To increasing numbers of people, sustainability is the key challenge of the 21st century. In the many fields where it is a goal, persistent problems obstruct the efforts of those trying to make a difference. The ways in which we conceptualize sustainability may contribute to, or alternately undermine vital projects. Using a critical realist approach, the defining aspects of sustainability are identified in order to propose a criterion of adequacy for any project, initiative or policy. Includes: 1) consideration of basic theoretical questions, as well as a critical introduction linking theory and practice; 2) key issues drawn from a wide range of different global regions; 3) the practical, political and ideological outcomes of the ways in which we frame and conceptualize sustainability (using real world examples); 4) a focus on the experiences and initiatives of the movements involved. Issues addressed: climate change initiatives and policies; new economics attempts to re-frame development for sustainability; the bio-fuels and food dilemma; social policy and rising inequality; poverty increases due to environmental degradation; renewed emphasis on leadership for sustainability vs. democratization; conservatism and conservation; power, knowledge and sustainability in social movements; approaches to reform or dissolution of capitalism.

(SUSTAINABILITY * ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS)

More than two decades of mounting evidence confirms that the existing scale of the human enterprise has surpassed global ecological limits to growth. Growth is inherently unsustainable and the true nature of the challenge confronting us now is one of replacing the current growth imperative with a no-growth imperative. Anything less than stopping growth would merely slow today’s dramatic degradation and destruction of ecosystems and their critical life-support services. Zovanyi makes the case that local communities must take action to stop their unsustainable demographic, economic, and urban increases, and presents evidence suggesting that prospects for realizing states of no growth are greater than might be assumed.

(SUSTAINABILITY * NO-GROWTH IMPERATIVE)

The text provides for the first time a compact insider description of the evolution and impact of the Club of Rome, a global think tank that produced a groundbreaking 1972 study "The Limits to Growth" which highlighted the dangers of unrestrained economic growth and possible collapse of global economy during the first decades of the 21st century. With recent research confirming the validity of these concerns, Kanninen asks whether our overarching concept of thinking on world development today should continue to be "global sustainability", which implies that we still have enough time to make adjustments in our future policies and action. Or should the main paradigm of our thinking shift to "global survivability," a concept that stresses the absolute necessity of immediate and drastic change both in institutions and policies? Many environmentalists, green politicians and think tanks are speaking today more loudly than ever about the necessity for a major policy, institutional and paradigm change. Can it happen?

(DEVELOPMENT * SUSTAINABILITY * GLOBAL SURVIVABILITY * CLUB OF ROME * LIMITS TO GROWTH)

Sustainability Science is an interdisciplinary, problem-driven field that seeks to address fundamental questions on human-environment interactions; it is also a "science of design"—that is, a normative science of what ought to be in order to achieve certain goals—rather than a science of what is. Miller draws upon interviews of 30 prominent sustainability scientists to address the three main questions: 1) how researchers in the emerging field of sustainability science are attempting to define sustainability, 2) how they establish research agendas, and 3) how they link the knowledge they produce to societal action. Case studies of innovative sustainability research centers are included.

(SUSTAINABILITY * SCIENCE OF SUSTAINABILITY * NORMATIVE SCIENCE)

The authors examined hundreds of the highest-rated large green buildings from around the world and asked their owners to supply one simple thing: actual performance data, to demonstrate their claims to sustainable operations. Contents include: 1) an overview of the rating systems, showing "best in class" building performance in North America, Europe, the Middle East, India, China, Australia, and the Asia-Pacific region; 2) practical examples of best practices for greening both new and existing buildings; 3) a practical reference for how green buildings actually perform at the highest level, one that goes step-by-step through many different design solutions; 4) a wealth of exemplary case studies of successful green building projects using actual performance data from which to learn; 5) interviews with architects, engineers, building owners and developers, and industry experts, to provide added insight into the greening process. The guide uncovers some of the pitfalls that lie ahead for sustainable design, and points the way toward much faster progress in the decade ahead.

(CITIES * GREEN BUILDING * SUSTAINABLE BUILDING DESIGN)

Consumption habits of the West have driven demand for food, energy, and water, compounded by growth in China, India, Brazil, and Russia.  Middle-class consumers are expected to reach 4.5 billion by 2030.  New resource-efficient systems and patterns of production are needed.  This third World Forum of the Smith School, an event attended by >200 heads of state and business leaders (most from the financial and investor communities), focused on growing concerns about prosperity, resources, population, and climate.  Rather than focus on forecasting, two frames enable a new set of questions: Growth (moving faster with increasing efficiency) and Health (moving further by aiming for resiliency and dynamic complexity).  Given the imperative that “we must rethink the link between economic development and a viable environment,” the Growth and Health frames are then applied to Water, Energy (Growth is supply-driven; Health balances supply and demand), Climate, Land (Growth manages land more efficiently for food and fuel; Health takes a more inclusive approach), Infrastructure (Health fosters more local initiatives that are resilient, flexible, and frugal in the long term), Business Models, Economy (Health promotes evolutionary-based theory, complexity economics, and moving to a “circular economy”), and Leadership.  Four Scenarios for the Growth Frame are sketched: 1) Lean, But Mean (high efficiency gain, but global temperatures is still “far more than 2oC”); 2) Broader Gains (strict environmental regulation in developing new abundances); 3) Fat and Unfit (all boats sinking by 2050 in a volatile world, despite decarbonization and eco-efficiency); 4) Scramble for Survival (an extended global recession; more droughts, floods, and famines; subsistence for many).  In contrast, four other Scenarios for the Health Frame are provided: 1) Networked Communities (smart cities and new models of greener growth); 2) Inclusive Globalization (systems management coordinated at the global level); 3) Walled Cities (competition between global cities for resources); 4) Worlds Apart (more social inequality; resource security only for the wealth few).  In sum, “Re|thinking the world as a complex, adaptive system is analogous to the 16^th-century adjustment in which humanity began accepting the world as round rather than flat.” (p.13)  These different futures frames raise different sets of nightmare scenarios: “within Growth, the world of health can threaten a kind of green totalitarianism; within Health, the world of Growth looks like a form of capitalist feudalism” (p.14), with the 1% taking still more resources from the 99%.  In a Growth frame, we can increase efficiency by focusing on what we can do well now, because we “don’t have time to wait around for a new global ecological myth to take over from the global economic myth within which we operate.”  But a Health frame is better for more people.  [NOTE: Very dense, leading-edge re-framing for business leaders.  The “Health” frame is a fresh approach to the population/resources issue.]  (Download at www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk)

(ECONOMICS: GROWTH VS. HEALTH * BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENT * RESOURCES)

McDonald’s promises to use only beef, coffee, fish, chicken, and cooking oil obtained from sustainable sources. Coca-Cola promises to achieve water neutrality. Unilever has set a deadline of 2020 to reach 100% sustainable agricultural sourcing. Walmart has pledged to become carbon neutral. Today, big-brand companies seem to be making commitments that go beyond the usual “greenwashing” efforts undertaken largely for public relations purposes. For many leading-brand companies, these corporate sustainability efforts go deep, reorienting central operations and extending through global supply chains. Yet, these companies are doing this not for the good of the planet but for their own profits and market share in a volatile, globalized economy. They are using sustainability as a business tool. Advocacy groups and governments are partnering with these companies, eager to reap the governance potential of eco-business efforts. “The acclaimed eco-efficiencies achieved by big-brand companies limit the potential for finding deeper solutions to pressing environmental problems and reinforce runaway consumption. Eco-business promotes the sustainability of big business, not the sustainability of life on Earth.”

(SUSTAINABILITY * ECO-BUSINESS * BUSINESS “GREENING”)

Most major cities have undertaken some form of sustainability initiative. Yet there have been few systematic comparisons across cities, or theoretically grounded considerations of what works and what does not, and why. Portney offers an overview and analysis of sustainability programs and policies in American cities. Topics include the conceptual underpinnings of sustainability, local aspects of sustainability, measurement of sustainability, relationship between sustainability and economic growth, and issues of governance, equity, and implementation. Case studies are provided, with separate chapters on large, medium-size, and small cities. The 2nd edition offers numerous additional case studies, a new chapter on management and implementation issues, and a greatly expanded comparative analysis of big city sustainability initiatives. Portney shows how cities use the broad rubric of sustainability to achieve particular political ends, and dispels the notion that only cities that are politically liberal are interested in sustainability.

(CITIES * SUSTAINABLE CITIES)

As of 2008, more people live in cities than in rural areas. Conventional wisdom about the environmental impact of cities holds that urbanization and environmental quality are necessarily at odds. Cities are seen to be sites of ecological disruption, consuming a disproportionate share of natural resources, producing high levels of pollution, and concentrating harmful emissions precisely where the population is most concentrated. Cities appear to be particularly vulnerable to natural disasters, to be inherently at risk from outbreaks of infectious diseases, and even to offer dysfunctional and unnatural settings for human life. Meyer tests these widely held beliefs against the evidence, and weighs instances of “urban penalty” against those of “urban advantage” to find that many supposed urban environmental penalties are illusory, based on commonsense preconceptions and not on solid evidence. Greater degrees of “urbanness” often offer advantages rather than penalties. The characteristic compactness of cities, for example, lessens the pressure on ecological systems and enables resource consumption to be more efficient. On the whole, cities offer greater safety from environmental hazards (geophysical, technological, and biological) than more dispersed settlement does. In fact, the city-defining characteristics widely supposed to result in environmental penalties do much to account for cities’ environmental advantages.

(CITIES * URBAN ENVIRONMENTAL ADVANTAGES)

The 20th annual report issued by the Worldwatch Institute, one of the major environmental think tanks in the world, analyzes progress toward building sustainable economies and offers a new perspective on what changes are necessary to make sustainability a permanent feature of the world’s economies.

(SUSTAINABILITY * ECONOMY)