Debates in Sustainability Science
Debates in Sustainability Science
February 2012
From austerity to susterity: the urgency of progressing sustainable place-making and circular economies.
- Terry Marsden
Introduction: We need a new approach to the economy
As Matthew Spencer (Director of the Green Alliance, Inside Track, 30, 2012) has recently put it: ‘the financial crisis has acted as an effective filibuster, blocking debate about both sustainable economics and the value of nature and natural beauty, but it doesn’t have to be that way’. Out of the current financial and fiscal crises need to emerge a stronger policy, business and civic society partnership to progress the post-carbon and more ‘circular’ economy. Here in PLACE we are discussing how this ‘ecological economy’ could be progressed in different types of places: from city regions, to small towns, collections of villages, and water catchments. This is not just a matter of ‘going local’ and trying to resist the vulnerabilities of some of the global forces (not least financial) which seem to be largely beyond our control. Rather, it is to begin to appreciate that ‘place-based’- solutions where the full range of economic and social assets and trading relationships can be assessed and acted upon- is a critical way to begin to frame the necessary adaptations we need to make in becoming more sustainable and resilient.
click here to read the full paper [131KB]
August 2011
Towards a more sustainable agri-food security and food policy:
beyond the ecological fallacies?
- Terry Marsden
Introduction: into a new era
Since the food price hikes of 2007-8, and the continuing volatilities in global food supply and demand since, there has been a significant growth in policy reports and statements regarding the problems of global food security. This has rightly reinforced the RCUK research councils’ decision to make this one of its ‘grand challenges’, and has recently led to a new synthesis published by the UK Government Office for Science, entitled: ‘The Future of Food and Farming: challenges and choices for global sustainability’. It is not necessary here to re-iterate all of the main arguments as to why this is now a renewed and pressing international policy issue, but it is a good moment to begin to assess the general policy landscape and framing of the debates, given, as I shall argue below, some significant gaps or missing links which are emerging in the ways in which arguments and solutions are being posed.
Click here to read the full paper [16.29MB]
