Lecture 1

Question 1

• Sustainability

Answer 1

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

Question 2

• Carrying capacity

Answer 2

The maximum population that the environment can support indefinitely.

Question 3

• Ecological footprint

Answer 3

The land area required to support a population.

Question 4

• Capital

Answer 4

A stock which can give rise to the transfer of goods and services.

Question 5

• Industrial Ecology

Answer 5

The means by which humanity can deliberately and rationally approach and maintain sustainability.
It is a systems approach to the impact of industry on the environment, and a tool to make evidence based decisions to reduce the T term of the IPAT equation.

Question 6

What are the commons, what aspect of sustainability is embodied by sharing the commons, and what is tragedy of the commons?

Answer 6

Air land and water resources. Equality. When someone exploits the commons for personal gain rather than the best interest of the majority.

Question 7

What are the types of capital?

Answer 7

Manufactured - material goods.
Human - the capacity to work.
Social - the mobilisation of human capital e.g. organisations.
Natural - Resources, ecosystem services.

Question 8

Weak Sustainability Vs Strong Sustainability?

Answer 8

Weak - believing that all types of capital can be valued in the same unit (money), and thus exchanged fairly.
Strong - Natural capital cannot be valued with money.

Question 9

Why is systems thinking important?

Answer 9

To prevent burden shifting from one environmental area of concern to another.

Question 10

Why are trade offs a central aspect of Industrial ecology?

Answer 10

There are many situations where value based judgments are required e.g. the purpose of an LCA (which AoP’s should it aim to protect).

Question 11

I=PAT - What does this equation and its terms mean.

Answer 11

Equation is an attempt to quantify the impact of humanity on the environment.
I = impact - any environmental indicator (m^2 if ecological footprint).
P = Population.
A = Affluence (product consumption per person) GDP/capita
T = Technology (Impact per Product i.e. how resource intensive the production of affluence is) m^2/GDP

Question 12

Positive Industrial Ecology method

Answer 12

Material Flow Analysis (MFA) - It is used to describe the resource flow.

Question 13

Normative Industrial Ecology method

Answer 13

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) - It is used to asses trade offs of different scenarios.