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Key Definitions

• Sustainable development / Environmental sustainability

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

• Consumption

  • The level of use a society makes of the resources available to it

• Ecological footprint

  • A figure, expressed in GLOBAL hectares (land area), that calculates the amount of land needed to provide a person or society with the resources needed to live, and to absorb waste

• Water security

  • The capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable water quality for sustaining wellbeing, livelihoods and development

• Water footprint

  • The amount of fresh water utilized in the production or supply of the goods and services used by a particular person or group

• Food security

  • When all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life

• Energy security

  • When all people, at all times, enjoy the uninterrupted availability of the energy they require to meet their needs, and at an affordable price

• Relative poverty

  • When a person's income is too low to maintain the average standard of living in a particular society

• Biocapacity

  • The productive area that can regenerate what people demand from nature

• Carrying capacity

  • The maximum number of people an area of land can support

• Optimum population

  • The number of people which, when working with all the

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    • Industrialisation increases, with more workers switching from farming to manufacturing

      • May facilitate large scale rural-to-urban migration

    • Growth concentrated in a few industries and regions and in one or two industries

    • Airports, roads, highways, political and social infrastructure built

      • New political and social institutions evolve to support industrialisation

    • Diverse growth + technical innovation

    • Self sustaining - economic development spreads to all parts

    • Complex transport system

    • Increase in the number and types of industries

    • Rapid urbanisation

    • Manufacturing expands as early industries decline

    • Expansion of the tertiary industry

    • More durable consumer goods produced

    Criticism of the model

    • Too simple - Growth may not necessarily be homogenous continuum

      • Assumes all countries follow the same route of development - reductionist

    • The western capitalist model may not be the only path to economic progress

      • Rostow developed the model in 1960 based on 15 (mostly) European countries

    • Does not look at variation within a country

    • Traditional society is not a prerequisite qualification for development

      • Countries like the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were not “traditional�� when their economies were born

    • Precondition phase is not necessary before the take-off

    • Stages tend to overlap

      • Countries like New Zealand and Denmark experienced take-off as a result of agricultural development. In these cases, the different stages postulated by Rostow are not distinct

      • Or chronological order is not maintained, some countries such as Australia attained high mass consumption before maturity

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    • Ecological footprint Definition: a figure, expressed in GLOBAL

      Page 11: Domestic consumption by area of the world

      • Water footprint

        • Definition: the amount of fresh water utilized in the production or supply of goods and services

        • Used by a particular person or group

      • What determines how much water we use?

        • Poorer countries used more water for agriculture

          • Agriculture's share of total water withdrawals tends to decrease at higher incomes

          • At lower incomes, forms a higher share of total GDP

      Page 12: Food → Nutrition transition

      • A change in the diet from staple carbohydrates towards meat and fish products, dairy products, and more processed products

      • Stage 1 - Hunter-gatherers

      • Stage 2 - agricultural intensive labour

      • Stage 3 - industrialization of agricultural processes - more supply

      • Stage 4 - 'western' style diets with processed food, sugar, fat, meat, and dairy

      • Stage 5 - awareness of healthier lifestyle and food choices (eg. pescatarian, reducetarian, vegetarian, vegan)

        • From 1960 to 1991, there has been an increase in global land use for agriculture

        • Past that, the numbers gradually start to decline

      Page 13: Factors affecting factors and processes

      • Urbanization

        • Easier to travel to buy food - sphere of influence of food stores increases + specialized food / greater variety

        • More shops can open

          • Easier to buy food → convenience

        • Increased trade between countries

        • Increased income → can buy more food

        • Lifestyle changes → people become more sedentary

      • Rise of supermarkets

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        • Mexican children are overweight because violent streets mean that it is unsafe to exercise outside; they are driven everywhere

        • Schemes to solve obesity in Mexico have not been particularly successful

          • Once Mexican children have been in a weight loss programme for a while, they are later put back into an environment where unhealthy eating is promoted

        • Coke had a distribution programme in Mexico, that was responsible for many children gaining significant weight

          • This was because soda was more readily available than water, which was polluted due to natural disasters

          • Soda has been widely advertised, leading to increased consumption

        • Local TV channels refused to screen a TV advert about soda tax

        • This campaign was supported by radio channels → the government finally implemented the tax, but it has been criticised for not being high enough because it has not significantly reduced obesity

        • Processed food responsible for obesity around the world → high in calories

          • Many health ministries in middle-income countries are looking to reduce reliance on processed food

        • There is a social cost to high levels of ill health- many lost economic benefits

          • Especially for countries with socialised healthcare

        • Countries like Brazil and China are giving subsidies to farmers to cultivate healthy food for schools

        • With high levels of urbanisation in the world, there is a large push for farmers to create crops that allow them to profit, and not healthy crops

        • In the previous decade (2014), childhood obesity in the US had gone down by 43%, showing that rising obesity rates are reversible

        • There should be health warnings on certain types of foods, such as those on smoking packets

          • On TV and internet

        • More focus should be put on undernutrition and obesity

          • Obesity is a silent epidemic, and consequences are only seen many years later

        • Obesity is the cause of many other

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          • How much oil do we have left?

            • Crude oil - non-renewable

            • Almost all of the world’s oil is located in vast reservoirs

              • Whether the oil can be extracted is proven or unproven

                • Proven: 90% chance of oil being extracted. Also certain that the oil is available

                • Unproven: believe that the oil is there but uncertain about how to extract

            • Can last a century and a half- However, oil usage is rapidly increasing

              • 80% of the world’s oil comes from the 12 members of OPEC - Concentrated in West Asia and the Middle East

                • 1.5 trillion barrels of oil are still available according to OPEC

              • 20% of the world’s oil is located in Venezuela (almost 300 billion barrels)

              • 265 billion barrels (Saudi Arabia)

              • 173 billion (Canada)- Of all 285 billion barrels held outside OPEC, more than 60% is in Canada

            • The world uses 34 billion barrels of oil a year

              • China is expected to account for half that usage within the next 5 years

            • British projection- Only 53 years of oil left

              • How much oil is left is a question. Estimates vary and are constantly changing. Peak oil extraction

            • The United States had been the largest oil producers for 100 years- Eventually reached a peak

            • Peak in production curve- Hubbert’s peak

              • There will eventually be a shortage as production continues to increase

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              • The largest increase in renewable energy is in South America, from around 15% to around 25%.

              • In Europe and Africa, there has been little to no change in renewable energy since 1965.

              • In Asia, there has been an increase in renewable energy from around 3-4% in 1965 to around 7%.

              Possibilities - the future of energy:

              • Obtaining energy is one of the biggest challenges faced today.

                • 80% of global energy consumption comes from oil, coal, and natural gas, which produce greenhouse gases.

                • Fossil fuels will still need to be used in the next few decades to meet energy demand.

              • To respond to global warming, there needs to be a switch to low-carbon energy sources or a decrease in energy consumption globally.

                • Wind power has developed significantly in certain countries in the last 25 years.

                  • It has become cheaper, more reliable, efficient, and affordable due to technological advancements.

                • Building wind farms offshore is a good way to increase wind energy usage, but it is expensive.

                  • If it becomes cheaper, more wind energy can be harnessed.

                • Electricity only accounts for ⅓ of total energy consumption.

                  • Transport and home heating are other uses that need to generate electricity cleanly and reduce CO2 emissions.

                • Wind power only accounts for 1% of all global electricity consumption, but there is a possibility for growth.

                • Carbon capture and sequestration can address the carbon dioxide emissions from burning coal, but there is a risk of leakage.

                  • More demonstrations are needed to understand the practical challenges of engineering involved in CCS.

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              • Fossil fuels are likely to be part of the main energy system for many decades to come.

              • CCS could have a major role in reducing

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                • Lack of water needed for steam generation or cooling in thermal or nuclear power plants

                • Lack of water may lead to decline in biofuel production

                  • Biofuel: any fuel derived from biomass

                • Consequences of climate change on the nexus

                  • Changes to rainfall

                    • Decreased rainfall:

                      • Lower crop yields due to drought

                      • Decreased food supply

                      • Negative impact on tidal energy

                      • Increased water prices

                        • Reduced water security

                        • Inequality in access to water

                    • Increased rainfall:

                      • Less solar energy

                      • Opportunities for tidal energy

                      • More fertile soil in some areas

                        • Increased food production

                      • Fuller reservoirs

                        • Increased water supply

                      • Floods:

                        • Low lying countries, e.g. Bangladesh

                          • Potential to destroy croplands

                  • Changes to temperature

                    • Increased in temperature:

                      • Longer summers

                        • Can lead to increased food production, e.g. vineyards in the UK

                          • E.g. Siberia: Less cold, more favourable for crop growth

                    • More droughts in tropical/ equatorial locations due to increase temperature

                      • Famine, water bodies drying up

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                        • The Story of Electronics:

                          • "Designed for the dump" is a key strategy for companies to earn money.

                            • Making stuff to be thrown away quickly.

                            • Today's electronics are hard to upgrade, easy to break, and hard to repair.

                          • Moore's Law: Every 18 months, there will be big developments in processor speed.

                            • Companies use this theory to sell more products.

                            • Encourages consumers to buy a new gadget every 18 months.

                          • Workers involved in the making of electronics experience health risks as the devices are packed with toxic chemicals, such as mercury and lead.

                            • Workers making computer chips experience 40% more miscarriages.

                            • Workers are significantly more likely to die from blood, brain, and kidney cancer.

                          • E-waste exported to MICs/LICs like China and India.

                            • Workers break open electronics to recover valuable metals.

                            • The rest is incinerated because it is deemed useless, contributing to air pollution as the burning releases GHG.

                          • 25 million tonnes of e-waste generated every year.

                          • Ethical issue: Companies most responsible for this e-waste externalize the true costs of production.

                            • Externalized costs: costs generated by producers, but carried by society as a whole.

                            • Companies profit and workers are significantly disadvantaged.

                          • Possible solution: Extended producer responsibility, making companies responsible for the waste they generate.

                          • What we as consumers can do to reduce e-waste exports:

                            • Choose greener products (more sustainable consumption).

                            • Cut down on electronic consumption (minimizing waste according to the waste hierarchy).

                            • Demand stronger laws on toxic chemicals and banning e-waste exports.

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                          What happens to e-waste in Singapore

                          • A 2017 global report estimates that the world generated 44.7 million tonnes of e-waste in 2016 equal in weight to almost 9 Great Pyramids of Giza.

                          • About 60,000 tonnes of e-waste are generated a year. This is equivalent to the weight of 220 Airbus A380 airplanes.

                          • About 11kg of e-waste equal in weight to 73 mobile phones is discarded by each person a year.

                          • Types of e-waste (by weight):

                            • Audio/video equipment: 1%

                            • Mobile phones: 1%

                            • Printers: 1%

                            • Computers: 2%

                            • Air conditioners: 4%

                            • Washing machines: 4%

                            • Others: 10%

                            • TV (LCD/LED): 22%

                            • Refrigerators: 27%

                          • An NEA survey found that 60% of consumers said they don't know or are unsure of how to recycle their e-waste.

                          • E-waste is normally:

                            • Traded-in/ re-sold: 6%

                            • Passed to deliverymen: 35%

                            • Donated: 9%

                            • Thrown away: 24%

                          • Channeling e-waste to reputable e-waste recyclers will benefit the environment and the public, as this:

                            • Keeps valuable resources out of the waste stream

                            • Conserves our planet's finite resources

                            • Ensures harmful substances are not released into the environment

                            • Grows our green economy and local employment opportunities

                            • Helps fight climate change

                            • Reduces strain on Singapore's waste disposal facilities and frees up land for better quality of life for residents

                          • Source: National Environment Agency Straits Times Graphics

                            Page 39: Interactions between countries: waste and flows Case study: China’s crackdown on ‘foreign garbage’

                            • July 2017: China notified WTO of its decision to ban imports of 24 types of scrap, which its environment minister called “foreign garbage”

                              • China is the world’s largest importer and recycler of scrap materials

                              • Prompted outrage from US-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries and Bureau of International recycling

                              • Warned that China’s actions could result in job losses, close down many US recycling facilities and send more waste to landfills

                              • Led to a buildup of rubbish at recycling plants around the UK

                                • UK had previously been relying on exporting plastic recycling to China for 20 years

                                • British companies alone shipped more than 2.7m tonnes of plastic waste to China (⅔ of the UK’s total waste plastic exports)

                            • 2012: China received nearly half of all plastic waste that US sent abroad for recycling and about one-third of EU’s plastic waste exports

                              • This is attributable to cheap shipping → cargo ships carry goods from China to Western countries and carry scrap back, a process known as reverse haulage

                              • For US-based waste collectors, selling scrap to China is cheaper than sending it to recycling facilities at home

                            • Some of the materials shipped over to China for recycling end up in a storage facility and not recycled

                            • Much of the plastic scrap sent to China does not end up being recycled, or is recycled under hazardous conditions

                              • 2013: China’s plastic recycling rate was around 22%

                            • 1988: China imported 4-4.5 million tonnes of solid, non recyclable trash

                              • This figure grew to 45 million tonnes in 2018

                            • Other countries which have similar roles to China in waste importation and recycling are Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam

                              • The amount of US plastic waste ending up in countries with poor waste management could be higher than 78%,

                                Page 42: Circular economy: a resource stewardship approach

                                • Definition of circular economy

                                  • Approach to business management and product design

                                  • Maximizes efficiency of resource use

                                  • Aims to phase out waste and pollution

                                • Linear approach vs. cyclical model

                                  • Linear approach: take, make, dispose

                                  • Finite supply of resources, toxic waste

                                  • Cannot work long term

                                  • Cyclical model in the living world

                                  • Can humans adopt a circular economy approach?

                                • Building capital from waste

                                  • Work on packaging: use compostable material

                                  • Find ways to reuse metals and alloys

                                  • Products disassembled and regenerated

                                  • Rethink the way we view ownership

                                • Circular economy as a collective effort

                                  • All companies coming together

                                  • Striving towards this approach

                                Page 43: Circular economy systems diagram

                                • Characteristics of circular economy

                                  • All outputs are reprocessed

                                  • All waste is viewed as a resource

                                  • Reuse may be more efficient than recycling

                                  • Managing food more carefully

                                  • Composting all waste

                                  • Maintaining natural resource stocks

                                  • Performance economy: renting or sharing goods

                                  • Innovation in recycling and reusing

                                Page 44: Problems with waste production

                                • Statistics on waste production

                                  • 300 million tons of plastic thrown away in 2019

                                  • Predicted more plastic than fish in oceans by 2050

                                  • Over 50 million tons of electronic waste in one year

                                  • One-third of all food produced is wasted

                                  • 60% of resources end up as waste or GHG emissions

                                  • Impact of Covid

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                                    • Fairphone

                                      • Goal: To inspire change in the electronics industry

                                      • Use: Fair materials, good working conditions, long lasting design, reuse recycling

                                      • Source tin, tungsten, tantalum from conflict-free sources, integrated Fairtrade gold into the supply chain

                                      • Allows users to use their phone for longer (extended lifespan of 3-5 years)

                                        • Save 30% of CO2 emissions and valuable resources needed to produce smartphones

                                        • Phones are also easier to repair and refurbish, recycle, and dismantle

                                          • Fairphone offers repair tutorials

                                          • Researching the best way to recycle its phones by making them easier to dismantle

                                      • Set up a successful recycling program

                                        • Recovering more than 20 tons of E-waste

                                        • Working with partners to improve local collection efforts in countries struggling with E-waste

                                      • Fairphone’s business model allowed for possible reduction of CO2 emissions by 25%, and reduction of human toxicity by 42%

                                      • Partnerships: Fairphone has been developing innovative business models with Circle Economy, Sustainable Finance lab, etc

                                      • More than 175,000 Fairphones have been produced and sold, nearly 100,000 waste phones have been shipped back from Ghana to extract and reuse the materials within Google

                                      • Attempting to use technology and data to achieve circularity and cut down on waste generation

                                      • Google’s circularity principles:

                                        • Designing out waste and pollution

                                          • Use materials that are more environmentally sustainable

                                          • Applied machine learning to the cooling system in the data centre → reduced the energy used for the data centre by 30% (used AI)

                                        • Keep products and materials in use for as long as possible to exploit maximum value

                                          • Responsibly recycle materials

                                          • Take apart old machinery and use the parts to make new machines

                                        • Promote healthy

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                                          • Circularity in Singapore

                                            • To overcome challenges, adopt a circular economy approach

                                              • Reduce waste sent to landfills

                                              • Requires public participation

                                              • Shift from "buy, use, throw" mentality to reusing resources

                                          • Importance of circularity in Singapore

                                            • Waste reduction

                                            • Drive greater resource productivity

                                            • Deliver a more competitive economy

                                            • Address emerging resource security/scarcity issues

                                            • Reduce environmental impacts of production and consumption

                                          • How Singapore can achieve circularity

                                            • Extended Producer Responsibility (starting in 2021)

                                              • Starting with electronic waste

                                              • Feasibility of EPR to packaging waste being discussed

                                            • Research grant call under "Closing the Waste Loop Initiative"

                                              • Launched in 2017

                                              • Goal is to make plastics more reusable and easier to recycle

                                              • Encourage collaboration between institutes and businesses

                                              • Closing the Waste Loop Initiative

                                          • Resource stewardship and sustainable development

                                            • Sustainable development: Meeting present needs without compromising future generations

                                            • Model of sustainable development

                                              • Economic

                                              • Social

                                              • Environmental

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                                          • Progress across SDGs

                                            • Economic, environmental, and social aspects overlap

                                            • 17 SDGs, 169 targets

                                              • Targets have moved slowly