Sustainability and Sustainable Development: An Introduction

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a cohesive and interconnected set of topics to help address the challenge of teaching an introductory course on sustainability. This book introduces students to sustainability structured around the 17 SDGs, providing a global perspective and investigating key challenges to developing a more sustainable future. Features of the book include chapter opening learning objectives, helpful study aids, end-of-chapter questions, a stunning art program, critical perspectives and expert voice boxes, interconnections boxes, key terms and concepts boxes, making progress and solutions boxes, and SDGs and the law boxes.

Format: Hardback
Length: 592 pages
Publication date: 23 February 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

The challenge in teaching an introductory course on sustainability is there are many ways to teach it, and many issues to cover. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals offer a cohesive and interconnected set of topics to help address this problem – indeed, the SDGs are now the guiding framework for planning and implementing sustainability through 2030. They are the focus of international development efforts, and the lingua franca of sustainability as a field of study, the international consensus on "what is sustainability?" As such, the UN SDGs present an ideal framework for an introductory level textbook because taken together, they integrate the "Three Es" – environment, economic development, and equity – that are the core definition of sustainability. This book introduces students to sustainability structured around the 17 UN SDGs. Through a global perspective, with attention given equally to how sustainability challenges the highest income countries of the Global North, as well as to the moderate- and low-income countries of the Global South, Benton-Short synthesizes basic environmental science, policy, and interdisciplinary perspectives while investigating key challenges to developing a more sustainable future through the SDG framework. Readers will easily tackle this complex set of topics through an accessible writing style, comprehensive scholarship, and diverse perspectives. Guided by a lush art program, complete with numerous maps, figures, and photos to enliven the presentation, students will develop a greater understanding of the important trends in sustainability in the twenty-first century. The broad arguments highlighted through numerous case studies and boxes prepare global citizens to grapple with the environmental, social, economic, and political dimensions of sustainability.

Weight: 1075g
Dimension: 256 x 184 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781538135358