Sustainability Hyperlink to Introduction to Sustainability Video

Introduction: Sustainability  Changes to our environment  Changes in human society

 An “apple pie” concept?  What should be sustained? -All natural environments? -Useful natural environments? Concepts of sustainability

 Strong sustainability: preservation of the integrity of all ecological systems, species and natural resources (ecocentric outlook)  Weak sustainability: Preservation of the ecosystem services (food, water, energy, clean air, etc) provided by ecosystems to humans (anthropocentric outlook) Concepts of sustainability BOOKLET- ‘Types of Sustainability; Weak and Strong’

Sustainable development was defined in the Brundtland Report (1987) as: Concepts of sustainability “ development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” BOOKLET- ‘What needs to be sustained?’ Watch the videos below before filling in the Sustainable Development Needs Table:- SUSTAINABLE CITIES IN THE NETWORKED SOCIETY FUTURE OF CONNECTED AND SUSTAINABLE CITIES

Governments  Stockholm Conference (1972) – creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)  Rio Summit (1992) – legal frameworks like the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention on Biological Diversity Policies for sustainability

Governments Laws: banning CFCs, or hunting whales

Governments Taxes: Car taxes, congestion charges Tariffs: Plastic bags (5p) from 1 October 2011 Policies for sustainability

Governments Incentives: money for returning bottles, insulating your home, or building alternative energy sources. Policies for sustainability BOOKLET- ‘Protecting the Amazon’ activity How Brazil is tackling sustainability issues (links to video)- How Brazil is halting deforestation in the Amazon and a contrasting viewpoint; Impacts of new forest code on Amazon rainforest

Policies for sustainability Corporations  Johannesburg Summit (2002) – partnerships between governments and businesses

Corporations  Carbon trading schemes:  Assign a price to carbon dioxide emissions  Give (or sell) companies permits to emit  Allow companies to trade permits: those who emit less can sell spare permits; those who emit more will have to buy others permits  This is intended to create a market for carbon emissions, improving the efficiency of carbon emission reductions Policies for sustainability

Individuals  Offsetting individual carbon emissions, recycling, buying ‘green’ products, living sustainable lifestyles, and political activism BOOKLET- ‘Ideas for Sustainable Living.’

 What is being sustained?  For how long?  For what purpose? Where are we going? What will the world of the future look like? BOOKLET- ‘Corporate Environmental Responsibility.’ Environmentally Sustainable; Corporate Social Responsibility Video