SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT - Criteria, Processes and Applications

Robert B. Gibson and others

• The first book to tackle the complexities of sustainability assessment and provide practical solutions
• Comprehensive analysis, guidance and criteria for impact assessment professionals and policy makers at all levels and in all circumstances
• Applicable to the new EU Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive and other international assessment systems

DESCRIPTION

Many governments express commitments to sustainability, yet until now assessing sustainability in projects, plans, programmes and policies has been largely limited to traditional environmental assessment (EA) with an imperfect attempt to staple on biophysical and socio-economic considerations. While traditional EA focuses on mitigating negative effects, achieving true sustainability demands that each new undertaking make a positive contribution to desirable and durable futures. This onerous goal can only be achieved if decision makers are able to consciously and publicly specify and use sustainability-centred criteria to justify options and to weigh trade-offs.

Sustainability Assessment covers all aspects of the core requirements of sustainability including the creation of basic criteria, handling trade-offs, practicalities in application, implications for process design and uses in decision-making, as well as examining the range of tools and innovative examples available to assist implementation of sustainability assessment.

CONTENTS

Preface: Matchmaking (Environmental Assessment and Sustainability) · Beginnings: Stumbling Towards Sustainability Assessment · Assessment: Thirty-some Years of Environmental Assessment · Sustainability: The Essentials of the Concept · Practice: Sustainability in Illustrative Initiatives · Criteria: Sustainability Requirements as Core Criteria for Evaluations and Decisions · Trade-offs: Facing Conflict and Compromise · Processes: Designing and Using Sustainability Assessment Processes · Implementation: Sustainability Assessment Applications and Implications · Continuations: What May Lie Ahead · Bibliography, Index

MARKETING

Reviews in impact assessment, environmental management and sustainability journals

Marketed to impact assessment professionals, policy makers, planners, academics and students including those in relevant associations such as IAIA, IEMA, etc

1-84407-051-4 | Paperback | £22.95
1-84407-050-6 | Hardback | £80.00
234x156mm | 240 pages | Oct 2005

Figures, Tables, Index, Textbook

TERRITORY: World (Pb02/Hb04)

SUBJECT CATEGORY: Planning / Human Geography / Sustainability

READERSHIP: Professionals, policy makers, planners, academics and upper level students in impact assessment, sustainability, planning, environmental law, environmental management, resource management and geography

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Robert B. Gibson is Professor of Environment and Resource Studies at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada and editorial board chair of Alternatives Journal: Canadian Environmental Ideas and Action