Transportation Some western countries and United States are making transportation more sustainable in both long-term and short- term implementations. [33] Since these countries are mostly highly automobile- orientated area, the main transit that people use is personal vehicles. Therefore, California is one of the highest greenhouse gases emission in the country. The federal government has to come up with some plans to reduce the total number of vehicle trips in order to lower greenhouse gases emission. Such as: Improve public transit - Larger coverage area in order to provide more mobility and accessibility, use new technology to provide a more reliable and responsive public transportation network, company providing ECO pass to employees. [34] Encourage walking and biking -Wider pedestrian pathway, bike share station in commercial downtown, locate parking lot far from the shopping center, limit on street parking, slower traffic lane in downtown area. Increase the cost of car ownership and gas taxes -Increase parking fees/ toll fees, encourage people to drive more fuel efficient vehicles. -Social equity problem, poor people usually drive old cars that have low fuel efficiency. However, government can use the extra revenue collected from taxes and tolls to improve the public transportation and benefit the poor community. [35] Economics A sewage treatment plant that uses environmentally friendly solar energy , located at Santuari de Lluc monastery. See also: Ecological economics It has been suggested that because of rural poverty and overexploitation , environmental resources should be treated as important economic assets, called natural capital. [36] Economic development has traditionally required a growth in the gross domestic product . This model of unlimited personal and GDP growth may be over. [37] Sustainable development may involve improvements in the quality of life for many but may necessitate a decrease in resource consumption. [38] According to ecological economist Malte Faber , ecological economics is defined by its focus on nature, justice, and time. Issues of intergenerational equity, irreversibility of environmental change, uncertainty of long- term outcomes, and sustainable development guide ecological economic analysis and valuation. [39] In 1987 the economist Edward Barbier published the study The Concept of Sustainable Economic Development, where he recognized that goals of environmental conservation and economic development are not conflicting and can be reinforcing each other. [40] A World Bank study from 1999 concluded that based on the theory of genuine savings, policymakers have many possible interventions to increase sustainability, in macroeconomics or purely environmental. [41] A study from 2001 noted that efficient policies for renewable energy and pollution are compatible with increasing human welfare, eventually reaching a golden-rule steady state. [42] The study, Interpreting Sustainability in Economic Terms , found three pillars of sustainable development, interlinkage, intergenerational equity , and dynamic efficiency.[43] A meta review in 2002 looked at environmental and economic valuations and found a lack of “sustainability policies”. [44] A study in 2004 asked if we consume to much. [45] A study concluded in 2007 that knowledge, manufactured and human capital(health and education) has not compensated for the degradation of natural capital in many parts of the world. [46] It has been suggested that intergenerational equity can be incorporated into a sustainable development and decision making, as has become common in economic valuations of climate economics.[47] A meta review in 2009 identified conditions for a strong case to act on climate change, and called for more work to fully account of the relevant economics and how it affects human welfare. [48] According to John Baden[49] “the improvement of environment quality depends on the market economy and the existence of legitimate and protected property rights.” They enable the effective practice of personal responsibility and the development of mechanisms to protect the environment. The State can in this context “create conditions which encourage the people to save the environment.” [50] Business See also: Corporate sustainability The most broadly accepted criterion for corporate sustainability constitutes a firm’s efficient use of natural capital. This eco- efficiency is usually calculated as the economic value added by a firm in relation to its aggregated ecological impact.[51] This idea has been popularised by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development ( WBCSD) under the following definition: Eco-efficiency is achieved by the delivery of competitively priced goods and services that satisfy human needs and bring quality of life, while progressively reducing ecological impacts and resource intensity throughout the life-cycle to a level at least in line with the earth’s carrying capacity. (DeSimone and Popoff, 1997: 47) [52] Similar to the eco-efficiency concept but so far less explored is the second criterion for corporate sustainability. Socio-efficiency [53] describes the relation between a firms value added and its social impact. Whereas, it can be assumed that most corporate impacts on the environment are negative (apart from rare exceptions such as the planting of trees) this is not true for social impacts. These can be either positive (e.g. corporate giving, creation of employment) or negative (e.g. work accidents, mobbing of employees, human rights abuses). Depending on the type of impact socio-efficiency thus either tries to minimize negative social impacts (i.e. accidents per value added) or maximise positive social impacts (i.e. donations per value added) in relation to the value added. Both eco-efficiency and socio-efficiency are concerned primarily with increasing economic sustainability. In this process they instrumentalize both natural and social capital aiming to benefit from win- win situations. However, as Dyllick and Hockerts[53] point out the business case alone will not be sufficient to realise sustainable development. They point towards eco-effectiveness, socio- effectiveness, sufficiency, and eco-equity as four criteria that need to be met if sustainable development is to be reached. Architecture See also: Sustainable architecture In sustainable architecture the recent movements of New Urbanism and New Classical Architecture promote a sustainable approach towards construction, that appreciates and develops smart growth, architectural tradition and classical design .[54][55] This in contrast to modernist and globally uniform architecture, as well as opposing to solitary housing estates and suburban sprawl , with long commuting distances and large ecological footprints. [56] Both trends started in the 1980s. (It should be noted that sustainable architecture is predominantly relevant to the economics domain while architectural landscaping pertains more to the ecological domain.) Culture Framing of sustainable development progress according to the Circles of Sustainability, used by the United Nations. Working with a different emphasis, some researchers and institutions have pointed out that a fourth dimension should be added to the dimensions of sustainable development, since the triple-bottom-line dimensions of economic, environmental and social do not seem to be enough to reflect the complexity of contemporary society. In this context, the Agenda 21 for culture and the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) Executive Bureau lead the preparation of the policy statement “Culture: Fourth Pillar of Sustainable Development”, passed on 17 November 2010, in the framework of the World Summit of Local and Regional Leaders – 3rd World Congress of UCLG, held in Mexico City. although some which still argue that economics is primary, and culture and politics should be included in the social. This document inaugurates a new perspective and points to the relation between culture and sustainable development through a dual approach: developing a solid cultural policy and advocating a cultural dimension in all public policies. The Circles of Sustainability approach distinguishes the four domains of economic, ecological, political and cultural sustainability. [57][58] Other organizations have also supported the idea of a fourth domain of sustainable development. The Network of Excellence Sustainable Development in a Diverse World, [59] sponsored by the European Union , integrates multidisciplinary capacities and interprets cultural diversity as a key element of a new strategy for sustainable development. The Fourth Pillar of Sustainable Development Theory has been referenced by executive director of IMI Institute at UNESCO Vito Di Bari[60] in his manifesto of art and architectural movement Neo-Futurism , whose name was inspired by the 1987 United Nations ’ report Our Common Future . The Circles of Sustainability approach used by Metropolis defines the (fourth) cultural domain as practices, discourses, and material expressions, which, over time, express continuities and discontinuities of social meaning. [61] Politics See also: Environmental ethics, Environmental governance and Sustainability metrics and indices A study concluded that social indicators and, therefore, sustainable development indicators, are scientific constructs whose principal objective is to inform public policy-making. [62] The International Institute for Sustainable Development has similarly developed a political policy framework, linked to a sustainability index for establishing measurable entities and metrics. The framework consists of six core areas, international trade and investment, economic policy, climate change and energy, measurement and assessment, natural resource management, and the role of communication technologies in sustainable development. The United Nations Global Compact Cities Programme has defined sustainable political development is a way that broadens the usual definition beyond states and governance. The political is defined as the domain of practices and meanings associated with basic issues of social power as they pertain to the organisation, authorisation, legitimation and regulation of a social life held in common. This definition is in accord with the view that political change is important for responding to economic, ecological and cultural challenges. It also means that the politics of economic change can be addressed. They have listed seven subdomains of the domain of politics: [61] 1. Organization and governance 2. Law and justice 3. Communication and critique 4. Representation and negotiation 5. Security and accord 6. Dialogue and reconciliation 7. Ethics and accountability This accords with the Brundtland Commission emphasis on development that is guided by human rights principles (see above). Themes Progress See also: Sustainable development goals The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as Rio 2012, Rio+20, or Earth Summit 2012, was the third international conference on sustainable development, which aimed at reconciling the economic and environmental goals of the global community. Few nations met the World Wide Fund for Nature s definition of sustainable development criteria established in 2006. [63] Measurement Main articles: Ecological footprint and Sustainability measurement Deforestation and increased road-building in the Amazon Rainforest are a significant concern because of increased human encroachment upon wilderness areas, increased resource extraction and further threats to biodiversity. In 2007 a report for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stated: “While much discussion and effort has gone into sustainability indicators, none of the resulting systems clearly tells us whether our society is sustainable. At best, they can tell us that we are heading in the wrong direction, or that our current activities are not sustainable. More often, they simply draw our attention to the existence of problems, doing little to tell us the origin of those problems and nothing to tell us how to solve them.” [64] Nevertheless a majority of authors assume that a set of well defined and harmonised indicators is the only way to make sustainability tangible. Those indicators are expected to be identified and adjusted through empirical observations (trial and error). [65] The most common critiques are related to issues like data quality, comparability, objective function and the necessary resources. [66] However a more general criticism is coming from the project management community: How can a sustainable development be achieved at global level if we cannot monitor it in any single project? [67][68] The Cuban-born researcher and entrepreneur Sonia Bueno suggests an alternative approach that is based upon the integral, long-term cost-benefit relationship as a measure and monitoring tool for the sustainability of every project, activity or enterprise. [69][70] Furthermore this concept aims to be a practical guideline towards sustainable development following the principle of conservation and increment of value rather than restricting the consumption of resources. Reasonable qualifications of sustainability are seen U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). This design incorporates some ecological, economic, and social elements. The goals presented by LEED design goals are sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmospheric emission reduction, material and resources efficiency, and indoor environmental quality. Although amount of structures for sustainability development is many, these qualification has become a standard for sustainable building. Natural capital Deforestation of native rain forest in Rio de Janeiro City for extraction of clay for civil engineering (2009 picture). The sustainable development debate is based on the assumption that societies need to manage three types of capital (economic, social, and natural), which may be non-substitutable and whose consumption might be irreversible. [71] Daly (1991), [72] for example, points to the fact that natural capital can not necessarily be substituted by economic capital. While it is possible that we can find ways to replace some natural resources, it is much more unlikely that they will ever be able to replace eco-system services, such as the protection provided by the ozone layer, or the climate stabilizing function of the Amazonian forest. In fact natural capital, social capital and economic capital are often complementarities. A further obstacle to substitutability lies also in the multi- functionality of many natural resources. Forests, for example, not only provide the raw material for paper (which can be substituted quite easily), but they also maintain biodiversity, regulate water flow, and absorb CO2. [citation needed] Another problem of natural and social capital deterioration lies in their partial irreversibility. The loss in biodiversity, for example, is often definite. The same can be true for cultural diversity. For example with globalisation advancing quickly the number of indigenous languages is dropping at alarming rates. Moreover, the depletion of natural and social capital may have non- linear consequences. Consumption of natural and social capital may have no observable impact until a certain threshold is reached. A lake can, for example, absorb nutrients for a long time while actually increasing its productivity. However, once a certain level of algae is reached lack of oxygen causes the lake’s ecosystem to break down suddenly. [citation needed] Business as usual Before flue-gas desulfurization was installed, the air-polluting emissions from this power plant in New Mexico contained excessive amounts of sulfur dioxide. If the degradation of natural and social capital has such important consequence the question arises why action is not taken more systematically to alleviate it. Cohen and Winn (2007) [73] point to four types of market failure as possible explanations: First, while the benefits of natural or social capital depletion can usually be privatized, the costs are often externalized (i.e. they are borne not by the party responsible but by society in general). Second, natural capital is often undervalued by society since we are not fully aware of the real cost of the depletion of natural capital. Information asymmetry is a third reason— often the link between cause and effect is obscured, making it difficult for actors to make informed choices. Cohen and Winn close with the realization that contrary to economic theory many firms are not perfect optimizers. They postulate that firms often do not optimize resource allocation because they are caught in a business as usual mentality. [ citati
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