CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Environmental sustainability involves making decisions and taking actions that are in the interests of protecting the natural world, with particular emphasis on preserving the capability of the environment to support human life. It is an important topic at the present time, as people are realizing the full impact that businesses and individuals can have on the environment. For many people, the basic idea of sustainability focuses greatly on depletion of resources. Others consider that sustainability covers also (irreversible) pollution, conservation of nature and other environmental and ecological aspects. Some include the aspects of quality of human life and the human wellbeing. Everyone complains about the environmental sustainability situation in developing countries. They say we are in dire need of a total turnover. The citizens believe it is the duty of the government to sustain the environment of a state and the government attributes that responsibility to its citizens too. The best way to define and measure sustainability is often contested. Economists usually emphasize an accounting approach that focuses on the maintenance of capital stocks. Some in the environmental realm focus on natural resource depletion and whether the current rates of resource use can be sustained into the distant future.
The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) is a composite index that tracks a diverse set of socio-economic,
At what point are we going to take responsibility and protect the Earth instead of allowing it to be destroyed? The Earth can only handle a so much growth before it reaches its max sustainability. In each text, sustainability refers to how much growth the Earth can maintain without being destroyed. Wendell Berry, Jared Diamond, and Bill McKibben all use rhetoric to appeal to their audience using ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is an appeal to the audience’s ethics.
Since our world has come to economic era, there were many new businesses which were established. Some of these new businesses only concentrate on gaining profits without sustainability. They did not concern about their business managements which can damage environment. Moreover, there was no environmental movement which help to protect our environment. Therefore, in the middle of the 1990s, John Elkington created a framework, which called the triple bottom line (TBL), in order to measure social, environmental and financial ability of companies over a prolonged duration of time (The Economist, 2009).
The commission’s report defined sustainability as “the development which meets the needs of current generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (cite the website). The needs they are talked about included social, cultural and
This definition takes in the “built environment” and “the natural” Instead of just educating individuals and communities about environmental problems, we have to develop a connection with nature in order to work towards solutions. Tbilisi’s EE definition is also localized and takes all the aspects of different communities and individuals in account. Many EE objectives focus on environmental issues but individuals are not able to understand the extent of these problems unless they have a relationship with nature which
ASSESSMENT/AUDIT 1. Understanding of why it is important to measure sustainability and the associated problems and conflicts of different indicator sets and types Evidence – It is really difficult to find exact concept for measuring sustainability. For instance the measurement of life parameters is differ between different cultures and individuals. So, different solutions will be required to be found for many different communities. However; we should not assume that things we cannot measured easily is not important.
Sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. [ The Brundtland Commission, 1987:Our Common Future:Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development.(1987,August 4)|United Nations Documents NO.A/42/427 Retrieved March 10,2017, from http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf](The Brundtland Commission, 1987) Sustainability development is to conducted and produce without depletion of natural resources for the next and the future generation, also need current society to maintain the non-regenerated energy resources, but still needs to satisfy the needs of the current mankind, is not about shut down everything and going back to the primitive communes
Introduction Sustainability has been mentioned as a goal of businesses. During the mid 1990s John Elkington created the triple bottom line plan under the concept of sustainability. Sustainability can be defined in many ways, but the simplest way is “Ability to sustain” (Sustainability, 2010). The triple bottom line is an accounting framework, and there are three dimensions of sustainability among them people, planet and profit (3Ps). The concept of TBL is to measure the profitable, social and environmental performance of the company.
I agree with the assertion that in the context of Sustainable Development ‘the reality of life today is that the economy dominates environment and society. The Concept of Sustainable Development Sustainable development refers to “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”, and was produced by the Brundtland report (WCED, 1987). The concept also takes into account the needs of the poor in developing countries by outlining achievable objectives of importance (WCED, 1987).
The conclusion conveyed at the end of this paper, will be that sustainable development is a concept with weaknesses however, the strengths outweigh them. To begin with, the concept of sustainable development famously culminated in 1987 with the United Nations 'Commission on Environment and Development ' also known as the 'Brundtland Report ' (Everard & Longhurt, 2017; pp. 1244). The article introduced, the most widely known definition of Sustainable development as "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).
Sustainability: If you take a look around at what’s really happening in our world, there’s an inescapable pattern of ‘what’s going on is simply unsustainable’ and in other words, it can’t go on for much longer. Sustainability is to “meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. As cities began to grow with the population increase, the need for a sustainable development became more apparent as resources began to diminish in quantity and value. Left to it’s own devices, the Earth is a sustainable system.
The reading assignments for this week has been very educative about the environment and making it a better place for living. In this written assignment, I will examine some of the ethical issues related to population growth and their effect to the environment. Also, I will propose solutions to these problems base on the reading material available for this Unit. But before I continue, I wish to introduce us to environmental ethics and its definition which I think it is very important for us to understand so as to know our role to play in this beautiful planet. Environmental ethics is the discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-human contents
Introduction: Our earth is the most precious gift of the universe. It is the sustenance of ‘nature’ that is the key to the development of the future of mankind. It is the duty and responsibility of each one of us to protect nature. It is here that the understanding of the ‘environment’ comes into the picture. The degradation of our environment is linked with the development process and the ignorance of people about retaining the ecological balance.
Kahn’s (1995) approach to the sustainable development theory is consistent with the modern day development techniques of Europe 2020 priorities; smart growth, sustainable growth and inclusive growth. The adoption of some innovative strategies such as the utilisation of renewable energy as an integral part of the energy mix could result in growth of the economy, which will eventually trickle down to the poor or extend to the rural or disadvantaged areas of the country. The social sustainability generally explains the idea of equity among the people, empowerment, participation, accessibility and institutional stability. It seeks to ensure a good standard of living in the country by alleviating poverty. Environmental sustainability seeks to explain the ways in which exploitation and utilisation of the natural resources will not be made to negatively affect the environment or the health of human beings (Kahn 1995).
EIAs promote the development that is sustainable and maximizes the usage of resources and management opportunities (Glasson, 1999). EIA is recognized internationally as an imperative tool to be used in guiding individuals on the path to sustainable development. Therefore, a crucial purpose of an EIA is to promote environmentally sound and sustainable development through the identification of appropriate enhancement and mitigation measures (UNEP, 2002). EIA has to ensure that development proposals do not challenge critical resources and ecological functions, welfare, lifestyle and livelihood of the communities and people who depend on them (UNEP,
Sustainable development, as its name suggests, is a concept continually elaborating. The most commonly used definition, according to World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), is the development which “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987). It shows the importance of considering benefits for both current and future generations and strongly supports economic development, while it also implies when accessing environment and natural resources, human beings tend to take an anthropocentric view, that the primary goal is to satisfy human needs. With no regard for earth as a life-support system, a development will not be considered sustainable. Therefore, by taking economic, social, environmental issues into accounts is a key approach to develop sustainably in different contexts.