Solutions For Sustainability

Sustainability in Transition: Principles for Developing Solutions offers the first in-depth education-focused treatment of how to address sustainability in a comprehensive manner. The textbook is structured as a learning-centered approach to walk students through the process of linking sustainable behavior and decision-making to green innovation systems and triple-bottom-line economic development practices, in order to achieve sustainable change in incremental to transformational ways. All chapters combine theory and practice with the help of global case study and research study examples to illustrate barriers and best practices. Each chapter begins with learning objectives and ends with a check-on-learning section that ties the main points back to the core themes of the book. Chapters include a section focused on measuring progress and a box comparing international research or case studies to the North American focus of the chapter. A list of additional academic sources for students that complement each chapter are included. Building sustainability tools, techniques and competencies cumulatively with the help of problem- and project-based learning modules, Sustainability in Transition: Principles for Developing Solutions is a comprehensive resource for learning sustainability theory and doing sustainability practice. It will be essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate level students who have already completed introductory sustainability classes.

With radical and innovative design solutions, everyone could be living in buildings and settlements that are more like gardens than cargo containers, and that purify air and water, generate energy, treat sewage and produce food - at lower cost. Birkeland introduces systems design thinking that cuts across academic and professional boundaries and the divide between social and physical sciences to move towards a transdiciplinary approach to environmental and social problem-solving. This sourcebook is useful for teaching, as each topic within the field of environmental management and social change has pairs of short readings providing diverse perspectives to compare, contrast and debate. Design for Sustainability presents examples of integrated systems design based on ecological principles and concepts and drawn from the foremost designers in the fields of industrial design, materials, housing design, urban planning and transport, landscape and permaculture, and energy and resource management.

This book explores links and synergies between international trade and two of the most urgent challenges of the 21st century: achieving sustainable energy (i.e., energy that is affordable, secure, and clean) and mitigating climate change. It takes the unique approach of not only examining how international trade can help achieve energy and climate goals, but also the impact of emerging tools and technologies such as smart grids and demand response, and the potential role and impact of citizens and prosumers. The book analyzes energy- and trade-related regulations in a range of jurisdictions to assess how conducive the regulation is towards achieving sustainable energy, and identifies gaps and overlaps in the existing legal framework.

Solving today’s environmental and sustainability challenges requires more than expertise and technology. Effective solutions will require that we engage with other people, wrestle with difficult questions, and learn how to adapt and make confident decisions despite uncertainty. We need new approaches to leadership that empower professionals at all levels to tackle wicked problems and work towards sustainability. Leadership for Sustainability gives readers perspective and skills for promoting creative and collaborative solutions. Blending systems thinking approaches with leadership techniques, it offers dozens of strategies and specific practices that build on the foundation of three main skills: connecting, collaborating, and adapting. Inspiring case studies show how the book’s strategies and principles can be applied to diverse situations: Coordinating the activities of widely dispersed individuals and groups who may not even know they are connected, illustrated by the work of urban planners, local businesses, citizens, and other stakeholders advancing ambitious climate action goals via a Community Energy Plan in Arlington County, Virginia Collaborating with diverse stakeholders to span boundaries despite their differences of opinion, expertise, and culture, as illustrated by the bold actions of a social entrepreneur who transformed the global food service industry with the “plant-forward” movement Adapting to continuous change and confounding uncertainty, as a small nonprofit organization mobilizes partners to tackle poverty, water scarcity, sanitation, and climate change in rural India Readers will come away with a holistic understanding of how to lead from where they are by applying leadership principles and practices to a wide range of wicked situations. While the challenges we face are daunting, the authors argue that these situations present opportunities for creating a more just, healthy, and prosperous world.

This book contains a collection of papers presented at Engineering Solutions for Sustainability: Materials and Resources II, a special symposium organized as part of the TMS 2015 Annual Meeting & Exhibition and held in Orlando, Florida, March 15-19, 2015. With impending and burgeoning societal issues affecting both developed and emerging nations, the global engineering community has a responsibility and an opportunity to truly make a difference and contribute. The papers in this collection address what materials and resources are integral to meeting basic societal sustainability needs in critical areas of energy, transportation, housing, and recycling. Contributions focus on the engineering answers for cost-effective, sustainable pathways; the strategies for effective use of engineering solutions; and the role of the global engineering community. Authors share perspectives on the major engineering challenges that face our world today; identify, discuss, and prioritize engineering solution needs; and establish how these fit into developing global-demand pressures for materials and human resources.

In his newest book, Robert G. Jones uses applied psychology to argue that unique human adaptive strategies can be leveraged to enable sustainable decisions and mitigate the current climate crisis.

What is sustainability? Much has been said about the terms ‘sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ over the last few decades, but they have become buried under academic jargon. This book is one of the first that aims to demystify sustainability so that the layperson can understand the key issues, questions and values involved. Accessible and engaging, the book examines the ‘old’ sustainability of the past and looks to the future, considering how economic, ecological and social sustainability should be defined if we are to solve the entwined environmental, economic and social crises. It considers if meaningful sustainability is the same as a ‘sustainable development’ based on endless growth, examining the difficult but central issues of overpopulation and overconsumption that drive unsustainability. The book also explores the central role played by society’s worldview and ethics, along with humanity’s most dangerous characteristic – denial. Finally, it looks to the future, discussing the ‘appropriate’ technology needed for sustainability, and suggesting nine key solutions. This book provides a much-needed comprehensive discussion of what sustainability means for students, policy makers and all those interested in a sustainable future.

Around the turn of the millennium it had become painfully evident that development aid, charity or "global business-as-usual" were not going to be the mechanisms to alleviate global poverty. Today, there is little dispute that poverty remains the most pressing global problem calling for innovative solutions. One recent strategy is the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) concept developed by Prahalad and Hart, which relies on entrepreneurial activity tapping into the previously ignored markets of the economically most disadvantaged. It is a process requiring innovations in several disciplines: technological, social and business.This book covers a number of areas. First, much of the current BoP discussion emphasises targeting products to the needs of the poor. But do we actually know what the real needs of the poor are? This book takes a bottom-up human-centred approach and examines examples that truly engage the poor in BoP product and service development. What types of needs assessment methodologies are indicated considering the cultural differences in BoP countries? Are the existing methodologies adequate? Do they need to be redefined and redeveloped? Second, the book considers how we can balance poverty alleviation and stimulate economic growth without stressing the ecosystem. Tragically, the poor are hardest hit by the adverse effects of environmental deterioration such as water shortages, climate change or the destruction of habitats. While the economic welfare of the poor is critical, the BoP approach must balance its inherent paradox of encouraging greater consumption while avoiding further pressures on environmental sustainability. The link between the BoP approach and sustainable development is a key feature of this book. Third, it looks at innovation and asks what kinds of"bottom-up" innovation (open source, technological, social and business) support BoP initiatives (and sustainable development)?Fourth, the book deals with the relationship between development assistance and BoP. Is a BoP strategy the antithesis to development aid or can these two co-exist or even complement each other?Finally, the book raises questions about the relationship between corporate responsibility and BoP. Is BoP a new form of corporate neo-colonialism or a new form of corporate responsibility? Although the BoP concept has unleashed an extensive and generally enthusiastic response from academics, businesses, NGOs and governments, the knowledge domain around this concept is still in the early stages of development. This book addresses that need with a focus on the needs of the end-users – the poor – as a starting point for BoP products and innovations. With contributions from both supporters and critics, it provides a treasure trove of global knowledge on how the concept has developed, what its successes and failures have been and what promise it holds as a long-term strategy for alleviating poverty and tackling global sustainability.