Accelerating the Transition to a Sustainable Society PDF Download

Author: Christopher Brian Bennett
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Laurence L Delina
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351726846
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Accelerating sustainable energy transitions away from carbon-based fuel sources needs to be high on the agendas of developing countries. It is key in achieving their climate mitigation promises and sustainable energy development objectives. To bring about rapid transitions, simultaneous turns are imperative in hardware deployment, policy improvements, financing innovation, and institutional strengthening. These systematic turns, however, incur tensions when considering the multiple options available and the disruptions of entrenched power across pockets of transition innovations. These heterogeneous contradictions and their trade-offs, and uncertainties and risks have to be systematically recognized, understood, and weighed when making decisions. This book explores how the transitions occur in fourteen developing countries and broadly surveys their technological, policy, financing, and institutional capacities in response to the three key aspects of energy transitions: achieving universal energy access, harvesting energy efficiency, and deploying renewable energy. The book shows how fragmented these approaches are, how they occur across multiple levels of governance, and how policy, financing, and institutional turns could occur in these complex settings. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of energy and climate policy, development studies, international relations, politics, strategic studies, and geography. It is also useful to policymakers and development practitioners.

Author: Arjen E.J. Wals
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 908686757X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 549

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We live in turbulent times, our world is changing at accelerating speed. Information is everywhere, but wisdom appears in short supply when trying to address key inter-related challenges of our time such as; runaway climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources, the on-going homogenization of culture, and rising inequity. Living in such times has implications for education and learning. This book explores the possibilities of designing and facilitating learning-based change and transitions towards sustainability. In 31 chapters contributors from across the world discuss (re)emerging forms of learning that not only assist in breaking down unsustainable routines, forms of governance, production and consumption, but also can help create ones that are more sustainable. The book has been divided into three parts: re-orienting science and society, re-connecting people and planet and re-imagining education and learning. This is essential reading for educators, educational designers, change agents, researchers, students, policymakers and entrepreneurs alike, who are concerned about the well-being of the planet and convinced of our ability to do better. The content and related issues can be discussed on the blog by editor Arjen Wals: Transformative learning. 'We are living in times of incertitude, complexity, and contestation, but also of connectivity, responsibility, and new opportunities. This book analyses the consequences of these times for learning in formal, non-formal, and informal education. It explores the possibilities offered by the concept of sustainability as a central category of a holistic paradigm which harmonizes human beings with Earth. To change people and to change the world are interdependent processes - this book contributes to both.' Moacir Gadotti, Director of Paulo Freire Institute, São Paulo, Brazil 'I hope you share my excitement about the innovations for sustainability that this book catalogues and analyses. While the ecological news is grim, the human news is not. Even in a time of accelerating change, people are showing their enormous capacities to learn, adapt, restore and protect.' From the Foreword by Juliet Schor, author of ‘True Wealth: how and why millions of Americans are creating a time-rich, ecologically-light, small-scale high-satisfaction economy’ 'This book implies a ‘culture of critical commitment’ in educational thinking and practice - engaged enough to make a real difference to social-ecological resilience and sustainability but reflexively critical enough to learn constantly from experience and to keep options open in working for a sustainability transformation.' From the Afterword by Stephen Sterling, Professor of Sustainability Education, Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University, United Kingdom

Author: Niki Frantzeskaki
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351855956
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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The world’s population is currently undergoing a significant transition towards urbanisation, with the UN expecting that 70% of people globally will live in cities by 2050. Urbanisation has multiple political, cultural, environmental and economic dimensions that profoundly influence social development and innovation. This fundamental long-term transformation will involve the realignment of urban society’s technologies and infrastructures, culture and lifestyles, as well as governance and institutional frameworks. Such structural systemic realignments can be referred to as urban sustainability transitions: fundamental and structural changes in urban systems through which persistent societal challenges are addressed, such as shifts towards urban farming, renewable decentralised energy systems, and social economies. This book provides new insights into how sustainability transitions unfold in different types of cities across the world and explores possible strategies for governing urban transitions, emphasising the co-evolution of material and institutional transformations in socio-technical and socio-ecological systems. With case studies of mega-cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, New York and Adelaide, medium-sized cities such as Copenhagen, Cape Town and Portland, and nonmetropolitan cities such as Freiburg, Ghent and Brighton, the book provides an opportunity to reflect upon the comparability and transferability of theoretical/conceptual constructs and governance approaches across geographical contexts. Urban Sustainability Transitions is key reading for students and scholars working in Environmental Sciences, Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Policy and Planning.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789189184428
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Liam Leonard
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1849506418
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Offers a series of insights into real alternatives to the economic malaise, with an examination of key themes such as transition towns, traditional villages, new green financial concepts, the sustainable utopia, sustainability and activism, ecofeminism, green protectionism, intentional communities and a green philosophy of money.

Author: Joy, Richard
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1529218047
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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This book is an urgent call to reimagine our social, political and economic systems so that we might transform to a sustainable society. It considers whether an alternative economic model is possible and examines the factors needed to enable such a transition to occur. The scale and pace of change is unprecedented and the author examines the actions that have to be taken by governments, business and individuals if we are to address the environmental disaster that confronts us. Much needs to change but ultimately, this is a book of hope, believing that evolution to a better, more sustainable society is possible.

Author: Patrick Huntjens
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030671305
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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This open access book is a 2022 Nautilus Gold Medal winner in the category "World Cultures' Transformational Growth & Development". It states that the societal fault lines of our times are deeply intertwined and that they confront us with challenges affecting the security, fairness and sustainability of our societies. The author, Prof. Dr. Patrick Huntjens, argues that overcoming these existential challenges will require a fundamental shift from our current anthropocentric and economic growth-oriented approach to a more ecocentric and regenerative approach. He advocates for a Natural Social Contract that emphasizes long-term sustainability and the general welfare of both humankind and planet Earth. Achieving this crucial balance calls for an end to unlimited economic growth, overconsumption and over-individualisation for the benefit of ourselves, our planet, and future generations. To this end, sustainability, health, and justice in all social-ecological systems will require systemic innovation and prioritizing a collective effort. The Transformative Social-Ecological Innovation (TSEI) framework presented in this book serves that cause. It helps to diagnose and advance innovation and spur change across sectors, disciplines, and at different levels of governance. Altogether, TSEI identifies intervention points and formulates jointly developed and shared solutions to inform policymakers, administrators, concerned citizens, and professionals dedicated towards a more sustainable, healthy and just society. A wide readership of students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in social innovation, transition studies, development studies, social policy, social justice, climate change, environmental studies, political science and economics will find this cutting-edge book particularly useful. “As a sustainability transition researcher, I am truly excited about this book. Two unique aspects of the book are that it considers bigger transformation issues (such as societies’ relationship with nature, purpose and justice) than those studied in transition studies and offers analytical frameworks and methods for taking up the challenge of achieving change on the ground.” - Prof. Dr. René Kemp, United Nations University and Maastricht Sustainability Institute

Author: Thomas Wunder
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030060144
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 423

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This book offers innovative ideas and frameworks for sustainable strategizing to advance business by scaling-up its positive impact, which is so urgently needed at this time in the 21st century. It shows practitioners how to effectively deal with socio-ecological systems’ disruptions to their operating environments and play an active role in transforming markets toward a sustainable future. In short, the book demonstrates how to make business sense of sustainability, highlighting new approaches and examples that translate sustainability into strategy and action. The ultimate goal is to provide a path toward a thriving future for both business and society. This book was written for strategy practitioners and decision makers who want to understand why sustainable strategizing is important in today’s business world and are seeking actionable business knowledge they can apply in their companies. It was also written for students of management and can be used as a supplemental text to support traditional graduate and undergraduate management courses.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309172624
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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World human population is expected to reach upwards of 9 billion by 2050 and then level off over the next half-century. How can the transition to a stabilizing population also be a transition to sustainability? How can science and technology help to ensure that human needs are met while the planet's environment is nurtured and restored? Our Common Journey examines these momentous questions to draw strategic connections between scientific research, technological development, and societies' efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable improvements in human well being. The book argues that societies should approach sustainable development not as a destination but as an ongoing, adaptive learning process. Speaking to the next two generations, it proposes a strategy for using scientific and technical knowledge to better inform future action in the areas of fertility reduction, urban systems, agricultural production, energy and materials use, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation, and suggests an approach for building a new research agenda for sustainability science. Our Common Journey documents large-scale historical currents of social and environmental change and reviews methods for "what if" analysis of possible future development pathways and their implications for sustainability. The book also identifies the greatest threats to sustainabilityâ€"in areas such as human settlements, agriculture, industry, and energyâ€"and explores the most promising opportunities for circumventing or mitigating these threats. It goes on to discuss what indicators of change, from children's birth-weights to atmosphere chemistry, will be most useful in monitoring a transition to sustainability.