Abstract
The current concerns over climate change and global warming has created a new vocabulary and brought about a whole new emphasis on a broad set of issues collectively referred to as sustainability. This rather novel concept is now well established within the scientific community principally advocating a global and ecological perspective focused on the survivability of Gaia and its ability to sustain life as a going concern. In this paper, we explore the rationale and a structured framework for a broader perspective on sustainability as applicable to products, processes, systems and undertakings including the global and natural systems. In this new paradigm, sustainability is an emergent behavioural and structural attribute with many facets including a social dimension. This brings a value judgement on the softer aspects of the framework that by necessity embodies a suite of hard and soft factors. The sustainability framework thus developed is intended as a systems paradigm for elaboration, representation, communication, validation, evaluation, assessment and overall assurance of this fundamental facet of our modern endeavours that is proving an indispensable aspect of human survival on earth.The proposed systemic sustainability framework comprises social, economic, technological, resource as well as environmental dimensions. Each element of this framework is in turn developed into more detailed set of influencing factors which are conducive to attainment of that particular aspect ultimately intended to enable characterisation, evaluation, benchmarking and assessment of each facet of sustainability in a product, process, system, system of systems or undertaking/project. In this spirit, we develop and propose the framework as a unifying strategic paradigm that embodies many engineering, commercial, societal and environmental performance requirements from reliability, safety and security to bio diversity and social inclusion. It is through evaluation, assessment and qualification/benchmarking of the key facets to sustainability that products, systems and undertakings can be objectively compared and contrasted for their specific and overall sustainability qualities. This would pave the way for risk/reward based informed decision making, better customer choices and more effective regulation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
CENELEC, European Standard EN50129 Railway Applications – Communications, Signalling and Processing Systems – Safety Related Electronic Systems for Signalling (February 2003)
Conceptual Framework Working Group of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. In: Ecosystems and Human Well-being, ch. 5. Island Press, London (2003) ISBN 155634030
ECUK Engineering Council UK, Guidance on Sustainability for the Engineering Profession (May 2009), http://www.engc.org.uk/sustainability
Frankwood: Introduction to Accounting. Prentice Hall, UK (2000)
Girardet, H.: The Gaia Atlas of Cities, New Directions for Sustainable Urban Living. Gaia Books (1992) ISBN 1856750655
Jahankhani, H., Fernando, S.Z., Nkhoma, M.: Information Systems Security: Cases Of Network Administrator Threats. The International Journal of Information Security and Privacy 1(3), 13–25 (2007)
Hessami, A.G.: Safety Assurance, A Systems Paradigm. Hazard Prevention- Journal of System Safety Society 35(3), 8–15 (1999)
Hessami, A.G.: Risk, A Missed Opportunity. Risk and Continuity Journal 2, 17–26 (1999)
Hessami, A.G.: A Systems Framework for Safety & Security, The Holistic Paradigm, Systems Engineering. The Journal of the International Council on Systems Engineering 7(2), 99–112 (2004)
Hessami, A.G.: Risk Management a Systems Paradigm, Systems Engineering. The Journal of the International Council on Systems Engineering 2(3), 156–167 (1999)
HMG IA Maturity Model, Version 2. 20 February 09 (2009), http://www.cesg.gov.uk
HMG Security Policy Framework, http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/111428/spf.pdf
Holt, J.: Business Process Modeling, British Computer Society (2005)
Hsu, F.: Managing Programmatic Risk in Strategic Decisions – A Methodology for Programmatic & Strategic Risk Assessment and Management. In: Proc. PSAM9, HK (2008)
Hsu, F.: A Goal-driven Hierachy Process of Metrics-based Decision Assessment for the Lunar Surface Science Scenarios, NASA OSEWG Report (2009)
Hsu, F.: The Triple-triplet Conceptual Framework for Integrated Risk Management. In: Proc. PSAM8, International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management (2006)
Hunter, A., Hessami, A.G.: Formalization of Weighted Factors Analysis, Knowledge-Based Systems (2002)
ISO/IEC15288, System Life Cycle Processes - ISO/IEC (October 2002)
Lovelock, J.: Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2001)
Popper, S., Bankes, S., Callaway, R., DeLaurentis, D.: System-of-Systems Symposium: Report on a Summer Conversation, July 21-22, 2004. Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Arlington (2004)
Maloney, P.: Security Zone: opinions and insights from experienced professionals, Computer Weekly December 16 (2008)
Schwartau, W.: Securing the Enterprise. Technology alone won’t make you safe. Tackle it as a management problem, Network World, 42, January 27 (2005)
United Nations General Assembly, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future. Transmitted to the General Assembly as an Annex to document A/42/427 - Development and International Co-operation: Environment (1987)
Waring, A.: Practical Systems Thinking. International Thomson Business Press (1996) ISBN 0-412-71750-6
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hessami, A.G., Hsu, F., Jahankhani, H. (2009). A Systems Framework for Sustainability. In: Jahankhani, H., Hessami, A.G., Hsu, F. (eds) Global Security, Safety, and Sustainability. ICGS3 2009. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 45. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04062-7_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-04062-7_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-04061-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-04062-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)