What Next for Sustainable Development?

‘This timely book does an excellent job pulling together what can often appear to be quite disparate interpretations of sustainability and presents a coherent, engaging, and thought-provoking assessment of the legacy and influence of Our Common Future thirty years on from its ground-breaking publication. It should appeal to third level students and sustainability scholars engaged at the intersection of the social sciences with science and engineering. It also deserves to be more widely read, especially by those informing our political leaders and policymakers if they are to truly understand the tensions between sustainable development and sustainability, and meet the challenges facing us with justice and fairness.’
– Breffní Lennon, Eurasian Geography and Economics

‘This book is a masterful round up of 30 years of sustainable development thinking by some of the topic’s most renowned and deep thinkers. The authors expose the progress made in the last 30 years, but also many gaps, flaws and more dangerous trends accompanying our times. Sustainable development now involves more forward and critical ideas, such as de-growth, critiques of fossil capitalism, insistence on equity and redistribution, moving towards ethics of care and eco-social policies focused on satisfying human needs within planetary boundaries. This book thus is a timely summary and renewed introduction to a complex and engaging body of thought, a path forward for the possibility of global human progress in troubled times.’
– Julia Steinberger, University of Leeds, UK

‘The editors have brought together a distinguished international team of social scientists from different disciplines to assess the legacy of the landmark Brundtland report, Our Common Future (1987), along with the present and future prospects for sustainable development in the Anthropocene. The world is at a critical ecological juncture. This book is a must read for anyone seeking to understand how to accelerate the transition to a more equitable development path that can safe-guard both local ecosystems and Earth Systems.’
– Robyn Eckersley, University of Melbourne, Australia

‘Is sustainable development “everything” or “something”? This edited volume makes a very important contribution to the discourse on critically analyzing the content, process and outcomes of sustainable development politics and policies; a discourse very different from the United Nations sponsored program for promoting sustainable development, which has been seriously “stymied” and “diluted” at the international and national levels of implementation.’
– Carlo Aall, Western Norway Research Institute, and Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway

‘So much has been written about sustainable development that it is hard to imagine anything new. Yet here it is. The authors offer fresh insights and new perspectives on all the key issues – from limits and equity to politics and growth – in assessing sustainable development on its thirtieth anniversary.’
– Daniel J. Fiorino, American University, US

‘An overview of the progress made towards sustainable development since the publication of Our Common Future is timely, and a focus on the considerable challenges still to be met that have arisen over the last thirty years is vital. This book achieves both goals and provides a valuable resource for students and researchers.’
– Delyse Springett, co-editor of Routledge International Handbook of Sustainable Development (2015)

Contributors: D. Banister, I. Borowy, S. Dalby, P. Ekins, S. Fuss, G. Gilpin, I. Gough, A. Gupta, E. Holden, S. Klinsky, O. Langhelle, K. Linnerud, E. Lövbrand, J. Meadowcroft, K. O’Brien, F. Rauschmayer, D. Rosenbloom, M. Simonsen, A. Stirling, H.U. Sverdrup, A. Usubiaga

Contents:

Forward

Preface

1. Introduction
James Meadowcroft, David Banister, Erling Holden, Oluf Langhelle, Kristin Linnerud and Geoffrey Gilpin

Part I Setting the Context
2. Our Common Future in Earth Systems perspective
Simon Dalby

3. A normative model of sustainable development: how do countries comply?
Kristin Linnerud, Erling Holden, Geoffrey Gilpin and Morten Simonsen

Part II Negotiating environmental limits
4. The global sustainability challenges in the future: the energy use, materials supply, pollution, climate change and inequality nexus
Harald Ulrik Sverdrup

5. Implications of deep decarbonisation pathways for sustainable development
Sabine Fuss

6. Brundtland+30: the continuing need for an indicator of environmental sustainability
Paul Ekins and Arkaitz Usubiaga

Part III Equity, needs and development
7. Sustainability and redistribution
Iris Borowy

8. Necessities and luxuries: how to combine redistribution with sustainable consumption
Ian Gough

9. Taming equity in multilateral climate politics: A shift from responsibilities to capacities
Sonja Klinsky and Aarti Gupta

Part IV Transitions and transformation
10. The Transition to Sustainability as Interbeing . . . or: from oncology to ontology
Felix Rauschmayer

11. Taking climate change and transformations to sustainability seriously
Karen O’Brien

12. Sustainability and the politics of transformations: from control to care in moving beyond Modernity
Andy Stirling

13. Politics and technology: deploying the state to accelerate socio-technical transitions for sustainability
Oluf Langhelle, James Meadowcroft, and Daniel Rosenbloom

Part V Facing the future
14. Beyond limits: making policy in a climate changed world
Eva Lövbrand

15. A Future for Sustainable Development?
David Banister

16. What Next for Sustainable Development?
David Banister, Erling Holden, Oluf Langhelle, Kristin Linnerud, James Meadowcroft and Geoffrey Gilpin

Index