Abstract
This chapter introduces the 5 ‘pillars’ through which to (re-)build a shared sustainable prosperity. The five pillars aim to provide a framework through which policymakers, decision-makers, politicians, community groups and the corporate sphere might begin to consider, map out and plan for just transitions in their domains. The theoretical framing combines socio-technical transitions, social justice and just transitions perspectives; the novelty of our proposed approach here is the further inclusion of resilience perspectives, to account for the shifting relations between sustainability and resilience. Our understanding of sustainability aligns with a ‘strong sustainability’ perspective, whereby ecological limits represent ‘hard’ limits to development, limits which need to be acknowledged and respected.
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Notes
- 1.
A peak of 422.06 ppm was recorded by NOAA for 26 April 2022.
- 2.
The difference between global total GHG emissions from least-cost scenarios that keep global warming to 2 °C, 1.8 °C or 1.5 °C is defined as the Emissions Gap (for 2030) (UNEP, 2020).
- 3.
Even for individual consumers in those highest consuming countries (Quatar recorded 43.6 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions per capita in 2014; The USA recorded 16.50 metric tonnes of CO2 emissions per capita in 2014 according to the Word Bank [World Bank, 2019]), an individual carbon footprint is miniscule in terms of the global 55 billion-ton annual CO2 emissions problem.
- 4.
Bonnedahl et al. (2022, p. 150) suggest that this failure is as a ‘result of structural obstacles and the so-called weak sustainability discourse’.
- 5.
‘The elements of nature that directly and indirectly produce value or benefits to people, including ecosystems, species, freshwater, land, minerals, the air and oceans, as well as natural processes and functions’ (Natural Capital Committee, 2014, p. 5).
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Morrissey, J., Heidkamp, C.P., Garland, M., Krak, L. (2022). Introduction. In: Demanding Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18958-6_1
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