What are the key topics or sub topics available in sustainability or sustainable development?
1) Global collapse of ocean fisheries before 2050
2) Accelerating climate change
3) There will be increasing inequity, tension and social strife
4) Global society will create a better life for most, but not all, primarily through continued economic growth
5) Persistent poverty and hunger amid riches
6) Humanity will avoid “collapse induced by nature” and has rather embarked on a path of “managed decline”
7) Two thirds of world population will be under water stress
8) Urbanization will reach 70% (+2.8 billion people in urban areas, -0.6 billion in rural areas)
9) The number of people going hungry will be reduced by 500 million people, still leaving 250 million with insufficient food
10) Continued lack of understanding of the complex non-linear dynamics of ecosystems
11) Food production peaks around 2040 at a level 60% above today’s current levels, in terms of tonnes of food per year
12) Gross world product keeps growing until the second half of the 21st century, but at an ever decreasing rate
13) Temperatures and sea levels will continue rising, as will the share of renewable energy use
14) Massive human interference with phosphorus and nitrogen cycles well beyond safe thresholds
The Sustainable Development Report 2019 presents the SDG Index and Dashboards for all UN member states and frames the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in terms of six broad transformations as given in attached screen shots.
Please refer to these call for papers
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-cleaner-production/call-for-papers
Start with a literature search of all the articles that cited the Brundtland Report.
Some examples to answer this question:
A. Sustainable development agendas:
1. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8959-2_2
2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.imic.2015.04.001
B. Sustainable Development Goals:
1. https://doi.org/10.1108/DPM-02-2017-0043
2. http://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v4i4.729
3. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/disaster-choice/202007/sustainable-development-goal-18
4. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/disaster-choice/202009/the-sustainable-development-goals-after-five-years
C. Critiques of sustainable development:
1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.08.004
2. http://www.shimajournal.org/issues/v8n2/c.-Baldacchino-&-Kelman-Shima-v8n2-1-21.pdf
3. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12300
4. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2019.1619825
Your question needs a bit of semantic improvement.
Sustainability is the capacity of the people of a community to meet all of their needs using their skills and the resource/ecological functions of the land/air/water that they are stewards of, in perpetuity (or beyond any rational planning horizon).
Sustainable Development is the process of enhancing quality of life within a community using the skills of the population and the resource/ecological functions of the land/air/water that they are stewards of, in perpetuity.
The SDGs are a set of targets that can provide guidance to system managers who are trying to steer the 'ship of state' through some very troubled waters, with the expectation that by attempting to achieve these goals, the development initiatives will tend to be sustainable.
So, to summarize before going farther, Sustainability is a capacity; Sustainable Development is a process; and the SDGs are targets.
The key elements of Sustainability are: community-defined needs, skills of the population, locally available resources/ecological functions, and a distant planning horizon. It can be measured in both absolute and relative terms. SDGs should not be used to establish sustainability, as they are intended to be generic, rather than community specific.
The key elements of Sustainable Development are similar, but rather than using community-defined needs specifically, one can use quality of life (which is hard to establish concretely) and/or the SDG targets. As development proceeds, the targets should be continuously re-evaluated and required course corrections applied.
I'll slip in a comment on the Brundtland Report 'Our Common Future', from 1993, since it was raised above. It provides a description of Sustainable Development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." It is not really a definition, although it is often used that way, because it doesn't address what development is, what needs are, or what compromises future generations. That is discussed in the rest of the book, but that still leaves this statement as a description - an inclusive definition, as it were, with the ability to be interpreted in any number of ways. From a systems design perspective, definitions are far more useful when they are exclusive and the units used can be inferred or are clearly stated.
Dear Umashankar Subramaniam,
The key topics available in the field of sustainable development or sustainable development in accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals include the determinants of the pro-ecological transformation process of the traditional brown economy into a sustainable green economy / circular economy. In terms of these determinants, there are institutional solutions and financing programs for the implementation of the principles of sustainable development, shaping social environmental (ecological) responsibility, environmental education, procedures and factors for the implementation of pro-ecological reforms of implementing eco-innovation to economic processes, including the pro-ecological transformation of the energy sector consisting in the development of renewable sources energy, development of electromobility, improvement of waste segregation and recycling techniques, development of sustainable ecological agriculture, etc. I described the above-mentioned issues of principles and goals of sustainable development in more detail in my publication, which I posted in August 2020 on the Research Gate portal. I invite you to research cooperation.
Best regards, Have a nice day, Stay healthy!
Dariusz Prokopowicz
Influential factors on climatic change
Building sustainability assessment for mitigation of carbon footprint
Environmental footprint of hazardous wastes
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