Sustainability Science

Bert J. M. de Vries is co-founder of the Institute for Energy and Environment (IVEM) at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, where he received his Ph.D. on sustainable resource use. Since 1990, he has been a senior scientist at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL, formerly MNP and RIVM). He has been actively involved in Integrated Assessment (IA) and other modelling and scenario construction and shared in the Nobel Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007. From 2003 to 2013, he has been Professor of Global Change and Energy at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. His research expertise and publications are in resource and energy analysis, modelling and policy; climate and global change modelling and complex systems modelling; philosophy and ethics of sustainable development in a worldview framework; and modelling the financial system. He has co-edited several books, including Perspectives on Global Change: The TARGETS Approach (Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Foreword; Preface; List of acronyms and abbreviations; List of units; Part I. Setting the Stage: 1. Sustainable development: a personal and societal aspiration; 2. Sustainable science: context and content; Part II. The State We're In and How We Got There: 3. Early states and civilisations; 4. Industrialisation: the great acceleration; 5. Modernity: the idea of progress; Part III. Engagement through Worldviews: 6. The worldview framework; 7. Worldviews: values, beliefs, ethics; Part IV. Understanding Sustainable Development: 8. Understanding, modelling, managing complexity; 9. Modelling sustainable development; Part V. Sustainability Themes: 10. Concepts, methods and indicators; 11. Population: humans and their habitat; 12. Pillars of development: health, education and mobility; 13. Nature: the life-support system; 14. Renewable resources: fisheries and forests; 15. Land and agro-food systems; 16. Water: the precious resource; 17. Energy: to a carbon-free supply; 18. Materials: towards a circular economy; 19. The economy; Part VI. Closure: 20. Stories about the future; Glossary; References; Index.