Sustainability and Environmental Management Review

Comprehensive flashcards covering key terms and concepts from lecture notes on Sustainable Development, Management, and Digital Technology impacts.

Sustainable Development

Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Earth Overshoot Day

The date when humanity has used up all natural resources that Earth can regenerate in one year; occurring earlier in the year indicates worse sustainability performance.

Ecological Footprint

A measure of how much land and water area humans need to produce resources and absorb waste, including food consumption, energy use, housing, and transport.

Strong Sustainability

A capital view stating that natural capital cannot always be replaced by financial capital because not everything can be bought with money, such as extinct species.

Planetary Boundaries

A scientific framework that defines safe limits for Earth systems; exceeding these limits risks irreversible environmental damage, such as crossing the $1.5\text{ degree}$ tipping point.

SDGs

Sustainable Development Goals ($2015-2030$), a global sustainability framework used by governments and companies containing $17$ goals.

IDGs

Inner Development Goals, a framework focusing on personal and internal growth to support the achievement of global sustainability.

Silent Spring (1962)

A book by Rachel Carson demonstrating that pesticides and herbicides accumulate in food chains and harm animals and humans, often considered the start of the modern environmental movement.

The Limits to Growth (1972)

A study for the Club of Rome using computer simulations to conclude that infinite growth is impossible on a planet with finite resources.

Intragenerational Justice

Fairness among people living today, specifically addressing the gap between rich countries and poor countries.

Intergenerational Justice

Fairness between generations, balancing the needs of people today with the needs of future generations.

Cradle-to-Cradle

A circular economy thinking model where raw materials are used to create products that are eventually reused or manufactured into new products.

Triple Bottom Line (1997)

A term by John Elkington stating that sustainability is based on balancing three dimensions: People (social), Planet (environment), and Profit (economic).

Doughnut Economics (2017)

A new economic thinking model that combines planetary boundaries with the Sustainable Development Goals for worldwide application.

Stakeholder

Anyone who can affect or is affected by a company, including employees, customers, investors, and environmental groups.

Primary Stakeholders

Entities directly connected to company operations without whom the company cannot survive, including employees, customers, and suppliers.

Secondary Stakeholders

Entities that have indirect influence and though the company can survive without them, they still influence it, such as NGOs, media, and competitors.

Brent Spar Case

A famous stakeholder management case where Shell was legally allowed to sink an oil platform but changed plans due to pressure from Greenpeace and the public.

Corporate Sustainability Management (CSM)

The focused management of strategy, goals, KPIs, processes, and structures to implement sustainability within a corporation.

Environmental Management System (EMS)

A formal system including procedures for understanding environmental aspects, setting objectives and targets, and reviewing performance, such as ISO 14001 or EMAS.

PDCA Cycle

The Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle used in EMS to define objectives, implement programs, monitor performance, and correct problems.

High Level Structure (HLS)

A common structure used for ISO management standards (e.g., ISO 14001, ISO 45001, ISO 50001) to make the integration of different systems easier.

Socially Responsible Investment (SRI)

Investing for financial returns while simultaneously considering environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.

ESG

Acronym for Environmental, Social, and Governance factors used by investors to evaluate companies alongside financial performance.

Double Materiality

A reporting principle looking at both how sustainability issues affect the business and how the business affects people and the planet.

CSRD

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, an EU law requiring many companies to disclose sustainability information according to ESRS standards.

Stewardship

An investor approach where they stay invested in a company and influence change through dialogue, voting rights, and shareholder proposals.

Eco-Efficiency

The logistics principle of 'doing more with less,' focusing on reducing fuel use, distances, emissions, and waste.

Eco-Effectiveness

The logistics principle of using better technologies and systems that protect the environment, such as electric vehicles and alternative fuels.

Just-In-Time (JIT)

A logistics strategy with low inventory levels and storage costs, but potentially higher transport emissions due to more frequent deliveries.

Sufficiency

A strategy to reduce overall demand for transport and products, leading to fewer shipments and shorter distances.

Cleaner Production

Continuous application of environmental strategies to increase efficiency, reduce resource consumption, and prevent pollution at the source.

Industrial Symbiosis

A strategy where companies exchange resources, energy, and by-products so that one company's waste becomes another's resource, exemplified by Kalundborg Park.

4R Framework

A hierarchy for circular production consisting of four levels: Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, and Remanufacture.

Upcycling

A form of recycling where material is reused and its quality or value increases, such as turning old wood into designer furniture.

Industry 4.0

The fourth industrial revolution combining cyber-physical systems, IoT, AI, and cloud computing for intelligent, connected production.

Smart Factory

A highly digitalized manufacturing environment where machines, products, and systems communicate and make decisions using real-time data.

Digital Twin

A virtual model of a physical object or process used for simulation and optimization within a digital support system.

Green Nudging

Using behavioral economic concepts to influence people toward sustainable decisions (e.g., green defaults or eco-labels) without restricting their freedom of choice.

Greenwashing

Communication that misleads stakeholders into overly positive beliefs about a brand's environmental performance, often through selective disclosure or decoupling.

Decoupling (Greenwashing)

The gap between what a company says in its policies symbolically and what it actually does in its core operations.

Anti-Consumption Marketing

A sustainability strategy that encourages consumers to reduce unnecessary consumption and extend product life, exemplified by Patagonia's 'Don't Buy This Jacket' campaign.

Product-Service System (PSS)

A model that extends product life by shifting from selling physical products to providing utility through maintenance, repair, and reuse.

Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM)

The strategic integration of environmental, social, and economic goals into the entire supply chain to improve long-term performance.

Rana Plaza

A tragic factory collapse that highlighted the lack of transparency, accountability, and safety in global cost-driven supply chains.

Sustainable Supplier Management

A process consisting of four continuous steps: Commit, Evaluate, Control, and Develop suppliers to reduce sustainability risks.

Decommoditization

A strategy for sustainable products that emphasizes long-term contracts, above-market (fair) pricing, and supplier development over low price alone.

E-Waste

Discarded electrical or electronic equipment, including smartphones, tablets, and batteries; less than $20\,\%$ is properly recycled worldwide.

PUE

Power Usage Effectiveness, a metric for data center efficiency calculated as $\frac{\text{Total facility energy}}{\text{IT energy}}$, where the ideal is $1.0$.

WUE

Water Usage Effectiveness, a metric for data centers calculated as $\frac{\text{Litres of water}}{\text{IT energy (kWh)}}$.

CUE

Carbon Usage Effectiveness, a metric for data centers calculated as $\frac{kg\,CO_2}{\text{IT energy (kWh)}}$.

Jevons Paradox

An economic observation where efficiency gains lower the cost per unit, causing demand to rise so much that total energy use still increases.

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA)

A tool evaluating the sustainability impacts of digital technologies across their life cycle via E-LCA (environmental), S-LCA (social), and LCC (economic costs).