– Fundamentals of Sustainbablity

– Why Sustainability & Well-Being

– What’s ‘Sustainability’

• ‘Sustainability’ simply explained
• What’s sustainability all about

– What’s sustainable development

– The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

• How the SDGs came about
• Underlying issues of the environment and of society
• What we can do as individuals and communities
• Arguments for and against the SDGs
• “Leaving no one behind”
• SDG #1
• SDG #2 …etc.

– Well-Being

– Human needs

– Agriculture

• How agriculture has evolved
• How to ‘feed the world’
• Intensive crop production
• Meat & dairy production
  • ‘Industrial’ meat & dairy
  • ‘Traditional’ meat & dairy
  • Pastoral
• Agro-ecology
  • Permaculture
• Water use in agriculture
• Energy use in agriculture
• Pollution caused by agriculture
• Underlying issues

– Economics & commerce

• What type of economy?
  • ‘Classical’ (linear) economy
  • ‘Circular’ economy
  • ‘Collaborative’ economy
  • ‘Green’ economy
  • ‘Positive’ economy
• What drives business?
• Marketing
• Measures of progress

– Education

• Why education is important – What’s its purpose?

– Energy

• Energy use & waste (domestic, industrial, agriculture, transport)
• Energy production & distribution
  • Non-renewable
    • fossil
    • nuclear
  • Renewable
    • biomass
    • geothermal
    • hydro (large & small)
    • solar
    • wind

– Food

• Global food supply
• Food waste
• meat & dairy
• nutrition

– Health

• Prevention or cure?
• Different approaches to treatment
• Current health issues
  • mental health
  • anti-biotic resistance
  • ‘new’ diseases
  • pharmaceuticals
  • obesity
  • cholesterol?

– Health (continued)

• Current health issues
  • mental health
  • anti-biotic resistance
  • ‘new’ diseases
  • pharmaceuticals
  • obesity
  • cholesterol?

– Information

• Why access to information is important
• How information is – can be – shared
• How information can be manipulated (‘information is power’)
• Censorship?
• Internet & social media
• Benefits and downsides
  • Nothing’s free…
  • How reliable is what you find on the Internet? Fake news
  • Data theft
  • Energy (and environmental) costs of Internet use and how to reduce them

– Livelihoods and poverty

– Rights

• How human rights came to be recognized
• UN Human Rights instruments
  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
  • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966
  • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966
  • Other covenants related to human rights
• How ‘universal’ are human rights?
• Other instruments and ‘Bills of Rights’
  • The proposed ‘Global Bill of Rights’
• How ‘human rights’ are respected and protected
• How ‘human rights’ are denied and violated
  • Slavery
• Rights…and duties?
• Rights of corporations?
• Rights of nature?
  • Does nature have rights?
  • Ecocide
• The SDGs and Human Right
• Justice
• Housing & physical infrastructure
• Culture; Recreation and tourism
• Dignity; Participation & social relations
• Empathy; Values; Beliefs
• Underlying issues

– Peace and security

• Violence
• Peace building
• Cyber security
• Social protection

– Population & migration

– Climate change / Global warming

• What’s the evidence?
• What’s driving climate change?
  • Greenhouse gases (CO2 and other)
• What are the effects of climate change?
• Who is affected ?
• What’s being done ?
  • Reduction of GHG emissions
  • CO2 sequestration
  • Adaptation to climate change
• The SDGs and climate change
• The UN Convention on Climate Change (UNCC)
• What we, as individuals and communities, can do about climate change
• What businesses do about climate change?

– Biodiversity

• What is biodiversity? Why is it important?
• What are the threats to biodiversity
• The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
• Underlying issues

– Forests

• How forests have been exploited, and have declined
• The importance of forests
• Deforestation – current causes and effects
• What is REDD? Is it good or not?
• What we’re learning about trees
• Underlying issues

– Mountains

• The importance of mountain ecosystems
• Mountain livelihoods under threat

 – Oceans

• The importance of oceans
• Fishing & fish stocks
• Acidification
• Pollution
  • Plastic
  • Chemicals – coastal dead zones
  • Shipping (noise & waste)

– Planetary boundaries

• How the boundaries were defined
• Which boundaries have already been exceeded

– Pollution

• Air
  • Domestic emissions (gases & particulates)
  • Industrial emissions
  • Transport emissions
• Land
  • Domestic waste
  • Industrial waste
  • Agro-chemicals
• Rivers, lakes & groundwater (freshwater)
  • Domestic waste
  • Industrial waste
  • Agro-chemicals
  • River transport
• The costs of pollution
  • Economic costs and who pays
  • Environmental costs

– Wetlands

• The importance of wetlands
• The Ramses Convention

– Accountability

• Personal and political accountability
• Corporate accountability

– Beliefs

– Consumerism / Citizenship

– Inequality

• Inequalities in wealth
  • The extent of wealth inequalities
  • The effects of wealth inequalities
• Inequalities in income
  • The extent of income inequalities
  • The effects of income inequalities
• Rural vs urban
• Gender inequalities

– Justice & governance

Money & Finance…

• Where does money come from?
• How funds are allocated
• Impact investing

– Political decision making

• democracy ?

– Relationship with nature

– Resource use

– What counts (is counted)

• Private profits, public costs…
• Corporate social responsibility
• Natural resource accounting
• Environmental and social …
• Gross domestic product (GDP)
• Measures of happiness
• The human development index
• Other measures of ‘progress’…

– Values & Ethics

• Personal values
• Shared, collective values
• Respect
• Individualism

– Complexity ?