Offers a comprehensive overview of the problem solving methods used by sustainability scientists to resolve real-world sustainability problems. The book's content is based on an undergraduate sustainability course taught by the author in the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University.

This book contains a collection of papers presented at a series of meetings organised by the Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT) dealing with sustainability, the environment and ecological issues. The complexity of the modern world presents new challenges to scientists and engineers that requires finding interdisciplinary solutions. Any problem solving carried out in the isolation of a particular field of expertise may give rise to a series of damaging effects which can create new and unintentional environmental and ecological problems. Specialisation, while required in our culture, needs to be kept under control by the understanding of the whole, which leads to the need of relying on interdisciplinary teams. Nowadays this can be easily achieved thanks to the massive advances in information technology which ensure continuous and immediate contact between all partners. This collaboration needs to be effective and to produce results that will lead to a better world. For this to happen, it is necessary that different groups of scientists and engineers acquire the necessary skills to be able to talk to each other. Furthermore, they need to understand the social and economic aspects of a given problem, in addition to the scientific and engineering issues involved. The Wessex Institute of Technology (WIT) has a long and very successful record in organising interdisciplinary conferences. The papers in this book are a reflection of the proceedings of some of those meetings.

The world has witnessed extraordinary economic growth, poverty reduction and increased life expectancy and population since the end of WWII, but it has occurred at the expense of undermining life support systems on Earth and subjecting future generations to the real risk of destabilising the planet. This timely book exposes and explores this colossal environmental cost and the dangerous position the world is now in. Standing up for a Sustainable World is written by and about key individuals who have not only understood the threats to our planet, but also become witness to them and confronted them.

Essays by Mikhail Gorbachev, Wangari Maathai, Leonardo Boff, Jane Goodall, Ruud Lubbers, and other authors on various aspects of the Earth Charter.

In Designed for the Future, author Jared Green asks eighty of today's most innovative architects, urban planners, landscape architects, journalists, artists, and environmental leaders the same question: what gives you the hope that a sustainable future is possible? Their imaginative answers—covering everything from the cooling strategies employed at Cambodia's ancient temple city of Angkor Wat to the use of cutting-edge eco-friendly mushroom board as a replacement for Styrofoam—show the way to our future success on earth and begin a much-needed dialogue about what we can realistically accomplish in the decades ahead. Featuring an international roster of leading design thinkers including: • Biomimicry pioneer Janine Benyus • Curator Barry Bergdoll • Educator and author Alan Berger • Environmentalist and author Lester Brown • Architect Rick Cook • Urban Planner Paul Farmer • Critic Christopher Hume • Architect Bjarke Ingels • Landscape designer Mia Lehrer • Architect Rob Rogers • Critic Inga Saffron • Artist Janet Echelman • Environmentalist Jemma Green

This book gathers and disseminates opinions, viewpoints, studies, forecasts, and practical projects which illustrate the various pathways sustainability research and practice may follow in the future, as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and prepares itself to the possibilities of having to cope with similar crisis, a product of the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) https://www.haw-hamburg.de/en/ftz-nk/programmes/iusdrp.html and the European School of Sustainability Science and Research (ESSSR) https://esssr.eu/. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to severe human suffering, and to substantial damages to economies around the globe, affecting both rich countries and developing ones. The aftermath of the epidemic is also expected to be felt for sometime. This will also include a wide range of impacts in the ways sustainable development is perceived, and how the principles of sustainability are practised. There is now a pressing need to generate new literature on the connections between COVID-19 and sustainability. This is so for two main reasons. Firstly, the world crisis triggered by COVID-19 has severely damaged the world economy, worsening poverty, causing hardships, and endangering livelihoods. Together, these impacts may negatively influence the implementation of sustainable development as a whole, and of the UN Sustainable Development Goals in particular. These potential and expected impacts need to be better understood and quantified, hence providing a support basis for future recovery efforts. Secondly, the shutdown caused by COVID-19 has also been having a severe impact on teaching and research, especially –but not only – on matters related to sustainability. This may also open new opportunities (e.g. less travel, more Internet-based learning), which should be explored further, especially in the case of future pandemics, a scenario which cannot be excluded. The book meets these perceived needs.

The book is written for the reader who wishes to address the issues of sustainability with consideration of the environmental, social, and economic issues.It addresses a broad array of matters and provide a framework that could lead to a sustainable world.