Regenerative Sustainable Development of Universities and Cities

Regenerative Sustainable Development of Universities and Cities
Author: Ariane König
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2013-09-30
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1781003645

This timely book explores how universities are establishing living laboratories for sustainable development, and examines the communication networks and knowledge infrastructures that underpin impact both on and beyond the campus.

Regenerative Urban Development, Climate Change and the Common Good

Regenerative Urban Development, Climate Change and the Common Good
Author: Beth Caniglia
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 135136734X

This volume focuses on the theory and practice of the regenerative development paradigm that is rapidly displacing sustainability as the most fertile ground for climate change adaptation research. This book brings together key thinkers in this field to develop a meaningful synthesis between the existing practice of regenerative development and the input of scholars in the social sciences. It begins by providing an expert introduction to the history, principles, and practices of regenerative development before going on to present a thorough theoretical examination by known theorists from disciplines including sociology, geography, and ethics. A section on regenerative development practices illustrates the need to significantly advance our understanding of how urbanization, climate change, and inequality interact at every scale of development work. Finally, the book ends with a serious consideration of the ways in which integrated systems thinking in higher education could result in a curriculum for the next generation of regenerative development professionals. Regenerative Urban Development, Climate Change and the Common Good will be of great interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of regenerative development, climate change, urban planning, and public policy.

Universities as Living Labs for Sustainable Development

Universities as Living Labs for Sustainable Development
Author: Walter Leal Filho
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 852
Release: 2019-04-30
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030156044

This book fills an important gap in the literature, and presents contributions from scientists and researchers working in the field of sustainable development who have engaged in dynamic approaches to implementing sustainability in higher education. It is widely known that universities are key players in terms of the implementation and further development of sustainability, with some having the potential of acting as “living labs” in this rapidly growing field. Yet there are virtually no publications that explore the living labs concept as it relates to sustainability, and in an integrated manner. The aims of this book, which is an outcome of the “4th World Symposium on Sustainable Development at Universities” (WSSD-U-2018), held in Malaysia in 2018, are as follows: i. to document the experiences of universities from all around the world in curriculum innovation, research, activities and practical projects as they relate to sustainable development at the university level; ii. to disseminate information, ideas and experiences acquired in the execution of projects, including successful initiatives and good practice; iii. to introduce and discuss methodological approaches and projects that seek to integrate the topic of sustainable development in the curricula of universities; and iv. to promote the scalability of existing and future models from universities as living labs for sustainable development. The papers are innovative, cross-cutting and many reflect practice-based experiences, some of which may be replicable elsewhere. Also, this book, prepared by the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) and the World Sustainable Development Research and Transfer Centre (WSD-RTC), reinforces the role played by universities as living labs for sustainable development.

Making the Sustainable University

Making the Sustainable University
Author: Katie Leone
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2021-05-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9813344776

This book documents strategies for universities engaging sustainability challenges through the education of global citizens on topics such as climate change, habitat alteration, species loss, resource depletion and contamination, food access and sovereignty, economic equity, and energy use. Different disciplines and operational units often have disparate ideas in mind when they work toward advancing sustainability. For example, some disciplines focus on environmental challenges (identifying impacts to ecosystems, mitigation and remediation strategies), some on greening of industrial and commercial practices while others address social equity—often there is little effort to connect these pieces especially while considering economic impacts. This book examines how Florida Gulf Coast University has attempted to infuse sustainability across curricula and operations as an integrated concept and our successes and shortcomings are instructional for sustainability practitioners on college campuses and other industries in a wide audience.

Urban Planet

Urban Planet
Author: Thomas Elmqvist
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2018-04-26
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1108186963

Global urbanization promises better services, stronger economies, and more connections; it also carries risks and unforeseeable consequences. To deepen our understanding of this complex process and its importance for global sustainability, we need to build interdisciplinary knowledge around a systems approach. Urban Planet takes an integrative look at our urban environment, bringing together scholars from a diverse range of disciplines: from sociology and political science to evolutionary biology, geography, economics and engineering. It includes the perspectives of often neglected voices: architects, journalists, artists and activists. The book provides a much needed cross-scale perspective, connecting challenges and solutions on a local scale with drivers and policy frameworks on a regional and global scale. The authors argue that to overcome the major challenges we are facing, we must embark on a large-scale reinvention of how we live together, grounded in inclusiveness and sustainability. This title is also available Open Access.

Integrative Approaches to Sustainable Development at University Level

Integrative Approaches to Sustainable Development at University Level
Author: Walter Leal Filho
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 720
Release: 2014-10-09
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319106902

This book documents and compares the experiences of a wide range of universities across the five continents with regard to sustainable development, making it of special interest to sustainability researchers and practitioners. By showcasing how integrative approaches to sustainable development at the university level can be successfully employed to bridge the gaps between disciplines, the book provides a timely contribution to the literature on sustainability and offers a valuable resource for all those interested in sustainability in a higher education context.

Deeper City

Deeper City
Author: Joe Ravetz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 529
Release: 2020-05-19
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 131765871X

Deeper City is the first major application of new thinking on ‘deeper complexity’, applied to grand challenges such as runaway urbanization, climate change and rising inequality. The author provides a new framework for the collective intelligence – the capacity for learning and synergy – in many-layered cities, technologies, economies, ecologies and political systems. The key is in synergistic mapping and design, which can move beyond smart ‘winner-takes-all’ competition, towards wiser human systems of cooperation where ‘winners-are-all’. Forty distinct pathways ‘from smart to wise’ are mapped in Deeper City and presented for strategic action, ranging from local neighbourhoods to global finance. As an atlas of the future, and resource library of pathway mappings, this book expands on the author’s previous work, City-Region 2020. From a decade of development and testing, Deeper City combines visual thinking with a narrative style and practical guidance. This book will be indispensable for those seeking a sustainable future – students, politicians, planners, systems designers, activists, engineers and researchers. A new postscript looks at how these methods can work with respect to the 2020 pandemic, and asks, ‘How can we turn crisis towards transformation?'

Creating Regenerative Cities

Creating Regenerative Cities
Author: Herbert Girardet
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2014-09-19
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317654102

Large, modern cities have effectively declared their independence from nature. But while they take up only three percent of the world’s land surface, their ecological footprints actually cover the entire globe. Humanity is building an urban future, yet urban resource use is threatening the future of humanity and the natural world. To meet the aspirations of city people in both developing and developed countries, bold new initiatives are needed. Modern cities are an astonishing human achievement. As centres of innovation they are humanity’s cultural playgrounds. Their communication and transport systems have developed a global reach. They are attractive to investors because they can offer a vast variety of services at comparatively low per-capita costs. But are they viable as ecological systems? The planning of new cities, as well as the retrofit of existing cities, needs to undergo a profound paradigm shift. Mere 'sustainable development' is not enough. To be compatible with natural systems, cities need to move away from linear systems of resource use and learn to operate as closed-loop, circular systems. To ensure their long-term future, they need to develop an environmentally enhancing, restorative relationship between themselves and the natural systems on which they still depend. Creating Regenerative Cities is a concise, solution-oriented manual for creating regenerative urbanisation. A wide range of technical, management and policy solutions already exist, but implementation has been too slow and too little, in large part because the kinds of holistic approaches needed are still unfamiliar to fragmented and process-driven urban policy making and governance. Herbert Girardet's 30 years’ experience as an ecologist, thinker, film maker and consultant working around the world has created this unique combination of tried and tested best practices and policies, which outlines the fundamental shifts needed in the way we think about our cities.

Co-producing Knowledge for Sustainable Cities

Co-producing Knowledge for Sustainable Cities
Author: Merritt Polk
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2015-01-09
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317604571

At the current time, many issues and problems within sustainable urban development are managed within traditional disciplinary and organizational structures. However, problems such as, climate change, resource constraints, poverty and social tensions all exceed current compartmentalization of policy-making, administration and knowledge production. This book provides a better understanding of how researchers and practitioners together can co-produce knowledge to better contribute to solving the complex challenges of reaching sustainable urban futures. It is written for academic and professional audiences working with urban planning and sustainable cities around the world. Co-producing Knowledge is presented, by way of introduction, as a non-linear, collaborative approach to knowledge production which combines interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, cross sector and policy approaches to societal problem solving. Examples are taken from Cape Town, Gothenburg, Kisumu, Manchester, Melbourne and a selection of cities in Southeast Asia. Each city chapter discusses the drivers and motivations behind knowledge co-production and gives concrete examples of activities and approaches that have been used to promote sustainable urban futures. Each chapter is written to promote mutual learning from the approaches that are already in use. Building upon these city cases, the conclusions outline an international practice and research agenda aimed at strengthening the promotion and implementation of the knowledge co-production for sustainability across diverse urban development contexts. This book provides an overview of the diverse driving forces behind co-production, and their specific contexts and constraints in a variety of cosmopolitan urban contexts. Some of these include institutional and cross-sector barriers to co-production, the need for learning across diverse levels and contexts, and strategies for balancing scientific excellence with the needs of societal change. This book offers valuable lessons regarding the concrete implications and potential impact that co-production processes can have for different user groups, such as planners, politicians, researchers, business interests and NGOs in different urban development contexts.

Urban Sustainability Transitions

Urban Sustainability Transitions
Author: Niki Frantzeskaki
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 428
Release: 2017-06-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351855956

The world’s population is currently undergoing a significant transition towards urbanisation, with the UN expecting that 70% of people globally will live in cities by 2050. Urbanisation has multiple political, cultural, environmental and economic dimensions that profoundly influence social development and innovation. This fundamental long-term transformation will involve the realignment of urban society’s technologies and infrastructures, culture and lifestyles, as well as governance and institutional frameworks. Such structural systemic realignments can be referred to as urban sustainability transitions: fundamental and structural changes in urban systems through which persistent societal challenges are addressed, such as shifts towards urban farming, renewable decentralised energy systems, and social economies. This book provides new insights into how sustainability transitions unfold in different types of cities across the world and explores possible strategies for governing urban transitions, emphasising the co-evolution of material and institutional transformations in socio-technical and socio-ecological systems. With case studies of mega-cities such as Seoul, Tokyo, New York and Adelaide, medium-sized cities such as Copenhagen, Cape Town and Portland, and nonmetropolitan cities such as Freiburg, Ghent and Brighton, the book provides an opportunity to reflect upon the comparability and transferability of theoretical/conceptual constructs and governance approaches across geographical contexts. Urban Sustainability Transitions is key reading for students and scholars working in Environmental Sciences, Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Policy and Planning.