Sustainability is greater than only a buzzword. It’s our pathway to an extended and healthy life on this planet for us, our kids, their children, and beyond. Without sustainability, we could exhaust all our natural resources and create a fair greater climate crisis than we’re in today.
Fortunately, latest sustainability trends are pushing us in the suitable direction toward protecting our planet for generations to come back. Below, we outline among the latest sustainability trends, the important thing areas of sustainability, and sustainable development within the face of an exploding population.
What are the most recent sustainability trends?
While many sustainability trends are working today, some are newer than others. Let’s take a look at among the latest top sustainability trends and the way they’re helping.
Working From Home
Distant work is nothing latest, because it’s been a growing a part of the workforce for a while now. Nonetheless, the coronavirus pandemic took make money working from home from an unusual perk to a necessity, as offices worldwide shut all the way down to stop the disease’s spread.
Initially, some staff panicked on the considered working remotely, wondering how they’ll ever get any work done from their lounge. As time passed, people adjusted, and a few fell in love with working remotely. This allowed them to work in whatever uniform they desired, limit the miles on their vehicles, and avoid rush-hour traffic.
A secondary a part of this was the impact it may possibly have on the environment. With fewer people on the road, this implies fewer greenhouse gas emissions (GHG emissions) and fewer consumption of fossil fuels from each day commuters. Distant work has grow to be one of the vital recent trends in sustainability, as many staff now see this as a convenience factor and a solution to do their part in slowing manmade climate change.
Making Finance Sustainable
Finance is just not the primary place many look to when considering sustainability, however it is a latest sustainability trend gaining popularity. The idea of sustainable finance is working with financial services that integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria into their models. Whether or not they use it when making business decisions, investments, purchasing decisions, business model development, or other business-related dealings, ESG at all times plays a pivotal role in the ultimate decision.
Today, many investors are taking a look at firms that at all times incorporate ESG criteria into their business, making finance a component of environmental sustainability.
Corporations Going Net Zero
The strive to grow to be net zero continues to be a giant piece of the sustainability puzzle. Corporations are finding ways to cut back their carbon footprints by switching to renewable energy, reminiscent of solar panels and wind turbines. Also they are making smaller changes, reminiscent of changing their fleets to electric vehicles or hybrids, installing LED lighting, changing their waste disposal methods, and more.
In some cases, firms will purchase carbon offsets to have a sustainable business model that’s carbon neutral. These carbon offsets are investments into environmentally friendly projects that can help neutralize an organization’s remaining carbon footprint.
Seawilding within the Ocean
Ocean sustainability can be critical, especially for island nations. One latest trend in these island nations is seawilding. This is comparable to land-based rewilding — conservation acts that aim to revive and protect natural processes and wilderness areas — but modified for the ocean.
One such sustainability trend is seabed rewilding, which goals to preserve and restore seagrass within the oceans. Seagrass not only absorbs carbon 35 times faster than trees, but it may possibly also reduce storm surges, helping protect these islands and improve year-round tourism.
What Are the 5 Areas of Sustainability?
Sustainability can take many sizes and styles, but there are five essential areas of sustainability: environmental, socio-cultural, technological, economic, and public policy. Let’s explore these five areas and what they mean.
Environmental
Environmental sustainability is conserving natural resources and protecting ecosystems to assist support its health and well-being now and in the long run. A key to environmental sustainability is it’s a slow-moving process, so changes made today might not be felt for a few years, meaning you need to look ahead on the longer-term effects of this area of sustainability to understand its full profit.
Some examples of environmental sustainability include:
- Offering tax advantages for firms that get a percentage of their electricity from renewable energy or clean energy sources
- Planting trees on a company campus to soak up carbon from the atmosphere and offset deforestation
Socio-Cultural
Sustainability isn’t all concerning the environment and ecosystem. Additionally it is about society and culture as a complete. That is where socio-cultural sustainability is available in.
Socio-cultural sustainability is a measure of peoples’ opportunities to meet their potential. This will vary greatly by region and the assorted stages of our lives, but the fundamentals remain the identical: Are you presented with the opportunities it’s good to reach your potential and maximize wellness?
Some examples of social-cultural sustainability may include:
- Grants for faculty tuition for lower-income families
- Food stamp programs to make sure those in poverty are receiving proper nutrition
- Protecting certain lands for natives of that area
Technological
Technological sustainability is innovation that considers natural resources and supports economic and social development. This technology’s essential goal is to dramatically reduce environmental impact and ecological risks while making a sustainable product.
There are three essential definitions for sustainable technology:
- Substitution: The technology replaces a non-sustainable technology or process with a sustainable one, reminiscent of switching from nonrenewable energy to renewable.
- Prevention: The technology prevents deterioration, contamination, or other unfavorable impacts to the environment through its production or use.
- Efficiency: The technology enables reduced energy use or uses natural resources more efficiently.
Economic
Economic sustainability is the power to support long-term economic growth without negatively impacting a community’s social, environmental, and cultural elements. For instance, you may make a donation to an area charity that helps support a selected community or commit to only shopping locally to assist construct the local economy.
Public Policy
Sustainable public policy is when lawmakers develop policies on the international, federal, state, or local level that help to advance environmental, economic and social or cultural sustainability. For instance, enacting laws requiring firms to lower their carbon emissions every year until they reach a certain level.
What Is the Way forward for Sustainable Development?
Sustainable development is a must moving forward, because it’s estimated Earth will likely be home to upward of 9.7 billion people by 2050. This may lead to a 54% increase in food demand and 56% increase in energy demand worldwide. Without sustainable development, our carbon emissions would skyrocket, leaving our planet and our health worse than it’s today.
Based on The Nature Conservancy, if we maintain the establishment and don’t make any changes, we could see global temps soar by one other 3.2 degree Celsius, one other 4.9 billion people adversely affected by polluted air, dramatic overfishing, increased water stress, and more natural habitat loss. Fortunately, change is feasible.
Let’s take a look at some key sustainable development goals moving forward.
Addressing Energy Use
Step one in the long run of sustainable development is addressing energy use, as this may rise dramatically with the world’s population. While curtailing energy use is unrealistic, we will shift the way in which we obtain energy away from fossil fuels and toward sustainable methods, reminiscent of solar, wind, water, and even nuclear power. The goal can be to cut back the share of electricity we devour from fossil fuels to simply 13% — an enormous dip from the 76% we’re at now — in response to The Nature Conservancy.
Addressing Land Use
Because the population grows, we now have to deal with and feed people, which requires land. Compounding this issue is the undeniable proven fact that renewable energy tends to take up much more real estate than fossil-fuel-based energy. So, we now have to search out ways to make room for renewable energy, more people, and more crops all while not displacing nature. This starts by prioritizing land that’s already been converted for renewables and maximizing the efficiency of each acre.
Farmers also need room for food production, so future sustainability trends will deal with maximizing the effectiveness of their acreage. For instance, we’d like to make sure crops are grown efficiently and match crops’ natural needs, reminiscent of a lot of water, with appropriate geographic locations. We may also shift toward more non-meat products, reducing the quantity of land dedicated to livestock and increasing the quantity of land available for more versatile crops.
Addressing Overfishing
Our food not only comes from the land. It also comes from the ocean and other bodies of water. If we proceed on our current path, 84% of fisheries can be overfished, putting stress on the food supply from the ocean, in response to The Nature Conservancy. Continuing this overfishing trend would result in an 11% decrease in annual fish supply chain yields by 2050 in comparison with 2010.
Nonetheless, with improved fishery management, through technological advancements and policy changes, we will end all overfishing and increase the fishery yield by 26% in 2050 in comparison with 2010.
You Have a Part in Supporting Sustainability Trends Too
While sustainable development could seem too big for one person to make a difference, that’s not the case. You’ll be able to do your part by reducing your carbon footprint in some ways. Sure, you could not give you the chance to rewrite national policy, but you may seek a position that lets you make money working from home, add solar panels to your own home, reduce water waste in your own home, and more. If all and sundry does just a little bit to enhance, the combined effort can result in significant improvements.
You can too reduce your carbon footprint and help support sustainability trends by purchasing carbon offsets from Terrapass. We provide a variety of carbon offset packages to match every lifestyle. Select the one which suits you and help offset among the carbon you create each day.
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