EnvStud 610 – Eco-restructuring for sustainable development
Content:
In brief, the underlying problem is that many current demographic, economic, and industrial trends currently seem to point unmistakably in the wrong direction, i.e. away from sustainability. To achieve sustainability, and to minimize ecological risk, it will be necessary to reverse most of these trends. Indeed, some aggregated measures of material and energy use may have to be reduced by large factors (four to ten). Such a reversal will entail very fundamental changes in the economic system. The directions and magnitudes of these changes are assessed briefly, and various approaches to their implementation are analysed.
Course Lecturer: Gerhard Berchtold, PhD
ECTS credits: 6
Coursebook:
Eco-restructuring: Implications for sustainable development
Robert U. Ayres, Editor
Paul M. Weaver, Assistant Editor
With the editorial support of Gilberto Gallopín, Walther Manshard, R. Socolow, Mikoto Usui
United
© The United
United Nations University Press
The United Nations University, 53-70, Jingumae 5-chome,
Shibuya-ku,
Cover design by Kerkhoven Associates,
Printed in the
UNUP-984
ISBN 92-808-0984-9
Eco-restructuring: Implications for Sustainable Development
Following on from the critically acclaimed Industrial Metabolism, this study provides a significant contribution to the literature on sustainability by identifying, on a sectoral basis, the critical issues facing the world as a whole, and the technical feasibility of addressing them. A new paradigm of eco-restricting for sustainable development is introduced, involving shifts in technology, economic activities and lifestyles needed to harmonize human activities with natural systems.
This volume analyses a number of sectors and technological fields that are involved in the search for sustainable patterns of industrialization. Each technology chapter presents, in a self-contained and comprehensive way, the state of the sector, the primary issues that concern the sector's sustainability and the technical means for achieving sustainable outcomes. Comprehensive coverage is given on the fields of material, various energy technological and futures, tropical land use, transport and industrial space use, ecological process engineering, and agro-engineering. The volume also contains chapters on systems views of the broader eco-restructuring concept, including its biophysical basis, global eco-restructuring and technological change, and national and international policy instruments and institutions.
Set forth in this way, the book breaks new ground in the understanding of sustainability as a multi-and interdisciplinary area.
Robert U. Ayres is Sandoz Professor of Management and the Environment at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSED),
- Teacher: Gerhard Berchtold
- Teacher: Peter Hodecek