8.1 Sustainable Development

• Sustainability 


  The long-term maintenance of responsibility, and is environmental economic and social aspects.
• Sustainable developments


  Focus on meeting the needs of the future.

  Still dollars focus on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• Strategies that supports sustainable development

  • Triple bottom line sustainability
  • Decoupling: Disconnecting economic growth and environmental impact
  • Sustainability reporting
  • Product stewardship
• Triple Bottom Line (TBL)


  A framework that incorporates three measures: social, environmental, and financial. It is sometimes referred to as "The 3 P's" (people, planet, profit). 

  TBL has become an important tool for measuring and supporting sustainability goals. 
• Social Impact Measures


  How society and people are impacted.

  • quality of life
  • education level and access
  • social capital
  • equity and access to social resources
  • mental and physical health
• Environmental Impact Measures


  How the environment is impacted.

  • air and water quality
  • energy consumption
  • use, replacement, or protection of natural resources
  • waste generation
• Financial Impact Measures


  How money flows in the system.

  • Income levels
  • expenditures
  • taxes
  • business climate
• Within TBL, there are a three types of measures that can be used to assess sustainability.



  • Social Impact Measures
  • Environmental Impact Measures
  • Financial Impact Measures

  
• Measuring and Calculating TBL


  The two main strategies are:

  • Monetizing the social, environmental and financial components. While this uses a common financial unit, it raises philosophical issues of placing a dollar-value on intangible things.
  • Indexing the value of TBL components. This allows for the comparison of different entities. In addition, indexes can be adjusted or designed for specific use-cases. The different LCA systems use different indexes with different weightings. 
• Use of TBL


  Businesses are interested in TBL because of its influence of sustainability on longterm profitability.

  • resource & energy reduction
  • health & safety of the workers and the environment
  • a direct relationship to cutting costs and increasing profits

  Benefits of partnering with non-profit organizations who have goals aligned with:

  • social equity
  • environmental protection
  • decreasing the wealth gap

  Governments/policy makers use it to assess impacts of decisions and evaluate performance of a project or policy decision.
• Decoupling


  A concept that describes an economy's ability to grow without harming the environment.

  Typically, when an economy grows, it puts more strain on the environment by using up resources like water and fossil fuels. However, if it doesn't harm the environment then it is considered decoupled. 

  This can be measured by looking at the pollutants released into the environment.

  By comparing the amount of pollution produced to the growth of the economy, we can determine the level of decoupling that has been achieved.
• In the chart, we can see three trends:

  • In the "No Decoupling" section, the economic output (green) and resources use (grey) are growing at the same rate.
  • In the "Relative Decoupling" section, we can see that economic output (green) is continuing to increase, and that rate of resource use has decreased - however the rate of resource use is still rising, just at a slower rate.
  • In the "Absolute Decoupling" section, we can see that the two trends are now "decoupled". The economic output continues to grow while the resource use is declining.