1.1 What Is Sustainability?

1.2 Sustainable Development: Motivations and Obstacles

1.2.1 Present versus Future Generations

One might argue that the millions of years of human evolution is the direct evidence of the fact that we as a race have mastered the art of living sustainably. This mastery although was never complete and the skills prove insufficient locally, so many times societies have declined, relocated, and/or collapsed because they failed to plan enough. However, now in a globalized world, even local calamities have the potential to threaten the survival and well-being of the whole world. This global era can be defined as Anthropocene and in times like these extreme policy changes are needed to urgently stop the present generation’s maximizing of benefits for itself that will leave nothing but an overwhelming heap of problems, due to resource exhaustion, for the global future generations (Figure 1.1).

1.2.2 Economic versus Environmental Perspectives

Originally, the human economy was always rooted in a context of nature and environment where it is self-evident that the growth is limited. But in the late 19th century, the fragmentation and specialization of the subjects resulted in the elimination of nature from economic theory. Now, economics emphasized mathematical and theoretical modeling methods and ignored contextual and empirical data. Ecological factors were now regarded as “externalities” that were beyond the general interests of economists and hence made the idea of endless growth possible. This separation got so ingrained throughout the 20th century that ecologists and economists found it tough to communicate and agree on issues of importance. And with the human proclivity for more monetary power, majority institutions have been moving with a singular aim of maximizing revenue ignoring the possibility of crashing ecological systems important to human survival. This ignorance toward environmental collapse can also be attributed to human inability to imagine or realistically gauge extremely improbable phenomena (the black swan phenomenon), the tendency to underestimate risks related to a factor that also provides benefits, and to ignore obvious signs of danger when other people do so too (bystander apathy). Therefore, a workable concept and policy of sustainable development would overcome these human biases to balance economic and environmental perspectives out (Figure 1.2).

1.3 Goals to Strive toward Sustainable Development

• No Poverty—Eradicating poverty in all possible forms everywhere
• Zero Hunger—Eradicating hunger while promoting sustainable agriculture
• Good Health and Well-Being—Promoting well-being while ensuring healthy lives for all at all ages
• Quality Education—Ensuring quality education that is equitable and conclusive for all
• Gender Equality—Empowering all women and girls and achieving gender equality
• Clean Water and Sanitation—Managing sustainable water and sanitation for all
• Affordable and Clean Energy—Making available reliable, affordable, and modern energy for everyone
• Decent Work and Economic Growth—Ensuring productive employment for everyone by promoting both sustained and sustainable economic growth
• Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure—Building infrastructure that is resilient to promote sustainable industrialization to drive innovation
• Reduced Inequalities—Reducing inter- and intracountry inequalities
• Sustainable Cities and Communities—Making human settlements like cities safe, sustainable, and inclusive
• Responsible Consumption and Production—Ensuring patterns in consumption and production that are sustainable
• Climate Action—Acting to fight climate change urgently to reduce its long-term impacts
• Life below Water—Conserving the water bodies such as seas and oceans while sustainably using marine resources
• Life on Land—Restoring and promoting sustainable use of ecosystems that are terrestrial by combating desertification, and halting land degradation and biodiversity loss
• Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions—Providing easy access to justice for everyone by building accountable and effective institutions at all levels
• Partnerships for the Goals—Strengthening the ways to implement and revitalize the Global Partnerships to collaborate to achieve sustainable development (Figure 1.3)

1.4 Sustainability and Computing