This collection of in-depth case studies emphasizes the diversity and inventiveness of local initiatives since the Rio 'Earth Summit' within different national settings. From the Earth Summit to Local Agenda 21offers a realistic counterpoint to the official monitoring and assessment procedures of national governments and international bodies. It highlights the problems of assessment and policy evaluation and clearly sets out the policy stages necessary for more effective realization of Local Agenda 21 objectives.

Photovoltaics, the direct conversion of sunlight to electricity, is now the fastest growing technology for electricity generation. Present "first generation" products use the same silicon wafers as in microelectronics. "Second generation" thin-films, now entering the market, have the potential to greatly improve the economics by eliminating material costs. Martin Green, one of the worlds foremost photovoltaic researchers, argues in this book that "second generation" photovoltaics will eventually reach its own material cost constraints, engendering a "third generation" of high performance thin-films. The book explores, self-consistently, the energy conversion potential of advanced approaches for improving photovoltaic performance and outlines possible implementation paths.

Three topics dominate discussions of the global environment: pollution; the consequences of the affluent running ever faster through finite resources; and the growing tensions between rich and poor as a third of humanity continues to live and die in desperate poverty. In this exceptional book Barbara Ward (co-author with Rene Dubos of the bestselling Only One Earth) refused to see these processes as inevitable. It describes new technologies for recycling waste, for energy, for ?getting more or less?, linking them to ordinary people's working lives. It also suggests a strategy for meeting the basic needs of the disadvantaged, and shows how the vast inequalities between countries can be reduced. This perceptive survey of policies outlines a planetary bargain between the world's nations that would guarantee individual freedom from poverty and keep our shared biosphere in good working order. Originally published in 1988

We have poisoned the air and water on which our lives depend. Poor countries exhaust their land in the struggle to survive while rich countries demand more and more. The Earthscan Action Handbook spells out why things have gone so terribly wrong and what each of us can do to clean up the mess. Each chapter deals with one of the major problems people and the planet now face: meeting the human needs of health, education and social justice as well as the environmental needs of our dying lakes and forests, polluted seas, threatened habitats and endangered species. Packed with suggestions for positive action, this book also gives details of who to contact, what to read and where to go if you want to do more. Whether you care about buying safe food or feeding the world, The Earthscan Action Handbook is indispensable. Originally published in 1990

How do ''types'' of aid differ? Why are there different kinds? When is one more appropriate than another? How can you tell ''good'' aid from ''bad''?Friends of the Earth commissioned Teresa Hayter, author of Aid as Imperialism and Aid: Rhetoric and Reality, to examine Britain's aid policy and practice, paying particular attention to its effects on the worlds forests. In this book she describes the history of the different forms of aid and their effects. On behalf of one of the West's most effective environmental lobbies, Exploited Earth show how and why British aid needs to change.Originally published in 1989

'This Yearbook clearly fills many gaps and provides reliable and well-researched information' Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (UNEP) 'The key updates on conventions and organizations are complemented by a series of proactive essays by leading environmentalists on the cutting-edge issues. This edition is an important source book in advance of the World Summit for Sustainable Development 2002' Nigel Cross, Executive Director, International Institute for Environment and Development (UNEP) The essential reference to all the rapidly multiplying international agreements on environment and development issues. This ninth annual edition of the Yearbook demonstrates the international community's position on specific environment and development problems, the main obstacles to effective international solutions, and how to overcome them. It assesses both the achievements and shortcomings of co-operation, distinguishing between the rhetoric and the reality of environment world politics. Contents * Current Issues and Key Themes * Agreements on Environment and Development Systematically listed key data and illustrations concerning the most important international agreements presented on the basis of information from the organizations in question and other sources, covering such matters as: objectives ? scope ? time and place of establishment ? status of participation ? affiliated instruments and organizations ? major activities ? secretariat ? finance ? rules and standards ? monitoring and implementation ? decision-making bodies ? key publications ? Internet sources. This edition includes the new Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity. * Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs), including UN specialized agencies objectives ? type of organization ? membership ? date of establishment ? secretariat ? activities ? decision-making bodies ? finance ? key publications ? Internet sources. * International Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) * objectives ? type of organization ? membership ? date of establishment ? secretariat ? activities ? budget ? key publications ? Internet sources. * Country Profiles Summaries of the performance and main commitments of all OECD countries in addition to Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Russian Federation, South Africa, and Thailand. Originally published in 2001

Much of the world's tropical timber is still supplied from natural forest, but under current systems of management the forests are rapidly becoming exhausted. Unless management practices change to become genuinely sustainable, neither the forests nor the essential contribution of the timber industry to many economies will survive. Duncan Poore reviews the extent to which natural forests are already being sustainably managed for timber production, and looks at how these practices can be enlarged. He places management for timber in the wider context of tropical forest conservation and outlines a strategy for further action. Thoroughly researched and accessibly written, this book will be useful for everyone working or interested in the subject of tropical forests. Foreword by Dato Dr B.C.Y. Freezailah Originally published in 1989

Winner of the Prix Pierre Chauleur of the French Academie des Sciences d'Outre-Mer Until some way is found of dealing with Africa's catastrophic environmental crises none of the continent's other problems will find a long-term solution. Yet there is hope, and Crisis and Opportunity sets out a programme for dealing with the problems successfully. Written in a clear and engaging style, the book shows how environmental management can be achieved and institutionalized from within Africa, rather than through interference from the West, by implementing National Environmental Action Plans (NEAPS). Aware of the urgency of the problems, Francois Falloux and Lee Talbot offer practical guidelines based on direct experience and incorporate a great range of relevant case studies and examples. Their book will be of enormous importance to the governments, local communities and development agencies confronting the issues, and may mark a milestone if recovery in Africa is to take place. Francois Falloux is Senior Environmental Advisor, Africa Region at the World Bank. Dr Lee M Talbot is a former Director-General of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Originally published in 1993

Together, these 18 volumes provide unparalleled coverage of the development of international environmental governance from the 1980's to today. In the last two decades, environmental threats and the challenge of sustainability have moved to the very centre of political, business and, increasingly, personal agendas. The Earthscan Library Collection has been created to bring back into print the seminal texts in sustainability from the past 25 years. The Collection offers a unique opportunity to gain broad, archival coverage of all aspects of sustainability. It allows the individual as well as institutional purchaser the ability to acquire volumes by many of the most well-respected thinkers and authors across the subject.

Hiroshi Komiyama's "Vision 2050" is a plan for paving a road to global sustainability. It lays out a path to a sustainable future for humanity that could realistically be achieved by 2050 through the application of science and technology. A prominent Japanese academic and leader in global sustainability, Komiyama draws upon realistic assumptions and solid scientific concepts to create a vision that makes the living standards enjoyed by developed countries today possible for all people by 2050. "Vision 2050" is built upon three fundamental principles - increased energy efficiency, recycling, and development of renewable energy sources - and the book argues for the technological potential of all three. Specifically, Komiyama envisions a three-fold increase in overall energy efficiency and a doubling of renewable energy resources by 2050. "Vision 2050: Roadmap for a Sustainable Earth" is written to address the concerned citizen as well as to inspire an exchange of ideas among experts, policy makers, industrial leaders, and the general public.

Sustainable Resource Management is the result of years of exhaustive research by Germany's Wuppertal Institute. Looking at material flows, industrial and societal metabolism and their implications for the economy, this important new book provides radical perspectives on how the global economy should use natural resources in intelligent ways that maximise well-being without destroying life-supporting ecosystems. It presents a vision of the future and the fundamental elements necessary for the sustainable management of the Earth's resources. It argues that the need to manage the use of our natural resources at a sustainable level can be shaped into a great opportunity for innovation and for new institutions to govern change.Sustainable Resource Management first provides an overview of the methods it has used to analyse the physical basis of our economies, from the product and firm level through to sectors and whole countries, considering material flows and life-cycle-wide impacts on the environment. Indicators are described that reflect the volume, structure and physical growth of the socio-industrial metabolism, resource productivity and the share of domestic and foreign resource use. By accounting for the global land use of different countries and regions, the book aims to better assess the global implications of domestic activities. For example, linkages are made between the consumption of food and non-food to land use change, such as the expansion of cropland at the expense of natural ecosystems.Sustainable Resource Management presents a number of key findings. Comparing the resource use of the EU with the USA, Japan and China, it determines why there is a difference. It provides evidence about the decoupling of resource use from economic growth, at the expense of an increased reliance on foreign supply. There are two closely analysed case studies, on platinum group metals (PGM) and biofuels, which provide insights into the key drivers of resource use and related problem shifting. Another key finding is that only a limited number of sectors, both on the production and consumption side, are actually associated with major resource requirements and atmospheric emissions - so synergies between resource conservation and climate protection can be found. Evidence is also given of a possible link between a low level of resource productivity and a high risk of unemployment.Sustainable Resource Management also looks into the future and provides visions of sustainable resource use, including the necessary conditions for a sustainable metabolism in the EU. Four example-rich visions are laid out approaching the future from different angles: the resource-efficient and recycling-based industry, the steady-stocks society, the solarised technosphere, and the balanced bio-economy. Each examines key conditions for a low-risk and high-opportunity future, while accounting for likely trade-offs between dematerialisation and rematerialisation, between renewable energy sources and non-renewable materials, between construction and deconstruction of buildings and infrastructures, and between domestic production and the import of biomass products.Finally, Sustainable Resource Management provides a blueprint for how a more sustainable future may be achieved. It analyses the legitimacy of public policies for sustainable resource management, looks at market deficits and barriers, and considers the global nature of the challenge. Crucially, it lays down the key elements of a strategy roadmap: First, better information, dissemination and knowledge generation. Second, innovative market policies to encourage new business models. Third, industry-specific policies - particularly where current resource use patterns are significant and a huge demand for adaptation and system innovation exist, such as in automotive or metal production. Last but not least, an international convention on sustainable resource management is proposed.This significant new book will be essential reading for researchers, EU and national governmental officials; and business and NGOs with an interest in concepts, strategies and instruments to improve resource productivity and sustainable resource management from the regional and sectoral levels to the international level.

Tourism Development and the Environment: Beyond Sustainability? challenges the sustainable tourism development paradigm that has come to dominate both theoretical and practical approaches to tourism development over the last two decades. It extends the sustainable tourism debate beyond the arguably managerialist 'blueprint' and destination-focused approach that continues to characterise even the most recent 'sustainability' agenda within tourism development. Reviewing the evolution of the sustainable tourism development concept, its contemporary manifestations in academic literature and policy developments and processes, the author compares its limitations to prevailing political-economic, socio-cultural and environmental contexts. He then proposes alternative approaches to tourism development which, nevertheless, retain environmental sustainability as a prerequisite of tourism development. This book also acts as an introduction to the Earthscan series Tourism, Environment and Development. About the series: 'Tourism, Environment and Development' aims to explore, within a variety of contexts, the developmental role of tourism as it relates explicitly to its environmental consequences. Each book will review critically and challenge 'traditional' perspectives on (sustainable) tourism development, exploring new approaches that reflect contemporary economic, socio-cultural and political contexts.

This book presents revealing case studies on carbon footprint calculation and mitigation in various industrial sectors. There are numerous sectors whose carbon footprints need to be calculated, and effective ways to mitigate the greenhouse-gas emissions from these sectors need to be found. Using representative case studies, this book highlights the carbon footprint of national power generation systems, crude glycerol production plants and the Brazilian highway network system, as well as the integration of renewable energy sources in expansion planning, so as to promote and implement power system decarbonization.

What has prompted the shift toward sustainability in numerous financial areas? Can investors mindsets be changed to embrace a long-term view? Can shareholders and activists play a greater role in encouraging financial actors to behave more responsibly? These are some of the relevant topics that are explored in this forward-looking set of essays.

The way in which energy is governed in China is driving its rising level of carbon dioxide emissions. This book analyses the nature of energy governance in China by combining ideas relating to transition management with institutionalist theories, which helps to identify factors which assist or constrain the country's path to a low-carbon economy.

This book uses the metaphor "The economy is society's metabolism" as a springboard to develop a rigorous theoretical framework for a better system of national accounts which goes "Beyond GDP" and is relevant to the age of resource depletion. Society is entering a new era in which biophysical limits related to natural resource extraction rates and the biosphere's waste assimilation capacity are becoming binding constraints on mature economies. Unfortunately, the data needed for policy-makers to understand and manage economic growth in this new era are not universally available. All stakeholders need a new way to understand our economy in the context of the biosphere's ability to provide essential natural capital, and we suggest that detailed information about materials, energy, embodied energy, and energy intensity should be routinely gathered, analyzed, and disseminated from a centralized location to provide markets and policymakers with a more comprehensive understanding of the biophysical economy. However, a firm theoretical foundation is needed before proceeding along this new path, which this book is intended to provide. After arguing that the stock of manufactured capital is an important driver of material and energy demands imposed upon the biosphere, a new accounting framework is derived from the laws of thermodynamics to reflect the fact that material and embodied energy accumulate within the capital stock of economic sectors. This framework extends the Energy Input-Output (EI-O) techniques first developed by Bullard, Herendeen, and others to estimate energy intensity of economic products. Implications from the new framework are discussed, including the value of economic metrics for policy-making, the need for physically-based rather than product-based EI-O formulations, a re-assessment of the concept of economic "growth," and an evaluation of recycling, reuse, and dematerialization. The framework also provides an opportunity to assess an array of definitions for Daly's "steady-state economy" in relation to the ideal of a sustainable economy. The book ends with a list of steps to be taken in creating a more comprehensive system of national accounts: National accounting agencies worldwide should develop and maintain balance sheets of both natural and manufactured capital in addition to national income statements All stocks and inter-sector flows should be provided in physical as well as financial units In the US, the Bureau for Economic Analysis (BEA) should restart detailed Capital, Labor, Energy, Material, and Services (KLEMS) reporting National accounting agencies should routinely estimate the energy intensity of economic products, and all of the above should be estimated and disseminated on an annual basis.

Environmental sustainability issues in a fragile, semi-arid region and its coastal area, which experience climate changes from extreme drought conditions to the effects of hurricanes over a period of weeks to years, provide specific challenges for the ecosystems and the populations existing within the region. The research presented focuses on the problems and some solutions specific to the South Texas-Mexico border region, on both sides of the Rio Grande, focusing on water and air pollution. "

In 2005, The United Nations launched its Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, which recognises that education, including Higher Education is the key to the change in social attitudes that will be needed to protect the welfare of future generations. This involves helping learners to live as though the future matters and to achieve ecoliteracy. This includes the understanding that personal lifestyle decisions may have consequences, ranging from climate change, through loss of biodiversity, to pollution and resource depletion that may permit environmental degradation on a planetary scale. It also involves helping them to develop the skills needed to cope with such challenges. This international collection of research papers and position statements from special issues of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education and Applied Environmental Education and Communication, written by many of the leading practitioners in the field, aims to provide resources and practical guidance for all seeking to promote and engage in education for a sustainable future. Rabindranath Tagore encouraged each learner to make their actions demonstrate a harmonious union between education and environment. David Orr argued that the world needs people who live well in their places to make the world both habitable and humane and that the main challenge for education is to help learners make their minds fit for life on Earth. This book tries to chart a practical route towards these objectives. This book was previously published as special issues of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education and Applied Environmental Education and Communication

This book presents selected papers from the 8th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Agriculture, Food and Environment (HAICTA 2017) which examine sustainable rural development in the context of environmental, economic, and the socio-cultural dimension. This book raises awareness of the importance of sustainable management in agriculture using examples of actual industry cases, sustainable management practices, new forms of rural cooperation and entrepreneurship.

This book discusses capital separation processes of industrial interest and explores the potential for substantial improvement offered by a promising class of substances: ionic liquids. These low melting point salts, with their unique characteristics, have been gaining relevance in the field of separation through a variety of approaches. The chapters are structured from an application perspective, and cover the utilisation of ionic liquids in different unit operation contexts (distillation, liquid-liquid extraction, and solid-liquid extraction), giving an idea of their remarkable versatility. The final chapters focus on the use of ionic liquids in analytical applications based on separation procedures. This volume combines the review of the main advances to date with the analysis of the potential future use of ionic liquids in separation processes across a variety of fields, ranging from enhancement of state-of-the-art technologies to a revolution in the technological bases currently in use. It provides a valuable resource for engineers and scientists working in the field of separation, as well as for all readers generally interested in ionic liquids, in particular from an application standpoint. Hector Rodriguez is a faculty member of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

This book targets the issue of water scarcity in Egypt as a typical example of the world water crisis. Today, the available water resource is facing its limit because of rapid increase in water demand as a result of population growth and changes in peoples' life-style. The basic idea to solve the problem of water scarcity is that the irrigation sector, the biggest user of water, should increase water use efficiency. However, the real problem is how this can be achieved in view of the crucial need for water in this sector. This book addresses this challenge through case studies from the Nile delta in Egypt. The water problem in the Nile delta, the major source for water in Egypt, is discussed in this book from all its various aspects. This book covers the situation before and after the advent of the Aswan High Dam, so that the reader understands the entire development. Another special feature are the extensive and scientific descriptions of contemporary topics in water and agriculture, especially from the viewpoint of water saving and sustainability. These descriptions are based on field experiments and surveys in a six-year international research project. Topics of this book are local, but their implications are global.

Around the turn of the millennium it had become painfully evident that development aid, charity or "global business-as-usual" were not going to be the mechanisms to alleviate global poverty. Today, there is little dispute that poverty remains the most pressing global problem calling for innovative solutions. One recent strategy is the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) concept developed by Prahalad and Hart, which relies on entrepreneurial activity tapping into the previously ignored markets of the economically most disadvantaged. It is a process requiring innovations in several disciplines: technological, social and business.This book covers a number of areas. First, much of the current BoP discussion emphasises targeting products to the needs of the poor. But do we actually know what the real needs of the poor are? This book takes a bottom-up human-centred approach and examines examples that truly engage the poor in BoP product and service development. What types of needs assessment methodologies are indicated considering the cultural differences in BoP countries? Are the existing methodologies adequate? Do they need to be redefined and redeveloped? Second, the book considers how we can balance poverty alleviation and stimulate economic growth without stressing the ecosystem. Tragically, the poor are hardest hit by the adverse effects of environmental deterioration such as water shortages, climate change or the destruction of habitats. While the economic welfare of the poor is critical, the BoP approach must balance its inherent paradox of encouraging greater consumption while avoiding further pressures on environmental sustainability. The link between the BoP approach and sustainable development is a key feature of this book. Third, it looks at innovation and asks what kinds of"bottom-up" innovation (open source, technological, social and business) support BoP initiatives (and sustainable development)?Fourth, the book deals with the relationship between development assistance and BoP. Is a BoP strategy the antithesis to development aid or can these two co-exist or even complement each other?Finally, the book raises questions about the relationship between corporate responsibility and BoP. Is BoP a new form of corporate neo-colonialism or a new form of corporate responsibility? Although the BoP concept has unleashed an extensive and generally enthusiastic response from academics, businesses, NGOs and governments, the knowledge domain around this concept is still in the early stages of development. This book addresses that need with a focus on the needs of the end-users - the poor - as a starting point for BoP products and innovations. With contributions from both supporters and critics, it provides a treasure trove of global knowledge on how the concept has developed, what its successes and failures have been and what promise it holds as a long-term strategy for alleviating poverty and tackling global sustainability.