Theories and Practices of Sustainable Development
Code
73224101
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Geografia e Planeamento Regional
Credits
5
Weekly hours
2
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
Students are expected to acquire:
- a clear understanding of issues raised by the sustainability challenge;
- the capacity to discuss the limits and potential of different approaches to sustainability (e.g.
strong versus weak sustainability; efficiency versus resilience);
- an understanding of trade offs, complementarities and synergies among diverse dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental and social) in general and in applied cases;
- a capacity to discuss alternative decision-making criteria that are applied in a sustainability context;
- a clear awareness of institutional challenges to the implementation of sustainable
development as an organizing principle of public-policy, corporate, territorial or consumer decision-making, as well as the available methods to deal with these challenges.
Prerequisites
None
Subject matter
1. What is sustainable development? Scale and sustainability of an economy. Institutions,
public policies and ecological footprint. Development as freedom. The dilemma of growth.
2. Approaches to sustainability. Efficiency and sustainability. Substitution of artificial capital
for natural capital. Decoupling and its myths.
3. Dimensions of sustainability: economic, environmental and social. Trade offs and
complementarity among dimensions.
4. Decision-making criteria for sustainability. Market failure, public intervention and decisionmaking
methods: impact, cost-benefit and multi-criteria analyses. Risk and uncertainty.
5. Ecosystems and human wellbeing. Sustainability and ecosystem services. Production, valuation and value-capture of ecosystem services.
6. Integrating sustainable development (SD) in public and private policies. The long-term governance of SD and its integration in sectorial policies, physical-planning, corporate and consumer decisions.
Bibliography
Arrow, K.; B. Bolin; R. Costanza, P. Dasgupta; C. Folke; C. Holling; B.-O. Jansson; S.
Levin; K.-G. Maler; C. Perrings, e D. Pimentel 1995. Economic Growth, Carrying Capacity, and the Environment, Sience, Vol. 268, pp. 520-21.
Daly, Herman 1992. Allocation, distribution and scale: towards an economics that is efficient, just and sustainable. Ecological Economics, Vol. 6, pp. 185-193.
Hanley, Nick and Eduard Barbier 2009. Pricing Nature. CostBenefit Analysis and Environmental Policy. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham, UK.
Jackson, Tim 2009. Prosperity without growth? The transition to a sustainable economy.
London: Sustainable Development Commission.
Pezzey, J. e M. A. Toman 2002. The Economics of Sustainability: A Review of
Journal Articles, Resources for the Future Discussion Paper 02-03. Washington: Resources for
the Future. Sen, Amartya 1999. Development as Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Teaching method
The different issues in the syllabus are discussed based on recommended readings and two
case-studies included in topic 5: (1) sown, bio-diverse permanent pastures, and (2) management of forest ecosystems at the landscape scale by multiple owners.
Within the first case, students carry out a group work that covers diverse issues included in topics 1 to 5 of the syllabus. They are asked to: (a) analyse an incentive programme to promote ecosystem services, (b) integrate this analysis in the conceptual framework of sustainable development and (c) propose research lines to fill knowledge gaps that are assessed as relevant to improve the sustainability of the programme.
This work is presented and discussed in a seminar that takes place in the last class. After the discussion, each group is invited to improve its presentation and transforming it into a paper.
Students are evaluated based on the quality of the final paper as well as the quality of their participation in the discussion.
Evaluation method
Students are evaluated based on the quality of the final paper as well as the quality of their participation in the discussion.