This book encompasses a broad range of natural resource sectors, with discrete chapters on water, land, forestry, fisheries, mining, petroleum and agriculture. Given this broad range of areas, the focus of the publication is narrowed to provide an overarching holistic perspective that is supportive of a systems-thinking approach. Recognizing that there are many useful publications elsewhere that detail extensively the specific regulatory elements of sound laws in the respective areas, this book offers the specific prism of highlighting approaches that embrace the pillars of sustainable development, i.e. approaches that recognize and are informed by economic, social and environmental considerations and impacts.

The Routledge Handbook of Private Law and Sustainability reflects on how the law can help tackle the current environmental challenges and make our societies more resilient to future crises. Sustainability has been high on the political agenda since the approval of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 and the EU Green Deal in 2019. The Green Agenda aims at making Europe the first climate‐neutral continent by 2050, but humanity persists in an ecological overshoot that puts at risk the survival of species, including that of our own. Drawing together a selection of leading thinkers in the field, this Handbook provides a curated overview of the most recent and relevant discussions for private lawyers related to environmental and sustainability concerns. The authors delve into case study examples from 20 countries in Europe and beyond and discuss a wide range of issues, including new property law and consumer law paradigms, the use of legal tech for promoting sustainable property management, strategies for fighting planned obsolescence, eco‐design, the servitisation economy, advances on corporate climate litigation and mandated green private sludges. Overall, the volume is designed to empower new generations of legal scholars to take an active role in the transition to a more sustainable future. It will also assist policymakers in producing better policy, through pinpointing the main legal issues that need to be addressed and offering a comparative overview of legal solutions and best practices. Divided into six key parts and overseen by a team of internationally recognised expert editors, this Handbook will be an essential resource for students, scholars, private lawyers and policymakers who wish to have a comprehensive, fundamental overview of how environmental sustainability concerns reflect on private law.

On 21 May 2019, it was officially recognized that we are now living in the Anthropocene, our earth’s latest geological epoch, named for the 'unmistakable imprint of human activities'. This announcement came almost 60 years after the publication of Rachel Carson’s landmark work of environmental writing, Silent Spring, and next year (2022) it will be 50 years since the first UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in June 1972. This book, Our Earth Matters: Pathways to a Better Common Environmental Future, is a special issue of the journal Environmental Policy and Law, which was first published in 1975. It presents 21 invited contributions by outstanding scholars from around the world, which examine existing global regulatory approaches, processes, instruments and institutions for the protection of the global environment. The articles are grouped under four headings: Prognoses, Processes, Problematique and Prospects, and in them the authors have sought to explore answers to the existential environmental crisis. They urge us to ponder our reckless destruction of natural spaces, endangering of plant and animal species, poisoning of the environment, and general disturbance of our essential ecological processes. The primary objective of the book is to raise the awareness of the global audience by inspiring scholars and decision-makers to re-examine current global approaches to environmental issues and explore the future trajectory with new ideas and frameworks for international environmental governance in the 21st century and beyond. The book will be of interest to all those working to secure the sustainable future of the human race on our only abode, planet Earth. Bharat H. Desai is Professor of International Law and Jawaharlal Nehru Chair in International Environmental Law, Centre for International Legal Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Editor-in-Chief of the journal Environmental Policy & Law (Amsterdam: IOS Press) and of the Yearbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford: OUP).

FAO’s major publications series are presented together in a user-friendly catalogue. The catalogue features all of the most active series, both new and long-standing, and is divided into areas of work, including agriculture, forestry, fisheries, trade and investment, among others. Each series entry includes technical specifications, language versions, most recent titles, relevant ISSNs, and QR codes linking to online resources in the FAO Document Repository.

More than a decade has passed since the publication of the series entitled Social Analysis of Agriculture and Rural Investment Projects, which comprises three complementary manuals – the Manager’s, Practitioner’s and Field guides. During this time, conflict, climate change and economic downturns have been driving up poverty, hunger, and socioeconomic inequalities, reducing the resilience of agrifood systems. In response, the FAO Investment Centre has updated the Social Analysis guides to address the evolving and volatile rural transformation context, providing programme managers, practitioners and field workers with a set of enhanced tools for the design, implementation and evaluation of inclusive investments in agrifood systems. Today’s investments must prioritize more demand-driven, people-centred, culturally sensitive and locally owned sustainable approaches, with increased attention to reducing gender and other inequalities. Operationalizing these principles contributes to FAO’s and financing agencies’ objectives of ending poverty, improving food security and nutrition, and reducing inequalities. The goal of the updated guides is to support investments that contribute to inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, aligned with the outcomes of the UN Food Systems Summit, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the core principle of leaving no one behind. This publication is part of the Investment Toolkits series under the FAO Investment Centre's Knowledge for Investment (K4I) series. The contents of this publication have been turned into three e-leaning courses, which are accessible for free through the FAO E-learning Academy.