About the Book
The fully updated second edition of this innovative textbook provides a system analysis approach to sustainability for advanced undergraduate and graduate students. To an extent unparalleled in other textbooks, the latest scientific data and insights are integrated into a broad and deep transdisciplinary framework. Readers are encouraged to explore and engage with sustainability issues through the lenses of a cultural and methodological pluralism which promotes dialogue and alliances in the search for a (more) sustainable future. Ideal for students and their teachers in sustainable development, environmental science and policy, ecology, conservation, natural resources and geopolitics, the book will also appeal to interested citizens, activists, and policymakers, exposing them to the variety of perspectives on sustainability issues. Review questions and exercises provide the opportunity for consolidation and reflection. Online resources include appendices with more advanced mathematical material, model answers, and a wealth of recommended additional sources.
Table of Contents:
Foreword; Preface; List of acronyms and abbreviations; List of units; Part I. Setting the Stage: 1. Sustainable development: a personal and societal aspiration; 2. Sustainable science: context and content; Part II. The State We're In and How We Got There: 3. Early states and civilisations; 4. Industrialisation: the great acceleration; 5. Modernity: the idea of progress; Part III. Engagement through Worldviews: 6. The worldview framework; 7. Worldviews: values, beliefs, ethics; Part IV. Understanding Sustainable Development: 8. Understanding, modelling, managing complexity; 9. Modelling sustainable development; Part V. Sustainability Themes: 10. Concepts, methods and indicators; 11. Population: humans and their habitat; 12. Pillars of development: health, education and mobility; 13. Nature: the life-support system; 14. Renewable resources: fisheries and forests; 15. Land and agro-food systems; 16. Water: the precious resource; 17. Energy: to a carbon-free supply; 18. Materials: towards a circular economy; 19. The economy; Part VI. Closure: 20. Stories about the future; Glossary; References; Index.
About the Author :
Bert J. M. de Vries is co-founder of the Institute for Energy and Environment (IVEM) at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, where he received his Ph.D. on sustainable resource use. Since 1990, he has been a senior scientist at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL, formerly MNP and RIVM). He has been actively involved in Integrated Assessment (IA) and other modelling and scenario construction and shared in the Nobel Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007. From 2003 to 2013, he has been Professor of Global Change and Energy at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. His research expertise and publications are in resource and energy analysis, modelling and policy; climate and global change modelling and complex systems modelling; philosophy and ethics of sustainable development in a worldview framework; and modelling the financial system. He has co-edited several books, including Perspectives on Global Change: The TARGETS Approach (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Review :
'In this new edition, Bert de Vries sets the foundation of sustainability science through systems thinking. This could not be timelier as socio-ecological turbulence increasingly becomes the norm, as predicted in the Club of Rome report. Rooted in the history of civilizations and modernity, embedding ethics and worldview diversity, we are invited to explore how wellbeing, education or nature awareness may build a sustainable future, with pertinent analyses in all sectors, from forest and fisheries to water management, materials or energy. This is a mustread for all Earthlings.' Olivier Hamant, Director of the Michel-Serres Institute
'Technical and accessible are generally seen as dichotomous. De Vries proves the opposite is true with this masterful introduction to the essential building blocks of sustainability science. The book goes well beyond its promise of methodological pluralism by providing mathematical, biophysical, economic, social and cultural lenses to help us understand and respond to the ecological and climate crisis.' Piotr Magnuszewski, Scientific Director, Centre for Systems Solutions, Wrocław
'Sustainability science is the means by which a fractured and unequal world of 8+ billion people can map the systemic challenges of the Anthropocene, to bring together the transformational actions that will help us navigate the twenty-first century. Bert de Vries' seminal text provides us the worldviews, values and methods to chart these transitions to a better, more equal and sustainable world.' Aromar Revi, Director, IIHS Bangalore City Campus
'Stewarding our planet towards a safe and just future requires nothing less than a deep scientific understanding of the functioning of our Earth system, and a truly holistic view of how nature, humanity and the physical world share a common fate. This book propagates this message in a unique way, offering scholars and students a first step towards informed agency.' Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK); Professor of Earth System Science, University of Potsdam; Chief Scientist, Conservation International
'Bert de Vries reveals the secret to making the world sustainable. And no, it's not technology. It is our adoption of alternate worldviews that reflect our values and beliefs, such as individualism, collectivism, consumerism, or frugality. These shape our choices and actions for the planet, and determine whether we help or harm sustainability. This book is essential for anyone who wants to foster sustainability.' Anupam Saraph, Sustainability and Systems Leadership Mentor
'Sustainability science has evolved over decades to address a fundamental challenge: the decline and collapse of socio-ecosystems driven by a political economy too narrowly defined by goals and policies of only one or a few disciplines. Bert de Vries ably succeeds in showing how to expand the range of enquiry to embrace perspectives from many disciplines, as well as from the wider world of enterprise and governance. But he further offers a unique perspective that makes this edition of his text invaluable in showing how to look below the transdisciplinary layer that defines trends, causal mechanisms and policies to see the worldviews and paradigms that generate and sustain them. Using systems science to integrate horizontally across disciplines, and vertically from trends down to mental models, offers the reader the most comprehensive set of analytical tools in the sustainability field. Essential reading.' Jan Sendzimir, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
'Sustainability Science by Bert de Vries presents a truly transdisciplinary and pluralistic approach to understanding human–environment interactions for improving and maintaining human well-being. Guided by worldview frameworks and systems thinking, this book impressively integrates the myriad parts of geography, ecology, philosophy, epistemology, history, culture, ethics and religion into the whole of sustainability. It is remarkably comprehensive, insightful and thought-provoking.' Jianguo (Jingle) Wu, Dean's Distinguished Professor of Sustainability Science, Arizona State University; Editor-in-Chief of Landscape Ecology
