Understanding Sustainability: A Comprehensive Guide
Week 1: What is Sustainability?
EPA Definition
Sustainability
Ideas, aspirations, and values that inspire public and private organizations to become better stewards of the environment and that promote positive economic growth and social objectives.
Sustainable Development
Implies that environmental protection does not preclude economic development and that economic development must be ecologically viable now and in the long run.
Three Periods of Environmental Policy
American Conservation Movement (1850s to 1930s)
Resource Efficiency Group
Issue was poor agricultural practice, solution was scientific method.
Transcendental Movement
Response to urbanism, valued individualism.
Organized Industrial Interests
Railroad and steamboat transportation, commons viewed as infinite, political will to preserve areas for public use.
Environmental Risk Management (1960 to 2000)
Sustainability and Public Policy
Week 2: What is Sustainable Development?
Environmental Contamination & Risk
1920-1950: Global conflicts and economic uncertainty took precedence.
Wide-scale mismanagement of natural resources.
Sanitation Risk
Cholera in the 1850s.
Chlorination of drinking water in 1908.
Worker Risk
Tax on phosphorus.
Overall industrial hygiene standard.
Toxicological research on solvents, vapors, etc.
Dust Bowl, Clear Cutting, & poor water quality byproducts of mismanagement.
Environmental Risk Management (1960-2000)
NEPA – National goal to create and maintain conditions where humans and nature can exist to fulfill social, economic, and requirements for future generations.
New Complex Issues Arose
Urbanization/sprawl.
Infrastructure renewal.
Stormwater management.
Malaria, Acid rain, and ozone depletion were unintended consequences.
Malaria
Half a million deaths.
Affected 91% of Africa.
Technology solution: bed nets.
Malaria is the third biggest killer of children globally.
Nets used for fishing and found to be uncomfortable.
Command & Control
Permit-based emissions.
Market Driven
Marginal costs to equal benefits.
Allocate costs to equal marginal benefits.
Incentive to innovate.
Societal needs were met with a technological fix and lead to unintended consequences.
Cleaner air > taller stacks > acidification.
Ozone depletion was caused by CFCs.
Montreal Protocol was successful.
Ozone hole now shrinking.
Week 3: Climate Change & Sustainable Energy
Sustainability Challenges
Environmental pollution.
Limited energy resources.
Uneven geographical distribution of energy.
Environmental Impacts of Coal
Air emissions.
Water resource use.
Water discharge.
Solid waste.
Fracking
Groundwater contamination.
Air quality degradation.
Can trigger small earthquakes.
Week 5: Hunger and Sustainable Agriculture
Over 1/3 of all food produced worldwide is lost or wasted.
800 million people today remain food insecure.
Periodically hungry.
Group 1: Poverty Challenge
2 billion people are employed in agriculture.
Women make up the majority of agricultural workers in many developing countries.
Group 2: Deforestation and Drought
Trees take up moisture from the soil and transpire it – 1 tree releases 1000 liters of water vapor/day.
Skyborne river carries more water than the Amazon river.
Group 3: Climate Change Challenge
The production of crops and animal products today releases roughly 13% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
We must boost production of agriculture while cutting current levels of emissions.
Group 4: Biodiversity Challenge
Croplands and pasture occupy roughly half the global land that is not covered by ice, water, or desert.
Expansion of cropland and pastures is the primary source of ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss.
Group 5: Pasture Challenge
To meet projected crop needs just by increasing production and without expanding the annual area harvested, crop yields on average would need to:
Grow by 32 percent more from 2006 to 2050 than they did from 1962 to 2006.
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO)
Plants do not exist for animal waste.
Spraying of manure.
Nutrients, pathogens, heavy metals, and other potentially toxic agents in the waste can make their way into local watersheds, with implications for drinking water and aquatic ecosystems.
Watersheds don’t matter.
Week 6: A Mountain of Trash (Solid Waste Management)
Single Use
The transition to throwaway containers started before WWII and was completed in the 1980s.
Solid Waste
Garbage or refuse.
Sludge from water or wastewater treatment plants, or air pollution control facilities.
Other discarded material including solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining, and agricultural operations and from community activities.
Surplus to the economy.
Can be hazardous or non-hazardous.
Recycling
New Jersey.
NJ Statewide Mandatory Source Separation and Recycling Act (1987).
Plastic market – resin is cheaper than recycled material.
Sustainable Materials Management
Start with the extraction of natural resources and material processing through product design and manufacturing, then the product use stage followed by collection/processing and final end of life (disposal).
By examining how materials are used throughout their life cycle, an SMM approach seeks to use materials in the most productive way with an emphasis on using less; reducing toxic chemicals and environmental impacts throughout the material’s life cycle; and assuring we have sufficient resources to meet today’s needs and those of the future.
Circular Economy