A Framework for Sustainability Thinking

This book is an introduction to the many challenges of sustainability. The first half of the book develops a framework for sustainability thinking. The second half considers application areas and personal and corporate responses to sustainability challenges. Basic facts, figures, and information related to sustainability are presented in a way that should convey to readers a sense of scale for the many sustainability challenges we face. Throughout, the end-of-chapter projects and discussion questions focus on tradeoffs among competing goods and the ethical and social implications of decisions related to sustainability. This book was written for a university seminar course on sustainability but could be used in other small-group discussion settings. It is intended to be easy to read but hard to digest.

• List of Figures


• List of Tables


• Preface


• Acknowledgments


• Introduction


• Planetary Boundaries


• Population


• Affluence


• Resource Intensity of Economic Activity


• Impact of Resources


• Households


• Transportation


• Agriculture


• Land Use


• Collective Action


• Individual Action


• Afterword


• Authors' Biographies


• Index