Describe the concept of environmental space Do you think you

Describe the concept of “environmental space”? Do you think you are using more or less than your fair share of such space?

Solution

The environmental space “implies equal rights to resource consumption for all peoples of the world within the carrying capacity of the planet”. It is the sustainable rate at which we can use key resources that make up 90% of the resources upon which our civilization depends (e.g. fossil fuels, water, timber, steel, aluminum, cement, foodstuffs and land) without precipitating irreversible damage to our ecosystems, or depriving future generations of access to these resources. In other words it is that sustainable consumption space between the minimum resource use needed to ensure a basic quality of life and human dignity (the dignity floor), and the maximum use of the Earth’s resources without living beyond nature’s capacity and depleting ecological stocks (the profligacy ceiling).

This tool is like a similar tool, the ecological footprint only it does not aggregate resources into a single land area based index like the footprint does, rather it considers each separate resource mentioned above.

One could say that the social and economic aspects of environmental space are that it is about the third sustainability condition: equitable and just distribution of environmental resources.

However, as Buhrs (2004:433) argues, and I agree: “although the ecological and resource dimensions are essential for any operationalization of sustainability, there is also a social dimension that is much harder to define, quantify and operationalize.”

He continues by arguing that indices with a social or well-being focus, such as the Human Development Index, the Genuine Progress Indicator or the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, while useful, are difficult to translate “into more or less specific goals or targets, alongside those for [environmental] resources and sinks” (433). This is I think, a challenge, but it is also a tremendous opportunity. I think a research agenda could be built around characterizing, designing and operationalizing a composite sustainability space or community space entitlement with specific goals and targets, which attempts to define a floor and ceiling to not only environmental resources and sinks as in the idea of environmental space, but to the essential social and economic entitlements too.

Clearly, these issues of fair shares, per capita resource allocation, sustainable consumption and sustainability space or community space are of pivotal importance to a just sustainability. Let me think more about what this might look like. You can help too……….