Sustainable Development Is Feasible

Excerpt #1 – Time to Lead

- Author: Mike Burbridge

Achieving sustainable development will mean setting time frames for decision making.
Governments collectively and individually have a fundamentally important role in facilitating
progress towards a sustainable future. Governments need to show leadership – where they
tread society will follow.
I have no doubt that this will continue to be a long, slow, but worthwhile journey. We
need to make sure that individual projects or policies effectively integrate and balance
environmental, social, and economic factors into decision making – it needs to be done
continuously, in each place and in each year.

Excerpt #2 – Cost-Related Advantages of Sustainability

- Author: Maryanne Grieg-Gran

Clean technologies are usually more efficient thus reducing emissions and increasing
productivity. Reducing raw materials use and increasing recycling and recovery can reduce
production costs. These are opportunities for cost savings that may not become apparent even
though the benefits accrue directly to the company, until the company is motivated either by
regulation or concerns to improve sustainability performance to examine ways of addressing
these problems and to invest in the necessary research.

Excerpt #3 – A New Economic Model is Needed

- Author: Supriya Kumar

What is needed is a new economic model that understands that development is not
based only on economic growth, but recognizes the natural limits of our planet.
Natural resources and environmental services should come with a quantifiable, concrete
price tag in order to change perceptions and the way markets function. The goal is to close the
production loop – by using renewable energy inputs and generating no waste outputs. What
would happen if we started to charge for the air or water that companies use?

HISD Social Studies Curriculum 2017 World Geography Studies

 Sustainable Development Is Feasible

Excerpt #4 – The Role of the Government

- Author: Steven Cohen

The role of the government in building a sustainable economy includes:

1. Funding basic science needed for renewable energy and renewable resource
technology.
2. Using the tax system, government purchasing power and other financial tools to steer
private money toward investment in renewable energy and other sustainability
technologies and businesses.
3. Investment in sustainability infrastructure, such as electric vehicle charging stations,
mass transit, and waste management facilities.
4. Regulating land use and other private behaviors to minimize destruction of ecosystems.
5. Working with private organizations as well as state and local government to ensure that
the transition is well-managed in the real world.
6. Transferring sustainability technologies to the developing world.

HISD Social Studies Curriculum 2017 World Geography Studies