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A Brief History of "Sustainability"
“[M]odern industries still operate according to paradigms that developed when humans had a very different sense of the world” (McDonough and Braungart 26)—when resources were thought to be infinite. In 1972 the UN convened the Conference on the Human Environment where “the global community acknowledged that more exploration was needed of the inter-relationships between the environment and socio-economic issues of poverty and underdevelopment. Thus the concept of sustainable development emerged in the 1980s in response to a growing realization of the need to balance economic and social progress with concern for the environment and the stewardship of natural resources” (“Education,” par. 2).
The concept of sustainability has since permeated the globe. It is integrated within curricula or used to refer to “green” campus initiatives at numerous international and national universities, including: Yale, Stanford, Harvard, Arizona State University, UMass Lowell (Lowell Center for Sustainable Production), UMass Amherst, UMass Boston, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Alaska Anchorage, George Washington University, and Colombia. MIT is part of an international partnership called the Alliance for Global Sustainability. Created in 1997, the Alliance “brings together hundreds of university scientists, engineers, and social scientists to address complex issues that lie at the intersection of environmental, economic and social goals” (“Alliance”).
In 1999 Dow Jones launched Sustainability Indexes, which are “the first global indexes tracking the financial performance of the leading sustainability-driven companies worldwide” (“Dow”). By 2002, at the UN Johannesburg Summit, social justice and poverty were recognized as “key principles to development that is sustainable. The human and social aspects of sustainable development meant that solidarity, equity, partnership and cooperation were as crucial as scientific approaches to environmental protection” (“Education,” par. 6).
At the 2002 Summit, the United Nations General Assembly declared years 2005–2014 the Decade for Education for Sustainable Development “as a way of signalling that education and learning lie at the heart of approaches to sustainable development” (“Education,” par. 6). According to the UN Educational, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), “Improving the quality of education and reorienting its goals to recognize the importance of sustainable development must be one of UNESCO’s and the world’s highest priorities” (“Education,” par. 10).
The Association of University Leaders for Sustainable Development, whose mission is to “make sustainability a major focus of teaching, research, operations and outreach at colleges and universities worldwide” (“About”), has partnered with the International Association of Universities and UNESCO.
“The rationale for
Sustainable development is a term used to describe the education in the American school system. Curriculums are set in stone and regulated in some cities. Select school boards believe all students must be held at the same level, therefore learning at the same pace and by the same methods. Former mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg was quoted on the strict curriculum policy, explaining it as “a unified way of teaching our children.” But as always with unity, there’s something that is lost. Children learn in different ways; while some are visual, others are kinesthetic or auditory. Children who are not taught in creative ways will lack creativity themselves eventually and have the potential to become unified with their classmates in more ways than one. If a strict curriculum policy becomes widespread throughout the United States, all children will be held at the same level and will all assimil...
achieving the goal of sustainability. 12th ed. of the 12th e ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Seeing environmental sustainability is a defining issue of the 21st century, Penn is dedicated to promoting a sustainable culture and implementing environment conscious policies. Penn believes that higher education can play a leadership role in addressing global climate change, through its research, teaching and operational practices. The use of green roof technologies is one of a number of these sustainable development strategies.
I’ve learned that there are some barriers preventing William and Mary from being completely net-zero, but nevertheless, it is important to keep pushing until those barriers fall. In the meanwhile, I worked with the Carbon Offset program to try and get people to offset their carbon through donations that fund project. Reducing the college’s carbon footprint is one step closer to a sustainable college. Next, I work with the Green House Gas Audit to determine where most of the colleges CO2 emissions are coming from. With the audit, I can analyze the data and determine which areas need to focus on for projects in reducing CO2 emissions.
Sustainability is an issue that everyone should be concerned about. If the planet Earth is going to exist, as we know it, everyone should wake up and do their part to help achieve a greater level of sustainability. In my English 101 class we learned about the issue of sustainability. Many different topics were discussed and researched throughout the course of the semester. Overall, I think that the sustainability project has been a learning and enlightening experience for everyone in this class. Many more things can be done next semester, since the groundwork has been laid to continue this project for time to come.
Sustainability is a concept with a diverse array of meanings and definitions – a widely used glamorous, ambiguous, ambivalent and vague concept that is used by different stakeholder groups in various ways. Presumably to avoid noodling over a terminology or to avoid the confrontation with a definition, most widely the concept is broken down a planning process (c.f. e.g. Döring & Muraca, 2010). That is why most common sustainability is understood as sustainable development.1
Finally, research has shown that basic education is paramount to a nation’s ability to develop and achieve economic development and sustainability targets. Once these targets are identified, a country will need to re-examine its education curricula at all levels, that is, pre-school to tertiary education. Also, as a government develop policies within their countries they should ensure that there is an interconnection between the environment, economy, and social structures and that they become an integral part of formal education, starting with kindergarten and continuing through primary and secondary school and then on through training at the college, university and professional levels.
“Sustainable Development: At its heart, sustainable development is the simple idea of ensuring a good quality of life for everyone, now and for generations to come. It is about living within the carrying capacity of the environment so that how we live, work and enjoy leisure activities, which do not harm or put undue pressures on the environment. It is about ensuring everyone has the opportunity to have a decent education, a quality environment that they take pride in, good health and a decent job (n.p, 2014)”
Over the past few decades there have been discourses both in favor and against Globalization’s capacity to guarantee a sustainable future. Authors attest societies and businesses’ inability to account for ecological and environmental limits when dealing with economic growth, examples of this are some of the traditional business metrics used by most global companies, and nations’ measure of wealth (GDP); both sides heavily resting on economic factors, fail to account for societal and environmental concerns (Byrnea & Gloverb, 2002). Other researchers point at the intensive use of resources, especially by global corporations; such as the increasing and careless consumption of fossil fuels, water, precious metals, etc. leading to a rise in GHG (Starke, 2002) (United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 2000). Most fervent opponents go as far as to call ‘sustainable development’ an oxymoron (Ayres, 1995).
According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, sustainable development is defined as development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. If we follow this definition, it becomes easy to see that the vast majority of the “developed” world has not, and is not developing sustainably. The idea of sustainable development requires us to consider how our action of developing will affect other countries, and future generations. Many people believe in “the butterfly effect”, where the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of t...
First of all, build the construction of the legal system of sustainable development. Legislation related to sustainable development is sustainable development strategy that is specific, legalization of ways, implementation of legislation related to sustainable development is an important guarantee for the sustainable development strategy into implementation. Therefore, the establishment of sustainable development is an important aspect of the legal system, capacity-building for sustainable development. Sustainable development requires through the establishment and implementation of the legal system to achieve rational use of natural resources, so that the ecological destruction and environmental pollution under control and ensure the sustainable development of economy, society and ecology. Secondly, build the construction of the education system for the sustainable development. Sustainable development requires people to have a high degree of knowledge, sensible and long-term impact of activities on the natural and social consequences, and requires people to have high ethical standards, understanding of their lofty responsibilities towards future generations, consciously for the long-term interests of human society while sacrificing some immediate and local interests. This requires capacity building for sustainable development in developing education in line with the spirit of
(7) Adams, W. M. The Future of Sustainability: Re-thinking Environment and Development in the Twenty-first Century. Rep. The World Conservation Union, 22 May 2006. Web. 23 Oct. 2013.
Sustainability development has three components: environment, society, and economy. If you consider the three to be overlapping circles of the same size, the area of overlap in the center is human well-being. As the environment, society, and economy become more aligned, the area of overlap increases, and so does human well-being. Therefore, education for sustainable development (ESD) is the use of education as a tool to achieve sustainability. Simply put, ESD is a way to make the world a safer, healthier, and more livable place for us and future generations (McKeown, 2002, pgs 7-9).
‘Development that meets the needs of the present with the ability for the future generation to meet their own needs.’ (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) Sustainable development requires three key components: economy, society and environment, sustainable development can be success through striking balance in those factors. These three components are indispensible, they compel to depend on each other. On the other words, we can only gain a decent and energetic environment and society if the economy is strong with a healthy a stable growth rate.
Oelofse. C. 2001. Sustainable Development: Theoretical and conceptual issues, LA 21 Training Programme. School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Natal, Durban