Sustainability37
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Driving Sustainability in China
In China, measuring sustainability is in a preliminary but progressive stage, and the government is playing a leading role in driving Chinese companies to go green. Behind the encouraging numbers, however, lie some less attractive facts.
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Employing a Knowledge Systems Approach to Creating a Sustainable Future
Jeffrey Potent discusses his upcoming course, the importance of understanding systems, and employing a knowledge systems approach to creating a sustainable future.
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Keeping our Freshwater Fresh: Ecosystem Management Tools
We have been harming our hard-earned water resources; is it too late to clean up our act? With the help of the nine principles of ecology we can work towards effectively and sustainably managing these ecosystems, which will help us preserve the quality of New York’s freshwater resources and maintain our high quality drinking water.
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Hundreds of Ways to Measure Sustainability
Private companies and organizations in the public and non-profit sectors have begun to embrace the idea of sustainability: How to operate in ways that reduce consumption of water, energy and other resources, and help keep from depleting the planet’s natural resources. But how do we measure progress? Reliable metrics are needed – to understand what…
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Map Your Food
Where does London get its fruit? Where are the “food swamps” in Los Angeles? Where do tomatoes from Spain wind up? Where are the composters in New York City? For lovers of geography, and of the sociology of food, “Food: an atlas” offers lots of informative and curious distraction.
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The Beginning of Peace?
The hard truth is that we know very little about sustaining peace. This is because for decades we have studied the pathologies of war, violence, aggression and conflict – and peace in the context of those processes – but few have studied peace directly.
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Sustainability Ethics and Metrics
Today’s increasing emphasis on metrics in sustainability policy and management presents an interesting challenge for ethics. When ethics are discussed, probably one of the last things to come to mind is measuring them, particularly in numeric terms.
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The Rebuild by Design Challenge
When Hurricane Sandy hit last October, the vulnerabilities of the New York/New Jersey region to extreme weather were made all too clear. The Rebuild by Design challenge was launched to find the most innovative ways to make the region more resilient and sustainable.
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How We Put Our Spreadsheets Where Our Stomachs Are
Right off the bat, we were faced with the difficult question of what “sustainable” actually means. Students were well-versed in the triple bottom line of sustainability – economic, environmental and social. Then one of the students, a hefty young man on Columbia’s wrestling team, spoke up in defense of his right to make a decision…
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