The Age of Sustainability

Author: Mark Swilling
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042960372X
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 331

Book Description
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.

User Experience in the Age of Sustainability

Author: Kem-Laurin Kramer
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0123877954
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
User Experience in the Age of Sustainability focuses on the economic, sociological and environmental movement in business to make all products including digital ones more sustainable. Not only are businesses finding a significant ROI from these choices, customers are demanding this responsible behaviour. The author looks at user experience practice through the lens of sustainability whether it be a smart phone, service - based subscription solutions or sustainable packaging to expose the ways in which user researchers and designers can begin to connect to the sustainability not merely as a theoretical. This book has a practical take on the matter providing a framework along with case studies and personal stories from doing this work successfully. Both hardware and software design are covered. Learn about the fundamentals of sustainability and how it can change the future of user experience professionals Learn how to integrate sustainability into designs with a solid framework using user research methodology, techniques, and purposeful metrics Find out how to integrate sustainability frameworks into the software and product development cycles Find out how sustainability applies to mobile and digital products with discussions on user messaging, dematerialization, and efficient design See how companies have made it work with case studies

The Age of Sustainable Development

Author: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231539002
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 564

Book Description
Jeffrey D. Sachs is one of the world's most perceptive and original analysts of global development. In this major new work he presents a compelling and practical framework for how global citizens can use a holistic way forward to address the seemingly intractable worldwide problems of persistent extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and political-economic injustice: sustainable development. Sachs offers readers, students, activists, environmentalists, and policy makers the tools, metrics, and practical pathways they need to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. Far more than a rhetorical exercise, this book is designed to inform, inspire, and spur action. Based on Sachs's twelve years as director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, his thirteen years advising the United Nations secretary-general on the Millennium Development Goals, and his recent presentation of these ideas in a popular online course, The Age of Sustainable Development is a landmark publication and clarion call for all who care about our planet and global justice.

AI in the Wild

Author: Peter Dauvergne
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262359588
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 278

Book Description
Examining the potential benefits and risks of using artificial intelligence to advance global sustainability. Drones with night vision are tracking elephant and rhino poachers in African wildlife parks and sanctuaries; smart submersibles are saving coral from carnivorous starfish on Australia's Great Barrier Reef; recycled cell phones alert Brazilian forest rangers to the sound of illegal logging. The tools of artificial intelligence are being increasingly deployed in the battle for global sustainability. And yet, warns Peter Dauvergne, we should be cautious in declaring AI the planet's savior. In AI in the Wild, Dauvergne avoids the AI industry-powered hype and offers a critical view, exploring both the potential benefits and risks of using artificial intelligence to advance global sustainability.

Sustainability Principles and Practice

Author: Margaret Robertson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000299996
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 654

Book Description
Sustainability Principles and Practice gives an accessible and comprehensive overview of the interdisciplinary field of sustainability. The focus is on furnishing solutions and equipping students with both conceptual understanding and technical skills. Each chapter explores one aspect of the field, first introducing concepts and presenting issues, then supplying tools for working toward solutions. Elements of sustainability are examined piece by piece, and coverage ranges over ecosystems, social equity, environmental justice, food, energy, product life cycles, cities, and more. Techniques for management and measurement as well as case studies from around the world are provided. The 3rd edition includes greater coverage of resilience and systems thinking, an update on the Anthropocene as a formal geological epoch, the latest research from the IPCC, and a greater focus on diversity and social equity, together with new details such as sustainable consumption, textiles recycling, microplastics, and net-zero concepts. The coverage in this edition has been expanded to include issues, solutions, and new case studies from around the world, including Europe, Asia, and the Global South. Chapters include further reading and discussion questions. The book is supported by a companion website with online links, annotated bibliography, glossary, white papers, and additional case studies, together with projects, research problems, and group activities, all of which focus on real-world problem-solving of sustainability issues. This textbook is designed to be used by undergraduate college and university students in sustainability degree programs and other programs in which sustainability is taught.

Sustainability

Author: Ulrich Grober
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780857840455
Category : Human ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
This book offers a historically rich and nuanced introduction to the concept of sustainability that could not be of more pressing importance for the 21st century.

Sustainability

Author: Maurie J. Cohen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509540334
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Book Description
Sustainability is one of the buzzwords of our times and a key imperative for economic growth, technological development, social equity, and environmental quality. But what does it really mean and how is it being implemented around the world? In this clear-eyed book, Maurie Cohen introduces students to the concept of sustainability, tracing its history and application from local land-use practices, construction techniques and reorientation of business models to national and global institutions seeking to foster sustainable practices. Examining sustainable development in scientific, technological, social and political terms, he shows that it remains an elusive concept and evidence of its unambiguous achievements can be difficult to ascertain. Moreover, developed and developing countries have formulated divergent agendas to engage the notion of sustainability, further complicating its application and progress across the world. Innovative and readily accessible to students from a range of disciplines, this primer takes us on a journey to show that sustainability is as much about unchartered waters as it is about formulating answers to urgent global issues.

The Global Sustainability Challenge

Author: Gerard Magill
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 152754950X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Book Description
This collection of essays is based on presentations given at the 4th conference in an annual endowed series held at Duquesne University, USA. It addresses emerging concerns and pivotal problems about our planet’s environment and ecology. The contributions gathered here highlight the inter-relation of topics and expertise regarding science and philosophy, ethics, religion, global issues, and generational perspectives. The book concludes with an ethical analysis of the multiple and over-lapping challenges that require urgent attention and long-term resolution. It will appeal to scholars and students in a variety of disciplines and fields that deal with the earth’s survival and flourishing.

Living Well Now and in the Future

Author: Randall Curren
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262339110
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
A philosopher and a scientist propose that sustainability can be understood as living well together without diminishing opportunity to live well in the future. Most people acknowledge the profound importance of sustainability, but few can define it. We are ethically bound to live sustainably for the sake of future generations, but what does that mean? In this book Randall Curren, a philosopher, and Ellen Metzger, a scientist, clarify normative aspects of sustainability. Combining their perspectives, they propose that sustainability can be understood as the art of living well together without diminishing opportunity to live well in the future. Curren and Metzger lay out the nature and value of sustainability, survey the problems, catalog the obstacles, and identify the kind of efforts needed to overcome them. They formulate an ethic of sustainability with lessons for government, organizations, and individuals, and illustrate key ideas with three case studies. Curren and Metzger put intergenerational justice at the heart of sustainability; discuss the need for fair (as opposed to coercive) terms of cooperation to create norms, institutions, and practices conducive to sustainability; formulate a framework for a fundamental ethic of sustainability derived from core components of common morality; and emphasize the importance of sustainability education. The three illustrative case studies focus on the management of energy, water, and food systems, examining the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Australia's National Water Management System, and patterns of food production in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia.

Smart Planning: Sustainability and Mobility in the Age of Change

Author: Rocco Papa
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319776827
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
This book offers an overview of sustainability and urban mobility in the context of urban planning – topics that are of considerable interest in the development of smart cities. Environmental sustainability is universally recognized as a fundamental condition for any urban policy or urban management activity, while mobility is essential for the survival of complex urban systems. The new opportunities offered by innovations in the mobility of people, goods and information, as well as radically changing interactions and activities are transforming cities. Including contributions by urban planning scholars, the book provides an up-to-date picture of the latest studies and innovative policies and practices in Italy, of particular interest due to its spatial, functional and social peculiarities. Sustainability and mobility must form the basis of “smart planning” – a new dimension of urban planning linked to two main innovations: procedural innovation in the management of territorial transformations and the technological innovation of the generation, processing and distribution of data (big data) for the creation of new "digital environments" such as GIS, BIM, models of augmented and mixed reality, useful for describing changes in human settlement in real time.