Sustainable development is the 21st Century's wicked problem. After 40 years into this agenda have reversed only few unsustainable trends we hear the call for aparadigm shift, transformation, radical change or system innovations in order to finally change course. But what does this actually mean? And how do we put it into practice?
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This book offers both conceptual and empirical descriptions of how to "frame" sustainability challenges. It defines "framing" in the context of sustainability science as the process of identifying subjects, setting boundaries, and defining problems. The chapters are grouped into two sections: a conceptual section and a case sect...
This book examines more than two centuries of societal development using novel historical and statistical approaches. It applies the well-being monitor developed by Statistics Netherlands that has been endorsed by a significant part of the international, statistical community. It features The Netherlands as a case study, which is an especially inte...
'Transgovernance: Advancing Sustainability Governance' analyses what implications recent and ongoing changes in the relations between politics, science and media – together characterized as the emergence of a knowledge democracy – may have for governance for sustainable development, on global and other levels of societal decision mak...
Arising from a scientific conference marking the 100th anniversary of her birth, this book honors the life and work of the social scientist and diplomat Ester Boserup, who blazed new trails in her interdisciplinary approach to development and sustainability. The contents are organized in three sections reflecting important focal points of Boserup&...
At a time when contemporary challenges seem to many to be insurmountable, this book offers an optimistic view of the future and provides a road map for societies to get there. Drawing upon extensive research and many years as a thought leader in environmental and sustainability issues in Japan and internationally, Hiroshi Komiyama analyzes the most...
The Anthropocene is the human-dominated modern era that has accelerated social, environmental and climate change across the world in the last few decades. This book examines the challenges the Anthropocene presents to the sustainable management of deltas, both the many threats as well as the opportunities. In the world's deltas the Anthropocen...
This book is focused on the challenges to implement sustainability in diverse contexts such as agribusiness, natural resource systems and new technologies. The experiences made by the researchers of the School of Agricultural, Forestry, Food and Environmental Science (SAFE) of the University of Basilicata offer a wide and multidisciplinary approach...
This book explores the key dimensions of a future education system designed to enable individuals, schools, and communities to achieve the twin twenty-first century challenges of sustainability and human well-being. For much of the twentieth century, Western education systems prepared students to enter the workforce, contribute to society and succe...
This book provides insight into the implementation of Life Cycle approaches along the entire business value chain, supporting environmental, social and economic sustainability related to the development of industrial technologies, products, services and policies; and the development and management of smart agricultural systems, smart mobility syste...
This free book is about the development of a common understanding of environmental citizenship. It conceptualizes and frames environmental citizenship taking an educational perspective. Organized in four complementary parts, the book first explains the political, economic and societal dimensions of the concept. Next, it examines environmental citiz...
"This compact book argues that ideas about accountability and legitimation – drawn from work on environmental governance – can open up new analytical perspectives on what is holding back effective energy system transformation. With bite-size chapters and illustrative cases that draw on the work of five expert witnesses, this is a novel int...
This open book focuses on the issue of sustainability standards from the perspective of both global governance frameworks and emerging economies. It stems from the recognition that the accelerated pace of economic globalization has generated production and consumption patterns that are generating sustainability concerns. Sustainability standards (a...
This open book presents the proceedings of the 3rd Indo-German Conference on Sustainability in Engineering held at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India, on September 16 - 17, 2019. Intended to foster the synergies between research and education, the conference is one of the joint activities of the BITS Pilani and TU Braunschweig...
The Graduate Program in Sustainability Science under the Department of Urban Engineering of The University of Tokyo has been running an environmental leadership education program at the graduate student level since 2007 called the Asian Program for Incubation of Environmental Leaders (APIEL). This book describes the University's experiences in...
This book defines the new field of "Bioeconomy" as the sustainable and innovative use of biomass and biological knowledge to provide food, feed, industrial products, bioenergy and ecological services. The chapters highlight the importance of bioeconomy-related concepts in public, scientific, and political discourse. Using an interdiscipli...
Taking the business model as point of departure, this book explores how companies and organizations can contribute to a more sustainable future by designing innovative models that are both sustainable and profitable. Based upon years of research, it draws together theoretical foundations and existing literature on the topic of sustainable business ...
This book provides insight into the Life Cycle Management (LCM) concept and the progress in its implementation. LCM is a management concept applied in industrial and service sectors to improve products and services, while enhancing the overall sustainability performance of business and its value chains. In this regard, LCM is an opportunity to diff...
This book presents methods to evaluate sustainable development using economic tools. The focus on sustainable development takes the reader beyond economic growth to encompass inclusion, environmental stewardship and good governance. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a framework for outcomes. In illustrating the SDGs, the book employs thr...
This book presents a comprehensive analysis of biofuel use strategies from an interdisciplinary perspective using sustainability science. This interdisciplinary perspective (social science-natural science) means that the strategies and policy options proposed will have significant impacts on the economy and society alike. Biofuels are expected to c...
This book is for scientists and experts who work on urban food policies. It provides a conceptual framework for understanding the urban food system sustainability and how it can be tackled by local governments. Written by a collective of researchers, this book describes the existing conceptual frameworks for an analysis of urban food policies, at ...
This book addresses the issue of diffusing sustainable energy access inlow- and middle-income contexts.
Access to energy is one of the greatest challenges for many people living in low-income and developing contexts, as around 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity.Distributed Renewable Energy systems (DRE) are considered a promising approa...
This free book explores the strategic importance and advantages of adopting multidisciplinary and multiscalar approaches of inquiry and intervention with respect to the built environment, based on principles of sustainability and circular economy strategies. A series of key challenges are considered in depth from a multidisciplinary perspective, sp...
This free book presents up-to-date analyses of community-based approaches to sustainable resource management of SEPLS (socio-ecological production landscapes and seascapes) in areas where a harmonious relationship between the natural environment and the people who inhabit it is essential to ensure community and environmental well-being as well as t...
This book offers 32 texts and case studies from across a wide range of business sectors around a managerial framework for Sustainable Business. The case studies are developed for and tested in executive education programmes at leading business schools.The book is based on the premise that the key for managing the sustainable business is finding the...
This open book questions the stereotype depicting all Gulf (GCC) economies as not sustainable, and starts a critical discussion of what these economies and polities should do to guarantee themselves a relatively stable future.
Volatile international oil markets and the acceleration of the energy transition has challenged the notion that oil revenu...
This open book develops a framework for advancing agroecology transformations focusing on power, politics and governance. It explores the potential of agroecology as a sustainable and socially just alternative to today's dominant food regime. Agroecology is an ecological approach to farming that addresses climate change and biodiversity loss w...
In this open publication it is shown, that sustainable low carbon development is a transformative process that constitutes the shifting from the initially chosen or taken pathway to another pathway as goals have been re-visited and revised to enable the system to adapt to changes. However, shifting entails transition costs that are accrued through ...
This open book examines the role of pilot and demonstration projects as crucial devices for conducting innovation in the context of the energy transition. Bridging literature from sustainability transitions and Science and Technology Studies (STS), it argues that such projects play a crucial role, not only in shaping future energy and mobility syst...
In this edited open access book leading scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds wrestle with social science integration opportunities and challenges. This book explores the growing concern of how best to achieve effective integration of the social science disciplines as a means for furthering natural resource social science and environment...
This book focuses on the achievements, current trends and further potential of microfinance to scale-up and serve many more clients with financial services that enable them to improve their living conditions. The book asks what it takes to achieve sustainable impact: to know your clients and to understand their needs, to treat them in a fair and tr...
This book, written by world experts in aquaponics and related technologies, provides the authoritative and comprehensive overview of the key aquaculture and hydroponic and other integrated systems, socio-economic and environmental aspects. Aquaponic systems, which combine aquaculture and vegetable food production offer alternative technology soluti...