Harald Heinrichs Pim Martens Gerd Michelsen - Sustainability Science

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Harald Heinrichs 1

Abstract

Three hundred years after defining sustainable development in forestry and 25 years after conceptualizing sustainability as a societal guiding vision and regulative idea, the necessity for further operationalizing and realizing sustainability is greater than ever. The textbook at hand provides a state-of-the-art overview of key areas of sustainable development. Like a mosaic, the chapters compose building blocks, which assemble an encompassing perspective on sustainability science. We hope to contribute with this textbook to the further establishment of sustainability science and to enable the next generation of sustainability experts to get a grip on the challenging and exciting centenary topic of sustainable development.

Keywords

The necessity for sustainable development was first documented in 1713, in the book Sylvicultura Oeconomica by German chief miner Hans Carl von Carlowitz ().

In 2012, 25 years after the Brundtland report and 20 years after the Rio conference, representatives from governments, business leaders, NGO activists, and engaged researchers met again in Rio de Janeiro to take stock and discuss the future of sustainable development. The outcome of this latest sustainability summit was mixed at best. Despite some progress on sustainability issues in government, business, and civil society, the world continues on unsustainable pathways (e.g., United Nations ). Thus, it was of utmost importance that the Rio+20 conference agreed on next steps such as developing global sustainability goals by 2015 or establishing a global sustainability council to accelerate progress toward sustainable development.

Despite the ongoing debate about the form and shape of the Great Transformation toward sustainability (Raskin et al. ). There are now numerous academic journals, conferences, study programs, professorial positions, and so forth devoted to sustainability science. Despite these initiatives, there is still a lack of textbooks providing a broad overview of sustainability science efforts to students specifically. The textbook at hand aims at helping to fill this gap.

The 28 chapters compiled in this textbook address a wide spectrum of topics relevant to sustainable development and sustainability, ranging from justice, science policy, art, and business to mobility, oceans, international development, health, energy systems, and education. We have deliberately abstained from imposing a meta-structure to the book, in order to overcome the limits of disciplinary perspectives on sustainability. Like a mosaic, the individual chapters represent building blocks, which assemble an encompassing perspective on sustainability science. All chapters are written for students and early-career professionals entering the field of sustainability with different interests and backgrounds. All chapters provide introductory level information and indicate further readings. To support a solution-oriented approach to sustainability science, we have asked the authors to cover the specific sustainability challenge (why is this relevant to sustainability science), currently offered solution options to this challenge (what has been achieved), and open issues (what is still needed) of the respective topic.

We hope to contribute with this textbook to the further establishment of sustainability science and to enable the next generation of sustainability experts to get a grip on the challenging and exciting centenary topic of sustainable development.