Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Towards Sustainable Development


A major premise motivating the evolution of the Encyclopedia is that economic and other development policies should be based on the principles of sustainability, namely: intergenerational equity, intragenerational equity, precautionary principle (risk aversion strategies) and conservation of biodiversity. 
In this respect, several knowledge resources are essential for an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the sustainable development paradigm. Naturally, scholars from diverse fields of specialization tend to use different nomenclature to characterize this knowledge. However, the following broad framework has received wide acceptance:



Natural Resources or Natural Capital (The Environmental Dimension) 
Economic Resources or Built Capital (The Economic Dimension) 

Social Resources or Social Capital (The Social Dimension) 

Institutional Resources or Institutional Capital (The Institutional Dimension )


The complex interactions among the various subsystems are shown in Figures 1(a) and 1(b). Figure 1(a) shows the various fundamental dimensions of the sustainable development paradigm, which relies on a wide spectrum of disciplines. Figure 1(b) suggests what has to be sustained by human policies aimed at better quality of life.

Read more: http://www.eolss.net/Eolss-Inspiration.aspx

No comments:

Post a Comment