2377-4.
- D.H. Meadows, D.L. Meadows, J. Randers, and W. Behrens III. (1972). The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books. ISBN 0-87663-165-0.
- "Living Planet Report". Global Footprint Network. Archived from the original on 27 March 2009.
Living Planet Report 2008 (PDF) (Report). World Wide Fund for Nature, Zoological Society of London, Global Footprint Network. 2008. Retrieved 1 October 2008. - Global Footprint Network, or see also World Wide Fund for Nature (2018) Living Planet Report 2018. Retrieved on: 1 October 2019.
- Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), pp. 1–85.
- Turner, G.M. (2008). "A comparison of the Limits to Growth with 30 years of reality" (PDF). Global Environmental Change. 18 (3): 397–411. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.05.001.
- Lin, David; Hanscom, Laurel; Murthy, Adeline; Galli, Alessandro; Evans, Mikel; Neill, Evan; Serena Mancini, Maria; Martindill, Jon; Medouar, Fatime-Zahra; Huang, Shiyu; Wackernagel, Mathis (17 September 2018). "Ecological Footprint Accounting for Countries: Updates and Results of the National Footprint Accounts, 2012–2018". Resources. 7 (3): 58. doi:10.3390/resources7030058. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
- U.S. Department of Commerce. Carbon Cycle Science. NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory. Retrieved on: 14 March 2009
- BBC News (August 2008). In depth: "Climate Change." BBC News, UK. Retrieved on: 14 March 2009
- "World Scientist's Warning to Humanity" (PDF). Union of Concerned Scientists. Union of Concerned Scientists. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
- Ripple, William J.; Wolf, Christopher; Newsome, Thomas M.; Galetti, Mauro; Alamgir, Mohammed; Crist, Eileen; Mahmoud, Mahmoud I.; Laurance, William F. (December 2017). "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice". BioScience. 67 (12): 1026–1028. doi:10.1093/biosci/bix125.
- J Ripple, William; Wolf, Christopher; M Newsome, Thomas; Barnard, Phoebe; R Moomaw, William (5 November 2019). "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency". BioScience. biz088. doi:10.1093/biosci/biz088.
- Kates, Robert W., ed. (2010). Readings in Sustainability Science and Technology – an introduction to the key literatures of sustainability science CID Working Paper No. 213. Center for International Development, Harvard University. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, December 2010.
- Conceptual Framework Working Group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2003). "Ecosystems and Human Well-being." London: Island Press. Chapter 5. "Dealing with Scale". pp. 107–124. ISBN 9781559634038.
- Botkin, D.B. (1990). Discordant Harmonies, a New Ecology for the 21st century. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507469-7.
- Lewis, Jason "The Seed Buried Deep (The Expedition Trilogy, part 2)" BillyFish Books, December 2013.
- Clark, D. (2006). A Rough Guide to Ethical Living. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-1-84353-792-2
- Brower, M. & Leon, W. (1999). The Consumer's Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists. New York: Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0-609-80281-X.
- Ehrlich, P.R.; Holden, J.P. (1974). "Human Population and the global environment". American Scientist. Vol. 62 no. 3. pp. 282–292.
- Pachauri, R.K.; Meyer, L.A. (2014). Climate Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (PDF). Geneva, Switzerland: IPCC. p. 24. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
- Geissdoerfer, Martin; Savaget, Paulo; Bocken, Nancy M.P.; Hultink, Erik Jan (February 2017). "The Circular Economy – A new sustainability paradigm?" (PDF). Journal of Cleaner Production. 143: 757–768. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.12.048. S2CID 157449142.
- "Sustainability Accounting in UK Local Government". The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Archived from the original on 11 April 2008. Retrieved 18 June 2008.
- Dalal-Clayton, Barry and Sadler, Barry 2009. Sustainability Appraisal: A Sourcebook and Reference Guide to International Experience. London: Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84407-357-3.
- Hak, T. et al. (2007). Sustainability Indicators, SCOPE 67. London: Island Press. ISBN 1-59726-131-9.
- Bell, Simon and Morse, Stephen 2008. Sustainability Indicators. Measuring the Immeasurable? 2nd edn. London: Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84407-299-6.
- Steffen, Will (13 February 2015). "Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet". Science. 347 (6223): 1259855. doi:10.1126/science.1259855. PMID 25592418. S2CID 206561765. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
- "Ecological Footprints". Sustainability concepts. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
- "The World Population Prospects: 2015 Revision". www.un.org. 1 January 2015. Retrieved 6 May 2017.
- United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2009). "World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision." Highlights. Retrieved on: 6 April 2009.
- Lutz W., Sanderson W.C., & Scherbov S. (2004). The End of World Population Growth in the 21st Century London: Earthscan. ISBN 1-84407-089-1.
- "Booming nations 'threaten Earth'". BBC News. 12 January 2006.
- Cohen, J.E. (2006). "Human Population: The Next Half Century." In Kennedy D. (Ed.) Science Magazine's State of the Planet 2006-7. London: Island Press, pp. 13–21. ISBN 9781597266246.
- Garver G (2011) "A Framework for Novel and Adaptive Governance Approaches Based on Planetary Boundaries" Colorado State University, Colorado Conference on Earth System Governance, 17–20 May 2011.
- Turner, Graham (2008) "A comparison of The Limits to Growth with thirty years of reality" Archived 28 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) Sustainable Ecosystems.
- Barnosky, AD; Hadly, EA; et al. (2012). "Approaching a state shift in Earth's biosphere". Nature. 486 (7401): 52–58. Bibcode:2012Natur.486...52B. doi:10.1038/nature11018. hdl:10261/55208. PMID 22678279. S2CID 4788164.
- Adams & Jeanrenaud (2008), p. 45.
- UNEP Grid Arendal. A selection of global-scale reports. Retrieved on: 12 March 2009
- Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas (1971). The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Full book accessible at Scribd). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674257801.
- Daly, Herman E., ed. (1980). Economics, Ecology, Ethics. Essays Towards a Steady-State Economy (PDF contains only the introductory chapter of the book) (2nd ed.). San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company. ISBN 978-0716711780.
- McElroy, Mark (2008). Social Footprints (PDF). University of Groningen. ISBN 978-0-615-24274-3. Retrieved 26 March 2018.
- Thomas, Martin; McElroy, Mark (2016). The MultiCapital Scorecard. Chelsea Green Publishing. ISBN 9781603586900.
- McElroy, Mark; Jorna, Rene; van Engelen, Jo (2007). "Sustaiability Quotients and the Social Footprint". Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management. 15 (4): 223–234. doi:10.1002/csr.164.
- McElroy, Mark; van Engelen, Jo (2012). Corporate Sustainability Management. Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84407-911-7.
- Krebs (2001), p. 513.
- Smil, V. (2000). Cycles of Life. New York: Scientific American Library. ISBN 978-0-7167-5079-6.
- Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), pp. 6–19.
- Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (PDF). the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 6 May 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
- Deutsche Welle, Deutsche (6 May 2019). "Why Biodiversity Loss Hurts Humans as Much as Climate Change Does". Ecowatch. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
- Walker, Robert (10 April 2019). "The Insect Apocalypse Is Coming: Here Are 5 Lessons We Must Learn". Ecowatch. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
- "United Nations General Assembly Draft outcome document of the United Nations summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda". UN. Archived from the original on 26 September 2015. Retrieved 25 September 2015.
- "Goal 1: No poverty". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 2: Zero hunger". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 3: Good health and well-being". UNDP. Archived from the original on 28 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 4: Quality education". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 5: Gender equality". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 6: Clean water and sanitation". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 8: Decent work and economic growth". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 9: Industry, innovation, infrastructure". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 10: Reduced inequalities". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 11: Sustainable cities and communities". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 12: Responsible consumption, production". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 13: Climate action". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 14: Life below water". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 15: Life on land". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals". UNDP. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015. Retrieved 28 September 2015.
- "Technical report by the Bureau of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC) on the process of the development of an indicator framework for the goals and targets of the post-2015 development agenda – working draft" (PDF). March 2015. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
- Living Planet Report 2006 (PDF) (Report). World Wide Fund for Nature, Zoological Society of London, Global Footprint Network. 24 October 2006. p. 19. Retrieved 18 August 2012.
- Fanelli, Daniele (3 October 2007) World failing on sustainable development. NewScientist
- Adel, H. M.; Mahrous, A. A. (2018). Sustainability communication and evaluation: A practice-based case study on British-Egyptian universities value-chain. Bristol Business School, University of the West of England: Proceedings of the 32nd Annual International Conference of The British Academy of Management (BAM) 2018: Driving Productivity in Uncertain and Challenging Times. ISBN 978-0-9956413-1-0.
- Daly, H.E. (1990). "Toward some operational principles of sustainable development". Ecological Economics. 2 (1): 1–6. doi:10.1016/0921-8009(90)90010-r.
- "The Economics and Social Benefits of NOAA Ecosystems Data and Products Table of Contents Data Users". NOAA. Archived from the original on 25 March 2010. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- Buchenrieder, G., und A.R. Göltenboth: Sustainable freshwater resource management in the Tropics: The myth of effective indicators, 25th International Conference of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) on "Reshaping Agriculture's Contributions to Society" in Durban, South Africa, 2003.
- Rosane, Olivia. "If Everyone Lived Like Europeans, We'd Be Out of Earth's Resources Today". Ecowatch. Retrieved 12 May 2019.
- University of Copenhagen (March 2009) "Key Messages from the Congress" Archived 16 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine News item on Copenhagen Climate Congress in March 2009. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Adams, D. (March 2009) "Stern attacks politicians over climate 'devastation'". The Guardian. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Hegerl, G.C. et al. (2007). "Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis." Chapter 9, "Understanding and Attributing Climate Change." Contribution of Working Group 1 to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. p. 676. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Full report IPCC Report. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Corbley, McKinley (31 March 2019). "Dozens of Countries Have Been Working to Plant 'Great Green Wall' – and It's Holding Back Poverty". Good News Network.
- Puiu, Tibi (3 April 2019). "More than 20 African countries are planting a 8,000-km-long 'Great Green Wall'". ZME Science. Retrieved 16 April 2019.
- Goyal, Nidhi (29 October 2017). "Great Green Wall to Combat Climate Change in Africa". Industry Tap. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
- Clarke & King (2006), pp. 20–21.
- Hoekstra, A.Y. (2006). "The Global Dimension of Water Governance: Nine Reasons for Global Arrangements in Order to Cope with Local Problems." Value of Water Research Report Series No. 20 UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Kerr, R.A. (2004). "Global change. A slowing cog in the North Atlantic ocean's climate machine". Science. 304 (5669): 371–2. doi:10.1126/science.304.5669.371a. PMID 15087513. S2CID 42150417.
- Krebs (2001), pp. 560–582.
- Organic Gardening Techniques, Missouri University Extension. October 2004. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
- Sustainable Gardening & Food Production Archived 21 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Daniel Boone Regional Library. Retrieved 17 June 2009
- World Resources Institute (1998). World Resources 1998–1999. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-521408-0.
- Groombridge, B. & Jenkins, M.D. (2002). World Atlas of Biodiversity. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-23668-4.
- Nafeez, Ahmed. "Theoretical Physicists Say 90% Chance of Societal Collapse Within Several Decades". Vice. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
- Food and Agriculture Organization (June 2006). "Food and Agriculture Statistics Global Outlook." Rome: FAO Statistics Division. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Imhoff, M.L.; et al. (2004). "Global Patterns in Human Consumption of Net Primary Production". Nature (Submitted manuscript). 429 (6994): 870–873. Bibcode:2004Natur.429..870I. doi:10.1038/nature02619. PMID 15215863. S2CID 4431287.
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development Archived 10 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine This web site has multiple articles on WBCSD contributions to sustainable development. Retrieved on: 7 April 2009.
- Michaelis, L. & Lorek, S. (2004). "Consumption and the Environment in Europe: Trends and Futures." Danish Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental Project No. 904.
- Jackson, T. & Michaelis, L. (2003). "Policies for Sustainable Consumption". The UK Sustainable Development Commission.
- Assessing the Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production: Priority Products and Materials Archived 13 May 2016 at the Portuguese Web Archive 2010, International Resource Panel, United Nations Environment Programme
- IPCC (2007)."Climate Change 2007: the Physical Science Basis. Summary for Policymakers." Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- UNFCC (2009). "United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change." Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Goodall, C. (2007). How to Live a Low-carbon Life. London: Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84407-426-6.
- U.S. Department of NOAA Research. "The Carbon Cycle." Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Lathia, Rutvik Vasudev; Dadhaniya, Sujal (February 2017). "Policy formation for Renewable Energy sources". Journal of Cleaner Production. 144: 334–336. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.01.023.
- Fujixerox "Carbon Calculator Demonstration". One of many carbon calculators readily accessible on the web. Retrieved on: 7 April 2009.
- Graves, Christopher; Ebbesen, Sune D.; Mogensen, Mogens; Lackner, Klaus S. (2011). "Sustainable hydrocarbon fuels by recycling CO2 and H2O with renewable or nuclear energy". Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. 15 (1): 1–23. doi:10.1016/j.rser.2010.07.014.
- Pearson, R.J.; Eisaman, M.D.; et al. (2012). "Energy Storage via Carbon-Neutral Fuels Made From CO2, Water, and Renewable Energy" (PDF). Proceedings of the IEEE. 100 (2): 440–60. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.359.8746. doi:10.1109/JPROC.2011.2168369. S2CID 3560886. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 May 2013. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
- Holte, Laura L.; Doty, Glenn N.; McCree, David L.; Doty, Judy M.; Doty, F. David (2010). Sustainable Transportation Fuels From Off-peak Wind Energy, CO2 and Water (PDF). Phoenix, Arizona: American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
- "SustainX Energy Storage". Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- "LightSail Energy". Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- Scottish Government, St Andrew's House (October 2010). "Inventory of Energy Storage Technologies". Energy Storage and Management Study. The Scottish Government. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- Morris, Bob (26 April 2011). "Underground pumped hydro energy storage at grid scale". Polizeros.com. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- "Germany tests storing electricity in old mines". Energy EnviroWorld. 26 July 2013. Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- "Airborne Wind Energy". Makani Power (Google, Inc.). Archived from the original on 1 January 2014. Retrieved 1 January 2014.
- Foramitti, Joël; Tsagkari, Marula; Zografos, Christos. "Why degrowth is the only responsible way forward". Open Democracy. Retrieved 23 September 2019.
- "Embodied Carbon of Solar PV: Here's Why It Must Be Included In Net Zero Carbon Buildings". Circular Ecology. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
- Shiklamov, I. (1998). "World Water Resources. A New Appraisal and Assessment for the 21st century." A Summary of the Monograph World Water Resources prepared in the Framework of the International Hydrological Programme. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Clarke & King (2006), pp. 22–23.
- Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), pp. 51–53.
- Hoekstra, A.Y.; Chapagain, A.K. (2007). "The Water Footprints of Nations: Water Use by People as a Function of their Consumption Pattern". Water Resource Management (Submitted manuscript). 21 (1): 35–48. doi:10.1007/s11269-006-9039-x. S2CID 154320617.
- Feenstra, G. (2002). "Creating Space for Sustainable Food Systems: Lessons from the Field". Agriculture and Human Values. 19 (2): 99–106. doi:10.1023/A:1016095421310. S2CID 59436592.
- Harmon A.H.; Gerald B.L. (June 2007). "Position of the American Dietetic Association: Food and Nutrition Professionals Can Implement Practices to Conserve Natural Resources and Support Ecological Sustainabiility" (PDF). Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 107 (6): 1033–43. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2007.05.138. PMID 17571455. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 October 2008. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- "Toward a Healthy, Sustainable Food System (Policy Number: 200712)". American Public Health Association. 11 June 2007. Archived from the original on 11 October 2008. Retrieved 18 August 2008.
- Mason, J. & Singer, P. (2006). The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. London: Random House. ISBN 1-57954-889-X
- Rosane, Olivia (29 November 2018). "Our Food Systems Are Failing Us': 100+ Academies Call for Overhaul of Food Production". Ecowatch. Retrieved 27 May 2019.
- McMichael A.J.; Powles J.W.; Butler C.D.; Uauy R. (September 2007). "Food, Livestock Production, Energy, Climate change, and Health" (PDF). Lancet. 370 (9594): 1253–63. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61256-2. PMID 17868818. S2CID 9316230. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 February 2010. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Baroni L.; Cenci L.; Tettamanti M.; Berati M. (February 2007). "Evaluating the Environmental Impact of Various Dietary Patterns Combined with Different Food Production Systems" (PDF). Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 61 (2): 279–86. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602522. PMID 17035955. S2CID 16387344. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Steinfeld H., Gerber P., Wassenaar T., Castel V., Rosales M., de Haan, C. (2006). "Livestock's Long Shadow – Environmental Issues and Options". Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- Heitschmidt R.K.; Vermeire L.T.; Grings E.E. (2004). "Is Rangeland Agriculture Sustainable?". Journal of Animal Science. 82 (E–Suppl): E138–146. doi:10.2527/2004.8213_supplE138x (inactive 29 June 2020). PMID 15471792. Retrieved on: 18 March 2009.
- World Health Organisation (2004). "Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health." Copy of the strategy endorsed by the World Health Assembly. Retrieved on: 19 June 2009.
- "Earth Stats." Archived 11 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Gardensofbabylon.com. Retrieved on: 7 July 2009.
- Holmgren, D. (March 2005). "Retrofitting the suburbs for sustainability." Archived 15 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine CSIRO Sustainability Network. Retrieved on: 7 July 2009.
- Bournay, E. et al. (2006). Vital waste graphics 2. The Basel Convention, UNEP, GRID-Arendal. ISBN 82-7701-042-7.
- UNEP (2011). Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth. ISBN 978-92-807-3167-5. Retrieved on: 30 November 2011.
- Anderberg, S (1998). "Industrial metabolism and linkages between economics, ethics, and the environment". Ecological Economics. 24 (2–3): 311–320. doi:10.1016/s0921-8009(97)00151-1.
- Product Stewardship Council (US). Retrieved on: 5 April 2009.
- Emden, H.F. van & Peakall, D.B. (1996). Beyond Silent Spring. Berkeley: Springer. ISBN 978-0-412-72810-5.
- Hassall, K.A. (1990). The Biochemistry and Uses of Pesticides. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-49789-9.
- Database on Pesticides Consumption. Statistics for pesticide use around the world. Retrieved on: 10 March 2009.
- Fuad-Luke, A. (2006). The Eco-design Handbook. London: Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-28521-3.
- "Sweeping New Report on Global Environmental Impact of Plastics Reveals Severe Damage to Climate". Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). Retrieved 16 May 2019.
- Bromley, Daniel W. (2008). "sustainability," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd Edition. Abstract.
- Soederbaum, P. (2008). Understanding Sustainability Economics. London: Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84407-627-7.
- Quinney, Marie. "COVID-19 and nature are linked. So should be the recovery". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
- Hasna, Abdallah M. (2009). "Sustainability and economic theory: an organism in premise". International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management. 9 (11): 1–13. doi:10.18848/1447-9524/cgp/v09i11/49835.
- Ruffing, K. (2007). "Indicators to Measure Decoupling of Environmental Pressure from Economic Growth", pp. 211–222 in: Hak et al. Sustainability Indicators. SCOPE 67. London: Island Press. ISBN 1-59726-131-9.
- United Nations Environmental Program (2011). Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and Poverty Eradication – A Synthesis for Policy Makers.
- Hawken, P., Lovins, A. B. & L. H. (1999). Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution. Snowmass, Colo.: Rocky Mountain Institute. ISBN 0-316-35300-0.
- Adams & Jeanrenaud (2008), p. 15.
- Abbey, E. (1968). Desert Solitaire. New York: Ballantine Books, Random House. ISBN 0-345-32649-0. The actual quote from the novel is: growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell
- Diamond, J. (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking Books. ISBN 1-58663-863-7.
- Diamond, J. (1997). Guns, Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-06131-0.
- Daly, H.E. & Farley, J. (2004). Ecological economics: principles and applications. Washington: Island Press. p.xxvi. ISBN 1-55963-312-3.
- Costanza, R. et al. (2007). An Introduction to Ecological Economics. This is an online editable text available at the Encyclopedia of Earth. First published in 1997 by St. Lucie Press and the International Society for Ecological Economics. Ch. 1, pp. 1–4, Ch.3, p. 3. ISBN 1-884015-72-7.
- WBCSD's 10 messages by which to operate Archived 20 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Retrieved 6 April 2009.
- Cleveland, C.J. "Biophysical economics", Encyclopedia of Earth, Last updated: 14 September 2006. Retrieved on: 17 March 2009.
- Decoupling: natural resource use and environmental impacts of economic growth. International Resource Panel report, 2011
- Daly, H. (1996). Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-4709-0.
- Von Weizsacker, E.U. (1998). Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use, Earthscan.
- Von Weizsacker, E.U., C. Hargroves, M.H. Smith, C. Desha, and P. Stasinopoulos (2009). Factor Five: Transforming the Global Economy through 80% Improvements in Resource Productivity, Routledge.
- Huesemann & Huesemann (2011), Chapter 5, "In Search of Solutions II: Efficiency Improvements".
- Cleveland, C.J.; Ruth, M. (1998). "Indicators of Dematerialization and the Materials Intensity of Use". Journal of Industrial Ecology. 2 (3): 15–50. doi:10.1162/jiec.1998.2.3.15.
- Huesemann & Huesemann (2011), p. 111.
- Bindewald, Eckart (2013). "An R of sustainability that can tame the "conundrum"". PeerJ PrePrints: 1:e46v1. doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.46v1.
- Hardin, G. (1968). "The Tragedy of the Commons". Science. 162 (3859): 1243–1248. Bibcode:1968Sci...162.1243H. doi:10.1126/science.162.3859.1243. PMID 5699198.
- Nemetz, P.N. (2003). "Basic Concepts of Sustainable Development for Business Students". Journal of International Business Education. 1 (1).
- Costanza, Robert; et al. (12 December 2003). "Complementary Currencies as a Method to Improve Local Sustainable Economic Welfare" (PDF). The University of Vermont. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 June 2009. Retrieved 21 July 2009.
- Boyle, David (10 June 2005) "Sustainability and social assets: the potential of time banks and co-production", Grassroots Initiatives for Sustainable Development. Uea.ac.uk. Retrieved on 13 March 2016.
- Scott Cato, M. (2009). Green Economics. London: Earthscan, pp. 142–150. ISBN 978-1-84407-571-3.
- Black, Richard (21 September 2009). "Recession and policies cut carbon". BBC. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- Kinsley, M. (1977). "Sustainable development: Prosperity without growth." Archived 6 March 2009 at the Wayback Machine Rocky Mountain Institute, Snowmass, Colorado, USA. Retrieved on: 17 June 2009
- Kinsley, M. and Lovins, L.H. (September 1997). "Paying for Growth, Prospering from Development." Retrieved on: 15 June 2009.
- Sustainable Shrinkage: Envisioning a Smaller, Stronger Economy. Thesolutionsjournal.com. Retrieved on 13 March 2016.
- Daly, H. (2007). "Ecological economics: the concept of scale and its relation to allocation, distribution, and uneconomic growth", pp. 82–103 in H. Daly. Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development: Selected Essays of Herman Daly. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
- Daly, H. (1999). "Uneconomic growth and the built environment: in theory and fact", in C.J. Kibert (ed.). Reshaping the Built Environment: Ecology, Ethics, and Economics. Washington DC: Island Press.
- Jackson, Tim; Clift, Roland (1998). "Where's the Profit in lndustrial Ecology?" (PDF). Journal of Industrial Ecology. 2: 3–5. doi:10.1162/jiec.1998.2.1.3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 August 2010.
- Hargroves, K. & Smith, M. (eds.) (2005). The Natural Advantage of Nations: Business Opportunities, Innovation, and Governance in the 21st Century. London: Earthscan/James&James. ISBN 1-84407-121-9.
- Zhexembayeva, N. (May 2007). "Becoming Sustainable: Tools and Resources for Successful Organizational Transformation". Center for Business as an Agent of World Benefit. Case Western University. Archived from the original on 13 June 2010.
- "About Us". Sustainable Business Institute. Archived from the original on 17 May 2009.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
- "About the WBCSD". World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Archived from the original on 9 September 2007. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
- Hickman, Leo (12 February 2009). "The future of work is green". The Guardian.
- Lueneburger, Christoph; Goleman, Daniel (17 May 2010). "The Change Leadership Sustainability Demands". MIT Sloan Management Review. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
- "Leadership competency model". egonzehnder.com. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
- Laszlo, Chris; Zhexembayeva, Nadya (25 April 2011). "Embedded Sustainability: A strategy for market leaders". The European Financial Review.
- Laszlo, C. & Zhexembayeva, N. (2011). Embedded Sustainability: The Next Big Competitive Advantage. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-804-77554-0
- Zhexembayeva, N. (2014). Overfished Ocean Strategy: Powering Up Innovation for a Resource-Depleted World. San Francisco, CA: Berret-Koehler Publishers. ISBN 1 609-94964-1
- Callan, Scott (2015). Environmental Economics and Management. Cenage Learning. ISBN 978-8131527641.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), p. 30.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), p. 7.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), pp. 42–3.
- Kovel (2007), pp. 38, 45.
- Kovel (2007), p. 38.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), p. 96.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), p. 56.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), pp. 42, 58.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), pp. 27, 122–3.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), p. 97.
- Kovel (2007), pp. 173–87.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), pp. 108–9.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), pp. 111–4.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), pp. 102–7.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), p. 83.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), p. 125.
- Kovel (2007), pp. 285–6.
- Kovel (2007), p. 163.
- Magdoff & Foster (2011), pp. 8–9.
- Agenda 21 "Declaration of the 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development." Retrieved on: 16 March 2009.
- Blewitt, J. (2008). Understanding Sustainable Development. London: Earthscan. p. 96. ISBN 978-1-84407-454-9..
- "Water and Political Conflicts" from United Nations Environment Programme 2008 "Vital Water Graphics" Retrieved on: 16 March 2009.
- Billon, P. (ed.) (2005) The Geopolitics of Resource Wars Retrieved on: 5 April 2009.
- Kobtzeff, O. (2000). "Environmental Security and Civil Society". In Gardner, H. (ed.) Central and South-central Europe in Transition. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, pp. 219–296.
- MICHAEL BECKLEY, MICHAEL (19 February 2010). "Economic Development and Military Effectiveness". The Journal of Strategic Studies. 33: 43–79. doi:10.1080/01402391003603581. S2CID 155078728.
- Czech, Brian; Mastini, Riccardo. "Degrowth Toward a Steady State Economy: Unifying Non-Growth Movements for Political Impact". Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
- M. Collins, Robert. More: The Politics of Economic Growth in Postwar America by Robert M. Collins (Author). ISBN 0195152638.
- Lent, Jeremy (9 February 2018). "What Does China's 'Ecological Civilization' Mean for Humanity's Future?". Ecowatch. Retrieved 10 February 2020.
- Smith, Richard (2017). "China's drivers and planetary ecological collapse" (PDF). Real-World Economics Review (82): 7. Retrieved 1 March 2020.
- Diamond, J. (March 1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-03891-0.
- "Our Common Future, From One Earth to One World". UN Documents Gathering a body of global agreements.
- "The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2009" (PDF). United Nations. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
- "Our Common Future, From One Earth to One World". United Nations. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
- Lusigi, Angela (May 2008). "Linking Poverty to Environmental Sustainability" (PDF). UNDP-UNEP Poverty — Environment Initiative. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
- "Are fewer children a route to prosperity?". FACT SHEET: Population Growth and Poverty. United Nations Population Fund. Archived from the original on 21 February 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2011.
- Bookchin, M. (2004). Post Scarcity Anarchism. Oakland: AK Press, pp. 24–25. ISBN 978-1-904859-06-2.
- Bookchin, M. (2007). Social Ecology and Communalism. Oakland: AK Press, p. 19. ISBN 978-1-904859-49-9.
- Trillin, Calvin. (2011-11-09) Capitalism vs. the Climate. The Nation. Retrieved on 2016-03-13.
- Klein, Naomi (9 November 2011) Capitalism vs. the Climate; What the right gets – and the left doesn't – about the revolutionary power of climate change. The Nation. pp. 11–21.
- Vig, Norman J., Kraft, Michael E. (2018). Environmental Policy New Directions for the Twenty-First Century. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California: CQPress. pp. 269–273. ISBN 978-1506383460.CS1 maint: location (link)
- Devall, W. and G. Sessions (1985). Deep Ecology: Living as If Nature Mattered. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, p. 70. ISBN 978-0-87905-247-8.
- Faunce, Thomas (2012). "Towards a Global Solar Fuels Project-Artificial Photosynthesis and the Transition from Anthropocene to Sustainocene". Procedia Engineering. 49: 348–356. doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2012.10.147. S2CID 54705299.
- James, S. (2003). "Eco-municipalities: Sweden and the United States: A Systems Approach to Creating Communities". Retrieved on: 16 March 2009.
- Sale, Kirkpatrick (24 February 2006). "Economics of Scale vs. the Scale of Economics — Towards Basic Principles of a Bioregional Economy". Vermont Commons. Archived from the original on 28 October 2008. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- Pearce, J.M. (2012). "The Case for Open Source Appropriate Technology". Environment, Development and Sustainability. 14 (3): 425–431. doi:10.1007/s10668-012-9337-9. S2CID 153800807.
- Ewing, R "Growing Cooler – the Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change" Archived 24 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved on: 16 March 2009.
- Florida, Richard. The New Urban Crisis: How Our Cities Are Increasing Inequality, Deepening Segregation, and Failing the Middle Class and What We Can Do about it.
- Charter of the New Urbanism. Cnu.org. Retrieved on 13 March 2016.
- "Beauty, Humanism, Continuity between Past and Future". Traditional Architecture Group. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
- Issue Brief: Smart-Growth: Building Livable Communities. American Institute of Architects. Retrieved on 23 March 2014.
- LaColla, T. "It's Easy to be Green! Eco-Municipalities: Here to Stay". theplanningcommission.org. Retrieved on: 16 March 2009.
- Sustainable Environment for Quality of Life. "100 Ways to Save the Environment." Retrieved on: 13 June 2009.
- Suzuki, D. (2009)."What you can do" David Suzuki Foundation. Retrieved on: 30 January 2012.
- Stockholm Environment Institute "Great Transitions". Archived 14 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on: 12 April 2009.
- United Nations Environment Programme (2009). "United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development." Retrieved on: 9 April 2009. Archived 28 September 2005 at Archive.today
- Weathercocks and Signposts: The Environment Movement at a Crossroads (PDF) (Report). WWF. April 2008. Summary also available here: "Strategies for change". Archived from the original on 5 September 2008.
- "Social Sustainability – GSA Sustainable Facilities Tool". sftool.gov. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
- "Social Sustainability Initiatives, Guidelines, and Standards – GSA Sustainable Facilities Tool". sftool.gov. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
- "Resources for Verifying Sustainable Products – GSA Sustainable Facilities Tool". sftool.gov. Retrieved 10 March 2016.
- Bryce, Derek; Curran, Ross; O'Gorman, Kevin; Taheri, Babak (1 February 2015). "Visitors' engagement and authenticity: Japanese heritage consumption" (PDF). Tourism Management. 46: 571–581. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2014.08.012.
- Taheri, Babak; Farrington, Thomas; Curran, Ross; O'Gorman, Kevin (11 April 2017). "Sustainability and the authentic experience. Harnessing brand heritage – a study from Japan" (PDF). Journal of Sustainable Tourism. 26 (1): 49–67. doi:10.1080/09669582.2017.1310867. S2CID 56326731.
- Borowy, Iris (2014). "Sustainable health: the need for new developmental models". Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 92 (10): 699. doi:10.2471/BLT.14.145219. PMC 4208489. PMID 25378720. Retrieved 31 July 2019.
- Kjӕrgård, Bente; Land, Birgit; Bransholm Pedersen, Kirsten (8 January 2013). "Health and sustainability". Health Promotion International. 29 (3): 558–568. doi:10.1093/heapro/das071. PMID 23300191.
- Rosane, Olivia (29 November 2018). "Our Food Systems Are Failing Us': 100+ Academies Call for Overhaul of Food Production". Ecowatch. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
- Rosane, Olivia (29 January 2019). "Experts Issue Urgent Call to Act on Triple Threat of Obesity, Malnutrition and Climate Change". Ecowatch. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
- Haslam, D. (19 February 2007). "Obesity: a medical history". Obesity Reviews. 8 (s1): 31–36. doi:10.1111/j.1467-789X.2007.00314.x. PMID 17316298.
- Blondel, Benoît; Mispelon, Chloé; Ferguson, Julian (November 2011). Cycle more Often 2 cool down the planet (PDF). European Cyclists' Federation. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 February 2019. Retrieved 16 April 2019.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Quam, Vivian G. M.; Rocklöv, Joacim; Quam, Mikkel B. M.; Lucas, Rebekah A. I. (2017). "Assessing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Health Co-Benefits: A Structured Review of Lifestyle-Related Climate Change Mitigation Strategies". International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 14 (5): 468. doi:10.3390/ijerph14050468. PMC 5451919. PMID 28448460.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Nauert, Rick. "Too Much Screen Time Linked to Anxiety & Depression in Young Children and Teens". Psych Central. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
- Efoui-Hess, Maxime. "CLIMATE CRISIS: THE UNSUSTAINABLE USE OF ONLINE VIDEO" (PDF). The Shift Project. Retrieved 25 August 2019.
- Breyer, Melissa. "5 types of light pollution and their environmental impact". Treehugger. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
- Khan, Amina. "Artificial lights are eating away at dark nights — and that's not a good thing". latimes.com. Retrieved 20 December 2018.
- Belton, Teresa. "Why becoming a 'happily modest consumer' could help save the planet". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
- "Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home". SDG Academy. Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
- "Encyclical Letter Laudato Si' Of The Holy Father Francis On Care For Our Common Home (official English-language text of encyclical)". Retrieved 18 June 2015.
- Yardley, Jim; Goodstein, Laurie (18 June 2015). "Pope Francis, in Sweeping Encyclical, Calls for Swift Action on Climate Change". The New York Times.
- Steffen, Rockström & Costanza 2011.
- Rockström, Steffen & 26 others 2009; Stockholm Resilience Centre 2009.
- Recent Mauna Loa CO
2 Earth System Research Laboratory, NOAA Research. - Allen 2009; Heffernan 2009; Morris 2010; Pearce 2010, pp. 34–45, "Climate change".
- Allen 2009.
- Samper 2009; Daily 2010; Faith & others 2010; Friends of Europe 2010; Pearce 2010, p. 33, "Biodiversity".
- Schlesinger 2009; Pearce 2009; UNEP 2010, pp. 28–29; Howarth 2010; Pearce 2010, pp. 33–34, "Nitrogen and phosphorus cycles".
- Schlesinger 2009; Carpenter & Bennett 2011; Townsend & Porder 2011; Ragnarsdottir, Sverdrup & Koca 2011; UNEP 2011; Ulrich, Malley & Voora 2009; Vaccari 2010.
- Brewer 2009; UNEP 2010, pp. 36–37; Doney 2010; Pearce 2010, p. 32, "Acid oceans".
- Bass 2009; Euliss & others 2010; Foley 2009; Lambin 2010; Pearce 2010, p. 34, "Land use".
- Molden 2009; Falkenmark & Rockström 2010; Timmermans & others 2011; Gleick 2010; Pearce 2010, pp.32–33, "Fresh water".
- Molina 2009; Fahey 2010; Pearce 2010, p. 32, "Ozone depletion".
- Pearce 2010, p. 35, "Aerosol loading".
- Handoh & Kawai 2011; Handoh & Kawai 2014; Pearce 2010, p. 35, "Chemical pollution".
- Steffen, Will; Rockström, Johan; Cornell, Sarah; Fetzer, Ingo; Biggs, Oonsie; Folke, Carl; Reyers, Belinda. "Planetary Boundaries - an update". Stockholm Resilience Centre. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
- "Ten years of nine planetary boundaries". Stockholm Resilience Centre. Retrieved 19 April 2020.
- Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, Penguin Books, 2005 and 2011 (ISBN 978-0-241-95868-1).
- Plastic & Climate The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet (PDF). Center for International Environmental Law, Environmental Integrity Project, FracTracker Alliance, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, 5 Gyres, and Break Free From Plastic. May 2019. pp. 4–5. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
- Plastic & Climate The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet (PDF). Center for International Environmental Law, Environmental Integrity Project, FracTracker Alliance, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, 5 Gyres, and Break Free From Plastic. May 2019. pp. 82–85. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
- Fleming, Sean. "This is now the world's greatest threat – and it's not coronavirus". World Economic Forum. World Economic forum. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
- Perkins, Sid. "The best way to reduce your carbon footprint is one the government isn't telling you about". Science. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
- M. Parris, Thomas; W. Kates, Robert (8 July 2003). "Characterizing a sustainability transition: Goals, targets, trends, and driving forces". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 100 (14): 8068–8073. doi:10.1073/pnas.1231336100. PMC 166183. PMID 12819346.
- "The IPAT Equation". The Sustainable Scale Project. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
- Kistenkas, Frederik Hendrik (2016). "Sustainable Development: New Thoughts, New Policy, New Law?". In Mauerhofer, V. (ed.). Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development. Heidelberg: Springer Science+Business Media. pp. 535–548. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-26021-1_26. ISBN 978-3-319-26019-8.
Sources
- Adams, W. M. & Jeanrenaud, S. J. (2008). Transition to Sustainability: Towards a Humane and Diverse World (PDF). Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. ISBN 978-2-8317-1072-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Clarke, R. & King, J. (2006). The Atlas of Water. London: Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84407-133-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Huesemann, M. H. & Huesemann, J. A. (2011). Technofix: Why Technology Won't Save Us or the Environment. Gabriola Island, Canada: New Society Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8657-1704-6.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Kovel, J. (2007). The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?. New York, NY: Zed Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84277-871-5.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Krebs, C. J. (2001). Ecology: the Experimental Analysis of Distribution and Abundance. Sydney: Benjamin Cummings. ISBN 978-0-321-04289-7.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Magdoff, F. & Foster, J. B. (2011). What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review Press. ISBN 978-1-58367-241-9.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005). Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Biodiversity Synthesis (PDF). Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
- Rustum, R., Kurichiyanil, A.M.J., Forrest, S., Sommariva, C., Adeloye, A.J., Zounemat-Kermani, M. and Scholz, M., 2020. Sustainability Ranking of Desalination Plants Using Mamdani Fuzzy Logic Inference Systems. Sustainability, 12(2), p. 631.
External links
| Library resources about Sustainability |
- Sustainability at Curlie
- The Considerate Consumer - digital manual for sustainable everyday consumption
| Main fields |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Related fields | ||
| Applications | ||
| Lists | ||
| See also | ||
| ||
| Fields |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Related |
| |
| Applied |
| |
Authority control  |
|
|---|