1.3 SustainabilityIB Environmental Systems and Societies HL: Revision notes

Sustainability is a measure of the extent to which practices allow for the long-term viability of a system. It is generally used for the responsible maintenance of socio-ecological systems so that conditions are not diminished for future generations.

Sustainability has three pillars:

• Environmental: use and management of natural resources that allows the replacement of resources and the recovery and regeneration of ecosystems.
• Social: creating the structures and systems, such as health, education, equity and community, that support human well-being.
• Economic: creating the economic structures and systems that support production and consumption of goods and services to meet human needs into the future.

Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It applies the idea of sustainability to our social and economic development.

Unsustainable use of natural resources, for example removing a resource faster than it can be replaced, can lead to ecosystem collapse.

Common indicators of economic development, such as gross domestic product (GDP), neglect the value of natural systems. A country can record rising GDP while it clears forest or depletes fish stocks, so GDP alone may lead to unsustainable development.

Environmental justice is the right of all people to live in a pollution-free environment and to have equitable access to natural resources, regardless of race, gender, socio-economic status or nationality.

Inequalities in income, race, gender and cultural identity, within and between societies, lead to disparities in access to water, food and energy.

Sustainability and environmental justice can be applied at every operating scale, from the individual to the global.

Sustainability indicators are quantitative measures of biodiversity, pollution, human population, climate change, and material and carbon footprints. They can be applied from the local to the global scale.

• Ecological footprint: the area (in global hectares) needed to supply a population's resources and absorb its wastes. If the footprint is greater than the area or resources available, the population is unsustainable.
• Biocapacity: the capacity of a biologically productive area to generate an ongoing supply of renewable resources and to absorb the resulting wastes.
• Carbon footprint: greenhouse gases produced, measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
• Water footprint: water use, measured in cubic metres per year.

Citizen science involves volunteers who help monitor Earth systems and whether resources are used sustainably. It increases coverage and awareness, but the quality of data can vary.

There are many frameworks and models, each with uses and limitations.

• UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): a set of social and environmental goals and targets to guide action on sustainability and environmental justice.
• Planetary boundaries model: nine processes and systems that regulated the stability and resilience of the Earth system in the Holocene. It identifies limits of human disturbance; crossing the limits increases the risk of abrupt and irreversible changes.
• Doughnut economics: a framework for a regenerative and distributive economy that meets the needs of all people within the means of the planet.
• Circular economy: decouples economic activity from consumption of finite resources. Three principles: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials, regenerate nature.

Limitations: global models are hard to apply locally, thresholds are uncertain, and indicators involve value judgements.