Concepts in Sustainable Development - An Introduction to the Key Issues

Overview

Get an introduction to the key issues in sustainability.

In this Concepts in Sustainable Development - An Introduction to the Key Issues course from the University of Leicester by FutureLearn you will study the conceptual foundations of sustainable development, and discuss the issues around sustainability as a complex problem.

We’ll look at the flow of energy and materials worldwide; social and political issues; wealth inequality; the impact of geography, history and culture on sustainability today; and the problems of collective action. Finally, we’ll conduct a SWOT analysis, looking at our resilience and prospects in the face of climate change and other global issues in sustainability. We’ll ask: are we doomed?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

• Explain what is meant by a complex system and its relevance to sustainability

• Evaluate the Brundtland definition of sustainable development

• Explain how economy and ecology work together as one system

• Summarise the prospects for a circular economy

• Identify the effects of the agricultural and industrial revolutions

• Identify and discuss the practical and moral issues around inequality

• Evaluate the difficulty in assigning causation in complex systems

• Discuss the implications of past actions for current generations

• Describe what is meant by the term 'tragedy of the commons'

• Explain what is meant by globalisation, and its implication for sustainability

• Discuss the major problems of sustainability and the prospects for solutions

• Discuss the range of views on approaches to development