ABC of sustainable development

Sustainable development is a field of thought, learning, research and endeavour, which has entrenched itself in the 21st century. This book is certainly very very far from being the be-all and end-all of knowledge about sustainability and sustainable development, as readers will appreciate. This modest effort is something which I hope provides some food for thought…and then hopefully, purposeful action. This book is about 90 pages long, is split up into 9 chapters, and dwells on the different aspects of sustainable development and the challenges associated with integrating these so that development is truly and holistically sustainable… Chapters begin with Learning Objectives which at once tells the reader what to expect from it, and some Exercises at the end, which one may wish to attempt, en route.

As Prof Genon Giuseppe from Turin, Italy, in the Foreword to the book, says, ‘This book is useful to university curricula, aimed at grooming professionals capable of considering all the aspects of sustainable development and of course, can very well be integrated into a host of academic disciplines, as the author has pointed out in one of the chapters.’

As Dr Håvard Bergsdal from Trondheim, Norway, says, in his review comments, ‘The book makes for good reading and serves as a useful summary for readers who are new to the topic of sustainability.’

Content

1. The beginning...
   1. Space, time and just about everything
   2. Exercise I
2. The economic aspect – Money makes the mare go round
   1. Trifurcating the economy
   2. Life-cycle costing
   3. Good for goose, good for gander
   4. Exercise II
3. The social aspect – People first?
   1. Health is wealth?
   2. Education is an investment
   3. Cannot please God and Mammon both?
   4. Happiness not ready-made, stems from one’s own actions
   5. Social LCA – counterpart of LCC
   6. The socio-economic realm
   7. Exercise III
4. The planet ‘P’ – environment
   1. The nexus again
   2. Measuring environmental sustainability
   3. E-LCA in a nutshell
   4. Mix of ‘adverse’ and ‘positive’ indicators possible
   5. Exercise IV
5. Good governance – the lubricant
   1. Exercise V
6. Integration is key
   1. The methodological integration - weighting and aggregation
   2. The philosophical ‘integration’
   3. Exercise VI
7. Sustainable development as a single measure: Case study of some developing Asian countries
   1. Abstract:
   2. Introduction and literature review
   3. Methodology
   4. Results and discussions
   5. Conclusions and recommendations
   6. Acknowledgements
   7. Appendices
   8. References
   9. Exercise VII
8. En passant – some other sustainability analyses
   1. The biogas study
   2. The water treatment paper
   3. Dynamic Metabolism Model
   4. Last word…more papers
   5. Exercise VIII
9. Epilogue
10. Endnotes