Sustainability- it refers to systems and processes that are able to operate and persist their own over long

periods of time. it applies to all systems, complex, interrelated systems, “wicked problems”.
Triple bottom line:​ ​ ​ Three pillars model:​ ​ The nested hierarchy model:

The nester hierarchy model- human capital and natural capital are
complementary but not interchangeable. Economic activity cannot continue without resource inputs from
the natural environments.
Sustainable development (SDG themes: 5P model): development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Systems thinking- The study of sustainability is the study of systems- A coherently organized set of
interconnected elements that make up a whole. Emergent properties arise from the relationship and
interactions between the parts. Systems are nested within other systems.
●​ Capacity:
○​ Carrying capacity
■​ Resilience: the capacity of a system to accommodate disturbance and still retain
its basic function and structure. Capacity to cope change and it feature diversity
which makes the system flexible, modularity, and connectivity
○​ Ecological footprint
Sustainability prioritizes outcomes, resilience prioritizes process. Sustainability identifies long-term goals,
develops strategies to achieve them, and evaluates using indicators. Resilience emphasizes change as a
normal condition, recognizes that a system may exist in multiple stable states, and focuses on building
adaptive capacity.
●​ Herman Daly’s 4 conditions to avoid overshoot:
○​ Maintain the health of ecosystem
○​ Use renewable resources at a rate no faster than they can be regenerated
○​ Use nonrenewable resources at a rate no faster than they can be replaced by the discovery
of renewable substitutes.
○​ And emit wastes and pollutants at a rate no faster than the rate at which they can be safely
assimilated
Sustainilism- a multifaceted concept of sustainability, covering its evolution, laws, principles, as well as
different domains and challenges related to achieving it in the modern world. A holistic approach is
necessary.
Circles of sustainability: ecological domain: practices and meanings that occur across the intersection
between social natural realms, focusing on human engagement with and nature, and the built environment
●​ Perspectives and aspects
○​ Materials and energy
○​ Water ans air
○​ Flora and fauna
○​ Habitat and settlements
○​ Built-form and transport
○​ Embodiment and sustenance
○​ Emission and waste
Ecosystem services- benefits that humans gain from the natural environment and from properly
functioning ecosystems.
●​ Supporting- nutrient cycling, water cycling, soil formation, photosynthesis
●​ Provisioning (goods) and services- food, fiber, biomass fuel, freshwater and natural medicines
●​ Regulating- air quality, pollination, erosion, climate
●​ Cultural- ethical values, existence values, recreation and ecotourism
Land Ethic: ecocentric perspective, preservation of healthy, self-renewing ecosystems
Deep Ecology: inherent worth of all living things regardless of their utility for humans, Humans one of
many components of the global ecosystem
Gaia hypothesis- earth as a self-regulating complex system through cybernetic feedbacks, planetary
homeostasis “actively pursued”
Scientific uncertainty should not stop us from dealing with activities that pose significant risk
●​ Precautionary principle
○​ If there is even a very small risk of significant harm, the action should be avoided or the
risk mitigated
○​ Burden of proof on the proponent to show the action will not be harmful
○​ Regulatory controls should incorporate a margin of safety
○​ Activities that present uncertain potential for significant harm should be subject to the
best technology available to minimize the risk
Natural resource management has tended to focus on:
●​ Goods, rather than services
●​ Market-based rather non-marketable goods
●​ Individual materials or locations rather than a whole system
Biotic resource- obtained from biosphere, living resource
Abiotic resource- non-living things, land, water, earth resource
●​ Perpetual will never run out
●​ Renewable
●​ Nonrenewable
●​ others
●​ Type of capital- land, labour
●​ Ownership- private
●​ Feasibility and commercial viability and status of extraction efforts: economic vs subeconomic
●​ Embodied/virtual resources: used in production and use of an item, as if it were incorporated into
the item itself
 ○​ Initial- resources consumed in the acquisition of raw materials, processing, transportation,
production, manufacturing
○​ Recurring- consumed to maintain, repair, restore, refurbish
○​ Often includes resources used for final disposal or dismantling of the product
Natural resource management: approaches to sustainable natural resource management include:
●​ Command and control- top down
●​ Community based- bottom up, consultation with stakeholders
●​ Adaptive management
●​ Integrated natural resource management- system based, preserving the integrity of natural
systems
Sustainable energy:
●​ Minimizing - impacts- responsible
●​ Eliminating concerns about supply- affordability
●​ Maximizing the social benefits- accessibility
Anthromes- anthropogenic biomes- human systems with natural ecosystems embedded in it- 75% of
earth’s ice free surfaces- classified by combination of land use and human population density
Impact=population*affluence*technology*society
Population ecology- the study of growth, decline, and changes in populations. When applied to human
populations, this field is known as demography
TFR- how child does 1 woman have
RFR- replacement fertility rate which is 2.1
The demographic transition: a period of population growth that occurs as countries move from one stage
of development to the next
●​ Social progress
○​ high birth rate=poverty= lack of education
○​ 3 dimensions essential to stabilizing populations: education, employment, reproductive
health
●​ Policy
○​ National laws and policies drive improvements in social progress and stabilizing the
population
Economics- the study of how to allocate limited resources among alternative or competing interests
●​ Neoclassical economics- holds that economic growth can continue forever. If a n economy runs
short of a resource, a shortage will provide incentives to the market to innovative
○​ Macroeconomics- economy as a whole
○​ Microeconomics- individual markets within an economy
●​ Environmental economics- a subset of neoclassical economics. It takes a further step to consider
economic values and recognizes that human welfare depends upon ecosystem services. It assigns
values to ecosystem services so they can be incorporated into markets. It is anthropocentric-
seeking positive outcomes primary for humans
●​ Ecological economics- it sees the macroeconomy as a subsystem nested within the biosphere
upon which it depends. It recognizes that economics and ecosystems are interconnected in
important ways
●​ growth= quantitative, development= qualitative
●​ Sustainable growth is physically impossible due to biosphere is finite
 ●​ Sustainable development involves an increase in quality without quantitative growth in
consumption or production, so qualitative change where well-being does not decline
Weak sustainability- an approach to economics which says that human-made capital can be substituted for
natural capital
Strong sustainability- believes human and natural capital are not interchangeable and natural capital is the
limiting factor
Flaws in the current growth model
●​ Results in inequities
●​ Continued growth is not making us happier. Income increases well-being up to a certain point
●​ It does not account for real costs
●​ It does not recognize the limits of natural systems
●​ Externalities are not values which are external costs to the entity creating the damage
●​ Growth model does not involve ecosystem services and the harm
●​ Perverse subsidies are harmful to both the economy and the environment
●​ It does not correspond to natural laws that govern the physical world
●​ Laws of thermodynamics:
○​ Earth is a closed system
○​ Matter always changes the quality as it moves
○​ Some resource are depleted from their resource and some waste is produced that flows
into a sink
●​ Constant growth is impossible, it should reach steady state
Alternatives to our growth model:
●​ Continued economic growth is as unsustainable as continued population growth
●​ Equitable distribution of goods and food and adjusted consumption pattern in the developing
world
●​ Reuse and recycled every material- circular economy
●​ Consume renewable resources at rates lower than their natural rate of renewal
●​ Decoupling- the condition in which development occurs without increasing an environmental
impact
Sustainable consumption- the use of goods and services that respond to basic needs and bring a better
quality of life, while minimizing the use of natural resources, toxic materials and emissions of waste and
pollutants over the life cycle, so as not to jeopardize the needs of future generations
Sustainable consumption and production- holistic approach to minimizing the negative environmental
impacts from consumption and production systems while promoting the quality of life for all
Sustainable development- understanding the system as a whole and pursuing both human development
and well-being and protection of earth’s life support systems. Tight links between ecological system,
poverty and development
Social capital- the capacity of society to act in a cohesive way and is essential to sustainable development
and resilience
Social cohesion- critical for economic development and social equity
Governance - processes by which humans make and implement collective decisions. A core component of
social capital that is fundamental to sustainably operate. Need for non-linear but polycentric structure.
Polycentric structures- governance systems at multiple scales such as global, local, national
Universal principles of good governance:
 ●​ Accountability
●​ Transparency
●​ Stakeholder participation in decision making
Common and control tools
●​ Tax restructuring
●​ Values and pricing on natural assets and ecosystem services
●​ Eliminate subsidies on environmentally harmful activities
●​ Policies and enforcement of those policies
Governance challenges
●​ Political boundaries not aligning with ecological boundaries
●​ Multilevel problems require multilevel responses
●​ Need for strong links between governments at different scales and partnership with non-state
actors
●​ Complex adaptive systems with the capacity to learn and change
●​ Adaptive governance- an approach that incorporates the flexibility to accommodate change
Common pool resources (CPRs)- resources from which it is difficult to exclude or limit users and in
which use of the resources by one person decreases the benefits for other users
How local groups of users manage CPRs and found they all exhibit similar principles:
in each commons there are clearly defined boundaries with respect to has the rights
to appropriate the resource and the extent of the resource itself
• Users create rules based on local conditions
• Users participate in creating or influencing roles
• There are methods of monitoring resource use
• There is a system for free riders and users who violate the rules
• There are mechanisms in place for resolving disputes
• External government authorities do not prevent users from creating their own rules of
use
• The commons are nested in multiple layers within larger systems of governance
Commons are evolving social contracts for using shared resources. They are complex adaptive systems- a
common theme in many areas of sustainability. It exhibits patterns of interactions producing emergent
properties that are not easy to predict.
The intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC)- is large scale scientific consensus
Drivers of climate change:
●​ The GHG effect
Impacts of climate change
●​ Heat- heatwaves, poor and low income people will be most impacted, positive feedback loop
●​ Wildfire- hot dry conditions which also promotes insect outbreaks which kickstarts another
positive feedback loop
●​ Drought- transpiration rates
●​ Precipitation- rainfall intensity increases and snow storms become more intense due to increased
capacity of the atmosphere to hold water vapor
●​ Extreme weather- more intense but less hurricanes due to warm ocean surface which causes
intensification, changes to the jet stream cause storms to park over an area
 ●​ Cryosphere- melting ice, positive feedback loop, disastrous effect on indigenous communities,
arctic amplification
●​ Permafrost- carbon container, amplification causing it to melt, concerns about densely
concentrated methane
●​ Ocean conditions- ⅓ of co2 sinks in ocean, acidification, heat storage capacity
○​ Sea level rise- thermal expansion, terrestrial ice runoff to ocean like greenland
○​ Ocean currents- thermohaline circulation, fresh water changes salinity, responsible for
heat and salt transfer
●​ Life in land- food production becomes hard undermining food security. Other places increase
crop yields due to co2 fertilization, ocean acidification, warming and storms will affect fisheries
and aquaculture
●​ Human health- deaths from heatwaves, reduced food nutrition= malnutrition, water security=
sanitation, infectious diseases, expanded range of insects= insect-borne diseases, ground level
rates of ozone will lead to respiratory problems
●​ Social impacts- coastal communities are at risk, increase in global conflict has been linked to
climate change
Mitigation- efforts to limit the magnitude of future climate change by reducing or preventing the emission
of ghg and it can include efforts to reduce the sources and enhance the sinks of carbon dioxide
Adaptation- efforts to respond to and manage the impacts of actual climate change
Net zero- the amount of carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere must equal the amount that is removed.
Regulatory tools: emissions trading
●​ Cap and trade- buying and selling of permits to pollute
●​ Maximum limit on the amount of pollution that can be released
●​ A company that reduces its emissions can sell excess emissions and those that emit above the cap,
must buy emissions allowances
Regulatory tools: carbon tax
●​ Can be applied based on the carbon content of a fuel or on the amount of CO2 admitted when a
fuel is burned
Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR):
●​ Focus on reducing the amount of co2 already in the atmosphere
●​ Some natural (forests, soil, biochar which is a type of charcoal made by burning organic material
in the absence of oxygen at low temperature and it converts dead plant matter to charcoal) and
some engineered.
Carbon capture and storage
●​ technology used to capture or remove co2 from industrial processes and store it deep underground
in geological formation.
●​ CO2 is pumped into porous locations, primarily depleted oil and gas fields.
●​ Oil companies inject it under pressure to increase their yield.
●​ It prevents new co2 from being added.
Solar radiation management (SRM)
●​ Using technology to change the dynamics of the earth system in order to mitigate climate change
●​ Releasing sulfur aerosols into stratosphere and cloud seeding to increase reflectivity
●​ Ipcc calls these remedial measures= volcano eruption
●​ Temporary
 ●​ Ocean acidification and other impacts would continue
Adaptation
●​ Adapting to new circumstances that will inevitably come from changes. While it reduces impact,
it has its limits.
Water Crisis
Distribution
●​ Most freshwater is not accessible, so it requires transportation
Aquifer depletion- groundwater deposit, it can lead to land sinking
Consumption
●​ Embodied water is the majority of our water use
●​ Energy production
●​ Agriculture
●​ Subsidization of water supply in developed nations means less incentive to conserve
Climate change- after 2050, climate change is expected to be the major driver
Conservation
●​ Locate new supplies, use less water
●​ On the supply and demand side- getting freshwater and repair leaks, consumer behavious
Desalination
●​ Saudi Arabia is the largest producer
●​ Highly expensive and 3-5 times higher than the conventional water
●​ Can be detrimental to ecosystem
Rainwater harvesting
●​ Stormwater can be collected and saved for later use
Greywater reuse
●​ Water from bathroom sinks, showers, tubs, clothes washers
●​ Legal to have greywater system in homes
●​ Commercials could be generated from showers, sinks. Ac, fountain water
●​
Biodiversity- The biological diversity of genes, species and ecosystem.
HIPPO
Habitat destruction- habitat fragmentation which divides the large habitat into smaller patches.
Habitat loss has a destructive effect on birds. Leading factor of ecosystem change.
●​ Deforestation- even though china is planting forest, it does not mean the ecosystem is
thriving. It takes years to establish a stable ecosystem in the habitat.
●​ Urban Development- key driver in ecosystem change.
●​ Lakes and rivers- The Daniel-Johnson dam is popular. Algal bloom
Invasive species- a small number of exotic species which are species that move in after having
developed someplace else become invasive. Earthworms have been reintroduced in North
America via people who come to hunt or fish. They are better at exploiting nutrients and other
resources than native species
Pollution- it includes noise and sound pollution as well.
Population- human population who are most adaptable and destructive invasive species
Over exploitation- overharvesting marine fisheries, old-growth forests. After the new policy on
Atlantic cod fish act, it showed a positive effect on the population.
Restoration Ecology- the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded,
damaged or destroyed. Adaptive management over time.
Human-wildlife systems
Reconciliation ecology- describe the deliberate sharing of the places we live with other species in
the new world, anthropocene.
Pollution-unwanted substances that are harmful that came from natural resources, organic sources but
become pollution when it accumulates. Toxicity depends on dose.
●​ Particulate matter- airborne particles in solid or liquid form. Primary is emitted at the emission
source and secondary refers to results from a series of reactions involving different precursor
gases.
●​ Carbon monoxide
●​ Sulfur oxides-it is found in natural sources such as coal, oil, metal ores. SO2 forms acid rain and
it has effects on respiratory systems of humans and animals and damage to vegetation. When it is
combined with ammonia, it becomes harmful PM2.5. Smog
●​ Nitrogen oxides
●​ Ground level ozone- VOCs and NOx react in sunlight and calm air
○​ VOC- C containing gases and vapours like gasoline fumes and solvents.
●​ Ammonia- NH3 is from livestock, waste management and fertilizer production. Nitrification and
denitrification.
●​ Eutrophication- gradual buildup of organic matter in a waterway
●​ Microplastic
●​ Mercury pollution
Remediation- stopping and reversing damage to the environmental system caused by pollution.
●​ Bioremediation- using microorganisms to break down and convert synthetic chemicals into
inorganic products like water and co2. Challenge: most modern contaminants are new to nature
and have not evolved any bacteria to use them as food source.
●​ Phytoremediation- the use of plants to prevent, contain, or treat pollutants. It takes longer than
bioremediation. E.g willow trees can be used to remove contaminants like heavy metals from soil
and water.
●​ Pollution prevention