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It is very important to understand the actual condition of the planet, the actual
condition of our life and others life.

The way humans engage with ecological processes within cities or regions is highly
complex, and both from a social and ecological perspective these engagements cannot
be interpreted meaningfully on the basis of a single timeframe. It is also important if we
consider only ourselves, or we consider also other human beings.

Two views of the world dominate our thinking these days and the 21th century.
Nowadays the Economical world view is superseded by the ecological world view.
Concerns related to climate changes and its effects and sustainability are more and more
often in the media and of course are taken as priorities for the decisions makers. As a
citizen you ought to understand these challenges, you ought to learn about how to
improve the actual condition and to stop environmental degradation and to add value
towards a better quality of life.
It is useful to learn something about ecology if you wish to understand the problems
that humans are facing nowadays, sustaining the environment and protecting the
species which leaves with us on the Earth. In the same time you have to understand how
to combine an economical growth with a good resource management and in the same
time to create a proper social ecological condition, minimizing the environmental and
social negative impacts.

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Is the life condition sustainable for these people?
Do they have access to the necessary facilities that can assure a wellbeing?
The Environmental condition for work and living are healthy?
Are they happy?
Similar situation could be find also in your country.
We have to understand what is the cause of such situation, and how to avoid happening,
and try to improve very fast the condition for such examples.

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Sustainable development became a priority and a new concept of organization
development because thro the years the world has changed; the population grow, some
local and regions became more and more populated and the demands increased. The
industrialization process plays a key roll in achieving the needs and demand of
population, the resource needs and technology development started to be a priority for
many companies in order to assure the products needed on the market. In the
meantime this industrialization process increased the social and environmental impacts
which followed an uncontrolled consumption and production.

All this production increasing and population consumptions drives to increasing the GHG
emission.

GHG emission increasing due to anthropogenic activities launched a new problems –

climate change with huge local and global impacts, forsing the population to adapt to its
effects.

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Triple Bottom Line (TBL) (Elkington, 1997) emerged as the concept of sustainability as
integration of economic, environmental and social dimensions
Each aspect of development is important for people in their lives and they are each
complexly interdependent. Sustainability is about striking the appropriate balance
between Social, Economic and Environmental priorities, to ensure that life is enjoyable
and profitable, whilst also sustainable:

TBL or three divisions are also called the three Ps: people, planet and profit, or the
"three pillars of sustainability".

Social Prosperity: Opportunities for all people to enjoy basic needs and rights, including
equality, respect, education and comfortable standards of living.
Economic Growth: A secure and robust financial and industrial basis for employment,
growth, income and enterprise.
Environmental protection: Desirable levels of air and water quality and preservation of
natural resources, biological diversity and the natural environment

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It took all of human history up to the early 1800s for world population to reach 1 billion
people, and until 1960 to reach 3 billion. Today, the world gains 1 billion people every 11 years.
(www.populationaction.org).

It's often said that the root cause of all our environmental issues is overpopulation. It's
certainly true that there are more people around today than there have ever been in the past
and as you can see from this figure, the growth appears to be exponential.
And pretty much by definition an exponential growth curve is not sustainable.

The demographic transition identifies that there is a positive correlation between high incomes
and low birth rates. However, there are also many exceptions to this relationship. Birth rates
can drop even with modest incomes as long as the economic gains are directed toward
improving the educational level and health status of women, and making birth control easily
available.

Despite the decline in overall population growth rate, the absolute size of the human
population will continue to increase over the next several decades because of population
momentum (GLOSSARY). Currently nearly one third of the world’s population is under 15 years
of age and therefore has not yet reached childbearing age. Because this demographic group is
so large in absolute numbers, even if each woman has fewer children than in the past, there
will still be a significant increase in global population over the next several decades.

Most of the population growth over the next several decades is expected to occur in
developing countries, where growth rates are generally higher than for developed countries
(1.5 to 2.1 % vs 0.2% for the most affluent countries). The United States is an exception, with
one of the most rapidly growing populations of any developed nation.

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The Ecological Footprint is rooted in the fact that all renewable resources come from the earth. It accounts
for the flows of energy and matter to and from any defined economy and converts these into the
corresponding land/water area required for nature to support these flows. The Ecological Footprint is
defined as "the area of productive land and water ecosystems required to produce the resources that the
population consumes and assimilate the wastes that the population produces, wherever on Earth the land
and water is located."1 It compares actual throughput of renewable resources relative to what is annually
renewed. Non-renewable resources are not assessed, as by definition their use is not sustainable.
The total “footprint” for a designated population’s activities is measured in terms of ‘global hectares.’ A
global hectare (acre) is one hectare (2.47 acres) of biologically productive space with an annual productivity
equal to the world average. Currently, the biosphere has approximately 11.2 billion hectares of biologically
productive space corresponding to roughly one quarter of the planet’s surface. These biologically
productive hectares include 2.3 billion hectares of ocean and inland water and 8.8 billion hectares of land.
The land space is composed of 1.5 billion hectares of cropland, 3.5 billion hectares of grazing land, 3.6
billion hectares of forest land, and 0.2 billion hectares of built-up land. These surfaces represent the sum
total of biologically productive hectares we rely on for our survival. They represent the earth’s natural
capital, and their annual yield represents our annual natural capital income.
Source, Wackernagel, Mathis and W. Rees. Our Ecological Footprint. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society
Publishers, 1996,
http://www.sustainablescale.org/ConceptualFramework/UnderstandingScale/MeasuringScale/EcologicalFo
otprint.aspx
The ecological footprint in developed countries seems to be rising at a faster pace than in developing
countries. For example, the ecological footprint in developed countries increased from 3.8 global hectares
in 1961 to 5.3 global hectares in 2007, representing an overall increase of 39 per cent. By contrast, the per
capita ecological footprint in developing countries increased from 1.4 global hectares in 1961 to 1.8 global
hectares in 2007, representing an increase of 28 per cent (Woodward and Simms, 2006, p. 3, and global
Footprint Network, 2010)
Source: World Economic and Social Survey 2013.
Hubert projection on the Fossil fuel reserve of the earth show a decline starting with 2008. Some of the
continents will have problems to assure the necessity of the energy to sustain the economical development

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or even to sustain at least the wellbeing of their population.

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Certain gases in the air called greenhouse gases act like a blanket for the earth. Without
them the temperature would be -18°C most days. However, many things in our modern
world produce extra greenhouse gases—the coal burned to make electricity, the fertilizer
used to grow food and the fuel burned to power vehicles. All these extra gases are being
released into the atmosphere, gradually warming the earth and changing the climate
Every person in the world contributes to the rising amounts of greenhouse gases. However,
people who live in high-income countries generally emit more greenhouse gases than low-
income countries by consuming more energy, more food and more products.
Source: http://australianmuseum.net.au/Greenhouse-Gas-A-hot-topic
An environmental aspect is defined as an element of a facility’s activities, products, or
services that can or does interact with the environment. These interactions and their effects
may be continuous in nature, periodic, or associated only with events, such as emergencies.
Environmental impact is defined as any change to the environment, whether adverse or
beneficial, resulting from a facility’s activities, products, or services, or individual activity.
A significant environmental aspect is one that may produce a significant environmental
impact. In short, the aspect is the cause and the impact is the effect.

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Social impact (vary by different sectors and applications) can be defined as the net effect
of an activity on a community and the well-being of individuals and families

Measuring your social impact will help you understand, manage and communicate the
social value that your work creates in a clear and consistent way.

Adverse effects of contamination can impact on larger populations as a result of the

problem having a pathway extending far beyond the geographical boundaries of the
source contamination. Heath problems emanating from contamination that is able to
spread via a watercourses or aquifer is one such example.

Also allergic health problems can arise due to air pollution in the cities , many children's
and adults can have specific reaction to different allergens such as dust or smog coming
as air emission from different production facilities.

Due to economical crisis in the last 5 years some companies closed their activities in
different areas causing social negative impact by creating a major unemployment rate in
the area, not having a good sustainability strategy to leave behind their business closing
a proper development possibilities of other business for different citizens. Some of them
causes also different pollution with high pollutant retention in the soil thought the years
such as petroleum products, heavy metals or PCBs.

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For 2010 was published the impact of transport sector considering different ways of
travelling, by the European Environmental Agency.
Which transport modes produce the most emissions in your opinion?
The flight produce 130,2 CO2 emission/km /passenger and it is the most impacting one.
You can calculate your CFP – carbon footprint of your flight by using the link: CO2 flight
calculator: http://www.icao.int/environmental-
protection/CarbonOffset/Pages/default.aspx

What we really want to raise up is that the environmental impact vary from different
transport system and this has to be known in order to be aware how o improve our
thinking when we want to travel and we want to choose an environmental low
impacting system.
Of course that we need first to understand that we need to change our behavior, in
order to mitigate our personal impact to the environment. The transport system is one
of the most impacting sector and we are the one which are contributing a lot thought
this to the GHG emission by the total fuel consumption for our travelling …either in
business purpose or personal purpose.

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Even driving a fuel-efficient small car produces several times more greenhouse gas
emissions than catching an existing bus service.
Retrofitting ‘old’ diesel buses with emission control devices will reduce gaseous air
pollutants and particulate emissions for the remainder of their operational life
Each bus trip has the potential to take around 50 cars off the road. Think twice when you
choose to go to the office taking your own car. You have to think in a positive way,
minimizing the personal car usage, in order to degrease the fuel consumption and to
avoid air pollution in the city.
Did you know that you can share your car with other friends, to use it in common? This
`car sharing system` is one of the most frequently used system in many developed
country and some of the local norms encourage this.

So we have many options to mitigate our environmental impacts coming from transport
system and to coop also to a positive social impact overall.

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Did you ever think about the environmental, social and economical impacts of the food
consumption?
Even for vegetable production we have an impact and by our personal consumption we can
contribute and sustain a high environmental impact.
The overall emission of tomatoes growth can vary from a tomatoes produced at home in our
garden to tomatoes produced in tomato greenhouses located in another region than ours. The
differences are huge …50 times higher due to the fuel consumption mainly necessary to
transport the vegetable in our personal region.
If you think to buy vegetable produced in local farms you can mitigate the emissions degreasing
the environmental impacts and contributing to a social positive impact by creating a need and
encouraging the local farmers.
The consumption of the well-known Coke as well as many other soft drinks can generate
different impacts. Coca Cola company well-known with its sustainable strategy published the
associated impacts for different products, measured as carbon footprint, which quantify the
environmental impacts in CO2 equivalent/product print. In the same time Coca Cola Company
has clear objectives and measures to degrease these impacts by different concrete
improvement measures in the production areas and supply chain.
The water footprint is also an indicator which measure an environmental impact . The impacts of
a water use need to be assessed in the context of all water uses in the watershed in order to
define cumulative impacts, shared risks and appropriate response strategies.
Those companies which has a good sustainability strategy has orientation in assessing their
environmental impact in closed relation with the social impacts and they define strategies to
improve the conditions in that direction to keep a balance between the 3 dimensions (economic,
environment and social one).

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In 2010 human activity caused 50 Gt CO2e of greenhouse gas emissions.

The big terrestrial emitters were China (23%), the USA (14%), Europe (10%), India (5%)
and Russia (5%). And the primary sources of emissions were energy (35%), industry
(18%), transport (13%), agriculture (11%), forestry (11%), buildings (8%) and waste (4%).
Source: http://theenergycollective.com/lindsay-wilson/255551/greenhouse-gas-
emissions-explained-7-balloons

The population growth inevitable bring the economical development in different cities,
regions and countries in order to sustain the population growth.
Agriculture, industry and other sector offers many opportunities of development and in
the same time bring an added environmental impact due the energy, raw materials and
water usage and due to the different technology used. Different aspects of the processes
can bring different impact to the environment and one the of the major impact is GHG
emission, which caused the climate changes in the last decades.

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The Funnel Metaphor from The Natural Step International (www.naturalstep.org)
demonstrates the conflict. Until now, the Earth’s natural resources have been more than
ample to support human needs; however, the Earth cannot keep up with the demand
our economy is placing on its ecological assets.

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The population growth inevitable bring the economical development in different cities,
regions and countries in order to sustain the population growth.
Increasing the productions during the industry era, the usage of materials and therefore
the environmental impact generating GHG Emission, waste and wastewaters are getting
bigger and bigger.

The lack of innovation and especially Environmental innovation in the last 50 years,
forced the increasing of environmental impacts.

The business are driven by profits, and less environmental careful or even social careful.

These impacts causes by the anthropogenic activities causes the climate changes and its
effect.

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In order to understand the interaction between the 3 systems (economic, environment and
social) we will launch some examples of unsustainable activities, each of them being oriented
in
a pure economic pattern.

Unsustainable fishing: Global fishing fleet is 2-3 times larger than what the oceans can
Sustainably support. In other words, people are taking far more fish out of the ocean than can
be replaced by those remaining. Several important commercial fish populations have declined
to the point where their survival is threatened. Unless the current situation improves, stocks
of all species currently fished for food are predicted to collapse by 2048. Disturbing the fish
ecosystem comes from unwanted fish and other animals - like dolphins, marine turtles,
seabirds, sharks, and corals - die due to inefficient, illegal, and destructive fishing
practices. Overfishing is largely due to: poor fisheries management, pirates fishers that don’t
respect fishing laws or agreements, massive by catch of juvenile fish and other marine species,
subsidies that keep too many boats on the water, Unfair Fisheries Partnership Agreements that
allow foreign fleets to overfish in the waters of developing countries, Destructive fishing
practice.
Source: http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/blue_planet/problems/problems_fishing/

Unsustainable forestry: Many business raise up in the last 10 year (especially in Romania),
focused on forestry. An unsustainable forestry by uncontrolled deforestation bring a major
impact on long term to different regions by: Disturbing the ecosystems (affecting animal
migration routes); Causing pollution (with petroleum for examples); Causing turbulence in
water flows; Adding a high risk for population in the massive deforestation areas (floods, etc.)

Unsustainable production: An unsustainable production facility can bring: Massive waste

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production; uncontrolled dangerous hazardous materials (CMRs – carcinogenic and
mutagen for reproduction); Smog creation – air pollution; Water and soil pollution;
Health problems for citizens.

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The climate change is caused by the anthropogenic activities on the hearth. The more
we learn about climate change, the more likely it seems that the impacts of global
warming will be catastrophic. Anticipated predictions of its impacts in specific regions
and in specific time-frames, are real. The global warming causes different problems and
its effects is feels different on continents. Some of the well known effects are:
• Increase in global temperature of the Earth's surface
• Appearance of the greenhouse effect – heat wawes
• Microclimate conditions and systems destabilization
• Increasing of temperature of the oceans and seas
• Accelerating water cycle, increasing the severity and storms rate and droughts,
rising sea and ocean levels, Changing water quality and quantity
• Massive flooding
• Impacts associated with local fauna and flora
• Drought for long periods, which may favor the occurrence of uncontrolled fires
• Impact on health
• Life quality/ /wellbeing
• Relocation / migration of population
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the
observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and
ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen,
and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased`
Source – Summary for Policymakers – AR5 IPCC Report

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We use resources as though we had more than one earth at our disposal. However,
we have only this one planet, so we will have to take care how we use it Taking care
means living and doing business in a sustainable manner. Taking care means living
and doing business in a sustainable manner.

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In order to turn to a sustainable growth model we need to pay attention to the resource
consumption, degreasing the environmental impacts and burdens, to use renewable
resources
instead of primary one, and trying to increase the quality of life and wellbeing of all people.

Sustainable growth - for a resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy,
according Europa 2020 strategy means:
• building a more competitive low-carbon economy that makes efficient, sustainable use
of resources
• protecting the environment, reducing emissions and preventing biodiversity loss
• capitalising on Europe's leadership in developing new green technologies and production
methods
• introducing efficient smart electricity grids
• harnessing EU-scale networks to give our businesses (especially small manufacturing
firms) an additional competitive advantage
• improving the business environment, in particular for SMEs
• helping consumers make well-informed choices.

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EU targets for sustainable growth include:
1. reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% compared to 1990 levels by 2020. The EU
is prepared to go further and reduce by 30% if other developed countries make similar
commitments and developing countries contribute according to their abilities, as part of a
comprehensive global agreement
2. increasing the share of renewable in final energy consumption to 20%
3. moving towards a 20% increase in energy efficiency

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020

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