Download or read book Our Common Journey written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-12-09 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World human population is expected to reach upwards of 9 billion by 2050 and then level off over the next half-century. How can the transition to a stabilizing population also be a transition to sustainability? How can science and technology help to ensure that human needs are met while the planet's environment is nurtured and restored? Our Common Journey examines these momentous questions to draw strategic connections between scientific research, technological development, and societies' efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable improvements in human well being. The book argues that societies should approach sustainable development not as a destination but as an ongoing, adaptive learning process. Speaking to the next two generations, it proposes a strategy for using scientific and technical knowledge to better inform future action in the areas of fertility reduction, urban systems, agricultural production, energy and materials use, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation, and suggests an approach for building a new research agenda for sustainability science. Our Common Journey documents large-scale historical currents of social and environmental change and reviews methods for "what if" analysis of possible future development pathways and their implications for sustainability. The book also identifies the greatest threats to sustainabilityâ€"in areas such as human settlements, agriculture, industry, and energyâ€"and explores the most promising opportunities for circumventing or mitigating these threats. It goes on to discuss what indicators of change, from children's birth-weights to atmosphere chemistry, will be most useful in monitoring a transition to sustainability.

Download or read book Urban Sustainability Transitions written by Niki Frantzeskaki and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-06-14 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world’s population is currently undergoing a significant transition towards urbanisation, with the UN expecting that 70% of people globally will live in cities by 2050. Urbanisation has multiple political, cultural, environmental and economic dimensions that profoundly influence social development and innovation. This fundamental long-term transformation will involve the realignment of urban society’s technologies and infrastructures, culture and lifestyles, as well as governance and institutional frameworks. Such structural systemic realignments can be referred to as urban sustainability transitions: fundamental and structural changes in urban systems through which persistent societal challenges are addressed, such as shifts towards urban farming, renewable decentralised energy systems, and social economies. This book provides new insights into how sustainability transitions unfold in different types of cities across the world and explores possible strategies for governing urban transitions, emphasising the co-evolution of material and institutional transformations in socio-technical and socio-ecological systems. With case studies of mega-cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, New York and Adelaide, medium-sized cities such as Copenhagen, Cape Town and Portland, and nonmetropolitan cities such as Freiburg, Ghent and Brighton, the book provides an opportunity to reflect upon the comparability and transferability of theoretical/conceptual constructs and governance approaches across geographical contexts. Urban Sustainability Transitions is key reading for students and scholars working in Environmental Sciences, Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Policy and Planning.

Download or read book Sustainability Transitions in South Africa written by Najma Mohamed and published by Routledge Studies in Sustainability. This book was released on 2018 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: South Africa's transition to sustainability : an overview / Najma Mohamed -- Reaping the socio-economic benefits of an inclusive transition to sustainability / Brent Cloete, Samantha Munro and Nolwazi Sokhulu -- Climate change and vulnerability in South Africa : sustainability transitions in a changing climate? / Coleen Vogel and Mark Swilling -- Sustainability transitions and employment in South Africa : a multi-dimensional approach / Gaylor Montmasson-Clair -- Policies for sustainability transformations in South Africa : a critical review / Najma Mohamed and Gaylor Montmasson-Clair -- Transitioning South Africa's finance system towards sustainability / Chantal Naidoo -- The role of national systems of innovation in South Africa's sustainability transition / Shanna Nienaber -- Green skills : transformative niches for greening work / Presha Ramsarup, Eureta Rosenberg, Heila Lotz-Sisitka and Nicola Jenkin -- Creating partnerships to sustain value / Chantal Ramcharan-Kotze and Johan Olivier -- Inclusive sustainability transitions / Najma Mohamed

Download or read book Sustainability Transitions written by and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last two decades, the concepts of 'sustainability transitions' and 'transformations' have emerged with steadily growing prominence in academic literature. Since 2010, this trend has been matched by increasing uptake of the language and logic of sustainability transitions in European policy and frameworks. Behind these trends lies an evolving understanding of the scale and character of the sustainability challenges facing societies globally — and how those societies can respond. In the environmental domain, this has involved a move away from addressing individual issues, based on linear cause-effect principles, towards acknowledging multi-causality and systemic causes. In policy terms, this has meant a shift from targeted policies towards integrated and systemic policy frameworks. Similarly, in the area of science, technology and innovation (STI) policy, the emphasis has moved from state interventions aimed at overcoming market failures and promoting economic growth towards addressing grand challenges and achieving multidimensional sustainability objectives, such as those set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Collectively, there is growing recognition that addressing the major societal challenges of our age and achieving sustainability objectives will require fundamental changes in lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production in all industrialised and industrialising countries. The European Commission's long-term vision for a climate-neutral Europe (EC, 2018g) expresses this clearly, affirming that achieving the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 will require 'economic and societal transformations ..., engaging all sectors of the economy and society'. The Commission's recent 'reflection paper' on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development likewise refers repeatedly to the need for a sustainability transition to achieve the SDGs (EC, 2019b). The emergence of the sustainability transitions discourse in science and policy represents a significant reframing of Europe's sustainability challenges and response options. However, the implications of this shift for public policy and institutions are, as yet, largely unexplored. As noted in a recent European Commission report: 'It is now well understood how transitions arise. However, turning this understanding into sound advice on how to better manage present and future transitions is still a major challenge' (EC, 2018l). The present report represents a response to that knowledge gap.

Download or read book Transitions to Sustainable Development written by John Grin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been a growing concern about the social and environmental risks which have come along with the progress achieved through a variety of mutually intertwined modernization processes. This book addresses how to understand the dynamics and governance of long term transformative change towards sustainable development.

Download or read book Sustainability in Transition written by Travis Gliedt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-06-25 with total page 535 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Sustainability in Transition written by Travis Gliedt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-04 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 is 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.

Download or read book System Innovation and the Transition to Sustainability written by Boelie Elzen and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern societies face several structural problems such as transport congestion and greenhouse gas emissions due to the widespread use of fossil fuels. To address these important societal problems and achieve sustainability in the broad sense, major transformations are required, but this poses an enormous challenge given the complexity of the processes involved. Such transformations are called 'transitions' or 'system innovations' and involve changes in a variety of elements, including technology, regulation, user practices and markets, cultural meaning and infrastructure. This book considers two main questions: how do system innovations or transitions come about and how can they be influenced by different actors, in particular by governments. The authors identify the theories which can be used to conceptualise the dynamics of system innovations and discuss the weaknesses in these theories. They also look at the lessons which can be learned from historical examples of transitions, and highlight the instruments and policy tools which can be used to stimulate future system innovations towards sustainability. The expert contributors address these questions using insights from a variety of different disciplines including innovation studies, evolutionary economics, the sociology of technology, environmental analysis and governance studies. The book concludes with an extensive summary of the results and practical suggestions for future research. This important new volume offers an interdisciplinary assessment of how and why system innovations occur. It will engage and inform academics and researchers interested in transitions towards sustainability, and will also be highly relevant for policymakers concerned with environmental issues, structural change and radical innovation.

Download or read book The Age of Sustainability written by Mark Swilling and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With transitions to more sustainable ways of living already underway, this book examines how we understand the underlying dynamics of the transitions that are unfolding. Without this understanding, we enter the future in a state of informed bewilderment. Every day we are bombarded by reports about ecosystem breakdown, social conflict, economic stagnation and a crisis of identity. There is mounting evidence that deeper transitions are underway that suggest we may be entering another period of great transformation equal in significance to the agricultural revolution some 13,000 years ago or the Industrial Revolution 250 years ago. This book helps readers make sense of our global crisis and the dynamics of transition that could result in a shift from the industrial epoch that we live in now to a more sustainable and equitable age. The global renewable energy transition that is already underway holds the key to the wider just transition. However, the evolutionary potential of the present also manifests in the mushrooming of ecocultures, new urban visions, sustainability-oriented developmental states and new ways of learning and researching. Shedding light on the highly complex challenge of a sustainable and just transition, this book is essential reading for anyone concerned with establishing a more sustainable and equitable world. Ultimately, this is a book about hope but without easy answers.

Download or read book China s Sustainability Transitions written by Ali Cheshmehzangi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-26 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers the impact of global climate change, advocating to promote sustainable development from the perspective of low carbon and climate resilience, by reducing carbon emissions in different aspects of urban and regional development. As the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, China is continuously exploring a sustainable path to achieve the momentous goal of 2060 carbon neutrality. In addition, this book reviews and summarizes China's green development and predicts the transformation of China's carbon emission and energy structure before and after the peak of carbon emission in 2030. It examines the role of governance in decarbonization efforts, focusing on decision making processes, policies and regulations, as well as the significance of regions, cities, and communities. This book highlights typical methods of implementing and achieving low carbon development in light of China's practical situation, which helps to resolve some of the problems that may arise in achieving the carbon neutral goal. Therefore, this book is suitable for the reference of scholars in low-carbon environment science, sustainable urban development, and other related fields. It also provides inspiration for China's medium and long-term sustainable development plans in the future.

Download or read book Achieving Sustainability Transitions written by Ardjan Gazheli and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Está ampliamente aceptado que es necesaria una transición urgente hacia la sostenibilidad. El cómo hacer esa transición está intensamente en discusión. Está claro, sin embargo, que implicará grandes cambios radicales, socio-‐técnicos, que van mucho más allá de enfoques tradicionales de políticas públicas. Esta tesis doctoral aborda este reto a través de tres estudios distintos y complementarios. El primer estudio está motivado por el hecho de que las políticas de transición -‐ en términos de eficacia, equidad y eficiencia -‐ dependen en gran medida del modelo subyacente de la conducta individual. Sólo un modelo empíricamente fundado en la acción individual y en la motivación puede garantizar el diseño de las políticas de transición adecuadas. Un obstáculo potencial para una transición hacia la sostenibilidad pueden ser las barreras de comportamiento para el cambio. Los diferentes actores involucrados tienen sus propios intereses y tratarán de mantener cualquier posición de poder. Ideas acerca de la racionalidad limitada, la interacción social y el aprendizaje pueden contribuir a unas políticas más eficaces en afrontar las barreras y oportunidades para así realizar una transición hacia la sostenibilidad. Con el fin de llegar a las recomendaciones políticas, me centro en las características de comportamiento tanto a nivel de organización como individual, prestando atención a cuestiones como el monopolio comercial, imprevistos en los sistemas de innovación o interacciones de red, mientras intento conectar dichas cuestiones para el diseño de políticas públicas. El análisis combina puntos de vista de la literatura sobre las transiciones de sostenibilidad, "economía conductual-‐ambiental", y fundamentos de comportamiento de aprendizaje e innovación. A continuación, analizo el conflicto potencial entre crecimiento económico y mitigación del cambio climático. Utilizo un enfoque basado en los sectores economicos para analizar la relación entre las emisiones de CO2, por un lado utilizando el dólar de producción y por el otro el crecimiento de la producción económica y la productividad del trabajo. Esto nos permite investigar si el crecimiento verde -‐ combinando el crecimiento económico con la sostenibilidad ambiental -‐ es factible. Una conclusión principal es que, a pesar de las políticas climáticas realizadas hasta ahora, desarrolladas bajo el protocolo de Kyoto, sectores relativamente limpios no parecen ser más productivos que los más sucios, y tampoco muestran un mayor crecimiento de la productividad. De hecho, los sectores asociados a la alta intensidad de emisiones crecieron más en términos absolutos que aquellos con baja intensidad. La quota del primer tipo de sector aumentó, lo que sugiere que el desarrollo verde requiere un ritmo extremadamente rápido de descarbonización (para permitir el crecimiento verde), o la economía en su conjunto para reducir el tamaño (disminución verde). Un hallazgo importante adicional es que el crecimiento sectorial a largo plazo, tal y como se expresa por un cambio en el valor añadido, no parece estar correlacionado positivamente con la intensidad de las emisiones de carbono. En el último estudio, examino la inversión óptima por parte de una sociedad o empresa mediante la diversificación de la inversión en dos tecnologías de energía renovable con distintas ratios de aprendizaje y costes iniciales, como la energía solar fotovoltaica y la energía eólica. Los resultados muestran la importancia de la tasa de aprendizaje: afecta a la anticipación sobre la opción de invertir y reduce el umbral crítico para su ejercicio o para un más alto coste de producción inicial. A más capital invertido, mayor es el aprendizaje que estimula el ejercicio temprano de la opción de invertir, debido a un efecto de reducción de costes. Una mayor incertidumbre en los precios de la energía o de los costes de la tecnología pospone la opción de invertir. A través de las subvenciones, los gobiernos implícitamente protegen a los inversores contra las fluctuaciones de precios y la incertidumbre. Un resultado inesperado de este estudio es que, a pesar de que la inversión tanto en energía solar como en eólica puede ser rentable en condiciones particulares de incertidumbre de precios y costes, la estrategia teóricamente óptima suele ser invertir en una sola tecnología, es decir, en solar o eólica, en función de sus relativos costes y ratios de aprendizaje iniciales. Esto sugiere que la práctica de la diversificación de las energías renovables en la mayoría de los países puede ser una estrategia equivocada. Sin embargo, tal vez ciertas motivaciones para la diversificación no están insuficientemente cubiertas por nuestro modelo, por lo que sugerimos seguir investigando mediante el uso de modelos más complejos.

Download or read book Rethinking Clusters written by Silvia Rita Sedita and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-22 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume discusses how different geographical spaces can enhance or hinder the capacity of a variety of organizational settings to achieve economic value creation in the pursuit of sustainable regional development. In order to provide the most comprehensive picture of new sources of value creation for sustainable transitions, the book collects contributions that tackle this issue from a variety of perspectives, and adopts a systemic approach where macro, meso and micro-levels of analysis are intertwined in three sections. This multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach comes from scholars operating in the fields of planning, economic geography, social entrepreneurship and organizational management. The first section of the book adopts a macro-level approach linking sustainability to the regional development theme, and addresses how organizations work between different social interests to produce outcomes not previously realized. The second section of the book focuses on the spatial dimensions of sustainable development, with particular clusters, industrial districts and regions considered as relevant units of analysis (meso-level analysis). The third section of the book is dedicated to a micro-level approach, illustrating how to drive social entrepreneurship activities, which are based upon sustainable business models centered in the creation of a shared value. The book is geared towards scholars working on sustainable development issues intersecting the disciplines of regional studies, economic geography and management, and will appeal to geographers and researchers in economic development, business innovation, and sustainability transitions.

Download or read book Handbook on Sustainability Transition and Sustainable Peace written by Hans Günter Brauch and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-08-10 with total page 1013 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book 60 authors from many disciplines and from 18 countries on five continents examine in ten parts: Moving towards Sustainability Transition; Aiming at Sustainable Peace; Meeting Challenges of the 21st Century: Demographic Imbalances, Temperature Rise and the Climate–Conflict Nexus; Initiating Research on Global Environmental Change, Limits to Growth, Decoupling of Growth and Resource Needs; Developing Theoretical Approaches on Sustainability and Transitions; Analysing National Debates on Sustainability in North America; Preparing Transitions towards a Sustainable Economy and Society, Production and Consumption and Urbanization; Examining Sustainability Transitions in the Water, Food and Health Sectors from Latin American and European Perspectives; Preparing Sustainability Transitions in the Energy Sector; and Relying on Transnational, International, Regional and National Governance for Strategies and Policies Towards Sustainability Transition. This book is based on workshops held in Mexico (2012) and in the US (2013), on a winter school at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand (2013), and on commissioned chapters. The workshop in Mexico and the publication were supported by two grants by the German Foundation for Peace Research (DSF). All texts in this book were peer-reviewed by scholars from all parts of the world.

Download or read book Accelerating Sustainable Energy Transition s in Developing Countries written by Laurence L Delina and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accelerating sustainable energy transitions away from carbon-based fuel sources needs to be high on the agendas of developing countries. It is key in achieving their climate mitigation promises and sustainable energy development objectives. To bring about rapid transitions, simultaneous turns are imperative in hardware deployment, policy improvements, financing innovation, and institutional strengthening. These systematic turns, however, incur tensions when considering the multiple options available and the disruptions of entrenched power across pockets of transition innovations. These heterogeneous contradictions and their trade-offs, and uncertainties and risks have to be systematically recognized, understood, and weighed when making decisions. This book explores how the transitions occur in fourteen developing countries and broadly surveys their technological, policy, financing, and institutional capacities in response to the three key aspects of energy transitions: achieving universal energy access, harvesting energy efficiency, and deploying renewable energy. The book shows how fragmented these approaches are, how they occur across multiple levels of governance, and how policy, financing, and institutional turns could occur in these complex settings. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of energy and climate policy, development studies, international relations, politics, strategic studies, and geography. It is also useful to policymakers and development practitioners.

Download or read book Towards a Natural Social Contract written by Patrick Huntjens and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book is a 2022 Nautilus Gold Medal winner in the category "World Cultures' Transformational Growth & Development". It states that the societal fault lines of our times are deeply intertwined and that they confront us with challenges affecting the security, fairness and sustainability of our societies. The author, Prof. Dr. Patrick Huntjens, argues that overcoming these existential challenges will require a fundamental shift from our current anthropocentric and economic growth-oriented approach to a more ecocentric and regenerative approach. He advocates for a Natural Social Contract that emphasizes long-term sustainability and the general welfare of both humankind and planet Earth. Achieving this crucial balance calls for an end to unlimited economic growth, overconsumption and over-individualisation for the benefit of ourselves, our planet, and future generations. To this end, sustainability, health, and justice in all social-ecological systems will require systemic innovation and prioritizing a collective effort. The Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI) framework presented in this book serves that cause. It helps to diagnose and advance innovation and spur change across sectors, disciplines, and at different levels of governance. Altogether, TSEI identifies intervention points and formulates jointly developed and shared solutions to inform policymakers, administrators, concerned citizens, and professionals dedicated towards a more sustainable, healthy and just society. A wide readership of students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in social innovation, transition studies, development studies, social policy, social justice, climate change, environmental studies, political science and economics will find this cutting-edge book particularly useful. “As a sustainability transition researcher, I am truly excited about this book. Two unique aspects of the book are that it considers bigger transformation issues (such as societies’ relationship with nature, purpose and justice) than those studied in transition studies and offers analytical frameworks and methods for taking up the challenge of achieving change on the ground.” - Prof. Dr. René Kemp, United Nations University and Maastricht Sustainability Institute

Download or read book Transitions to Sustainability written by François Mancebo and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book calls for the conditions of transition to sustainability: How to take into consideration new global phenomena such as and of the dimension of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, financial crises, demographic dynamics, global urbanization, migrations and mobility, while bearing in mind short-term or local place-based issues, such as social justice or quality of life? Meeting this challenge requires an inclusive approach of sustainability. It is a matter of designing a new social contract: Sustainability requires more than developing the right markets, institutions and metrics, it requires social momentum. To do so, many issues need a clear and complete answer: How to link social justice with sustainability policies? What governance tools to do so? What linkage between one decision-making level and the other? These are major issues to design sound transitions to sustainability.

Download or read book Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Transitions to Sustainability written by Edmond Byrne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrating how a university can, in a very practical and pragmatic way, be re-envisioned through a transdisciplinary informed frame, this book shows how through an open and collegiate spirit of inquiry the most pressing and multifaceted issue of contemporary societal (un)sustainability can be addressed and understood in a way that transcends narrow disciplinary work. It also provides a practical exemplar of how far more meaningful deliberation, understandings and options for action in relation to contemporary sustainability-related crises can emerge than could otherwise be achieved. Indeed it helps demonstrate how only through a transdisciplinary ethos and approach can real progress be achieved. The fact that this can be done in parallel to (or perhaps underneath) the day-to-day business of the university serves to highlight how even micro seed initiatives can further the process of breaking down silos and reuniting C.P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’ after some four centuries of the relentless project of modernity. While much has been written and talked about with respect to both sustainability and transdisciplinarity, this book offers a pragmatic example which hopefully will signpost the ways others can, will and indeed must follow in our common quest for real progress.