Help

Options

focusNode

Didn't know it?
click below

Knew it?
click below

Don't Know

Remaining cards (0)

Know

retry

shuffle

restart

0:00

Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.

Normal Size Small Size show me how

Sustainability Gloss

Glossary of Sustainability

Question	Answer
What is carrying capacity	Usually defined as the population of humans or other species that a natural area can support without reducing its ability to support that species in the future.
What is Decarbonization	The reduction of the use of fossil fuels in energy, materials, processes, production and products. Total carbon flows through the economy are increasing.
What is Dematerialisation	The reduction in materials (and energy) intensity of industrial production and products. Material flows through the economy are increasing.
What is Design for eco-services	Refers to the integration of natural systems with the existing buildin envrionment to increase the ecological base (life support functions)
What is Eco-efficiency	The delivery of goods and services that satisfy human needs and enhance quality of life, while progressively reducing ecological impacts and resource intensity throughout the life cycle.
What is Ecological footprint	The equivelent are of land and water needed to produce the supplies from around the world to feed, clothe, house and entertain urban dwellers in a given city.
What is Ecosystem services	The services (and ecology) provided by natural systems (air and water decontamination, pollination, climate stabilization, fertile soil, biodiversity etc)
What is Embodied energy?	The total energy consumed by all activities associated with a production process including the portions of other products that contributed to it (like trucks)
What is Externality?	An economic concept that refers to the costs and benefits of economic activites that are imposed on people outside the relationship or transaction. The term implies pollution is incidental.
What are Food Miles?	Refers to the distance that food travels (and thus greenhouse gas emissions) before reaching the consumers table, often estimated at around 1,700km
What is Front-loading design?	Refers to putting more time and energy into original planning and design stages, rather than mitigating the impacts of conventional designs.
What is full cost pricing?	Where the replacement costs of resources were charged for their use. Full cost pricing is supposed to cover externalities, but does not include ecological waste.
What is genuine progress indicators?	Are an attempt to adjust GDP to account for a range of social and environmental factors and not just market transactions.
What is Industrial ecology?	When you develop synergistic relationships with other industries by, for example, using by-products from another industry or sharing utility infrastructure.
What are internalities?	Refers to the inordinate benefits that a private business or organisation receives at the expense of the general public 'externalities' only reflect private costs imposed on the public.
What is Life cycle assessment (LCA)?	It traces the impacts of all inputs and outputs of a product or system from 'cradle to grave,' or resource extraction to disposal at the end of its life.
What are Living Machines?	Self controlled networks of (solar power) ecological systems designed to accomplish specific chemical functions that support the micro-organisms that eat toxic waste.
What is Material flow analysis?	A form of sustainability auditing that maps stocks and flow through an urban, industrial or regional area.
What is Metabolic analysis?	Applies an analogy to the chemical reactions by which an organism or ecosystem interacts with its environment for analysing material flows through urban and industrial systems.
What is Positive Development	Adds to social and ecological (as well as environmental) value to the urban environment by expanding both the ecological base and public estate.
What is Precautionary principle?	Refers to the idea that we should not use a lack of scientific evidence as an excuse for inaction in addressing an environmental problem.
What is Sustainability?	means that all future generations will inherit substantive environmental and democratic rights- control over the means of survival, an increased ecological base, and genuine social choice.
What is Sustainability Standard?	Requires an improvement in human and ecological health over what would have been the case if the development was not built. This means increasing the ecological base.
What is Ambient	The background level of environmental pollution that exists in a particular environment, including noise.
What is the Anthosphere?	The human-made environment
What is Appropriate technology?	Technology that is low-impact and designed to serve human needs.
What is an Atrium?	A light well of an interior covered courtyard that provides natural lighting.
What is best available technology	Where a particular form of environmetal technology is specified by environmental legislation, to minimise environmental impacts.
What is Best practice technology?	Legislation requiring best practice technology allows firms to instal the technology that they think most affordably meets a given standard.
What are Bio Based materials?	Materials made from agricultural by-products or plants; that is, carbohydrates, not including petro chemicals.
What is Bio Based economy?	Another term for carbohydrate economy, where carbohydrates replace hydrocarbons. Platns not minerals supply raw materials for factories.
What is Biocentrism?	A view of reality that puts nature at the centre, or values things in terms of ecological, as opposed to human- centered values.
What is Biodiversity?	The variety of all life-forms (plants, animals and micro organisms) in an area, often considered at four levels: genetic diversity, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and landscape diversity.
What is Bioregionalism	Planning that starts from the ecology of a region, where regions are defined by biological rather than political boundries.
What is Black Box analysis?	An analysis that considers relationships between indivduals, organisations or institutions, but does examine the entities themselves.
What is Carbohydrate economy?	An industrial system where carbohydrates replace hydrocarbons.
What is the Carbon Cycle?	The cycle where carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is converted to fibre by plants, and then release back into the atmosphere when plants rot or burn. Some carbon also becomes part of the carboniferous strata as coacl, natural gases or petroleum.
What is Carrying Capacity?	A population or environmental impacts that a natural area can support without reducing its ability to support that species in the future. The carrying capactiy of humans also depends upon the efficiency with which humans use the resources.
What is the Chain of custody?	The channel through which products are distributed from their origin in the ground to their end use.
What is Circular metabolism?	The reintergration of urban 'wastes' into human production and consumption activities.
What is a Closed Loop Sytem?	Where waste heat and other environmental impacts are reprocessed and/or used for another prodcutive purpose (see no loop systems)
What is Cohousing?	Residential community designed to encourage social interaction, self-managment, and sharing of facilities, while also reducing economic and environmental costs.
Commons	Public land sared by and accesible to the whole community
Community learning networks	Communication links formed within and among resident communitities that facilitate sharing of information, knowledge and expertise
Community	A group of people who have shared values, social interactions and a common sense of indentity
Comprehensive Plan	A land use plan which seeks to implement a broad set of social goals such as ecologically sustainable develpment.
Conditional Use	a form of planning approval where a project is permitted it it meets certain special requirements in addition to basic planning code restrictions.
Conserver Society	A society that lives in harmony with natures limits. The transittion from consumer society ti conserver society is one of the principle goals of the environment movement.
Contextual Design	Design that blends in with the exisiting urban fabric or complements existing facades, building heights or landscapes
Creative Play Environment	All outdoor environments designed to facilitate 'free' play. Exploratory, representational and imaginative play. And accomodate social interaction rather than just physical excercise.
Cultural Landscape	Parts of an environment that have been influenced by human activity and as such express human attitudes and values. A cutural landscape may exisit as an individual or collective memory, as well as a physical fabric.
Cumulative Impacts	Environmental impacts that are increased by the addition of succesive environmental impacts. This can lead to specific environmental impacts growing exponentially.
Cyclic economy	An economy designed as a continuous cyclic flow of materials rather than a linear one
Decarbonisation	Where industrialised countries move away from high carbon fuel sources such as firewood and coal, to oil and low carbon sources such as natural gas.
Deconstruction	A literay technique adapted to design which plays on conflicting logics to create contradictions in apparent structure.
Deep Ecology	A view that holds all human actions should be judged by their effect on the integrity of ecosystems. Deep ecologists have argued that we will care for the natural world if we understand it as an extension of ourselves.
Defensive Expenditure.	Expenditure to avoid, mitigate or repair environmental impacts.
Dematerialisation	A decline in the materials and energy intensity og industrial production. A trend in industrially developed countries.
Design for Dissasembly	design details enabling future reuse or recycling of materials. For instance bolted instead of nailed timber connections.
Dominant Paradigm	A contra-ecological way of thinking that has led to an unsustainable system of development and economic growth
Eco-cities	Cities designed in response to community needs and functioning as integral parts of the biosphere.
Eco-cycle/Eco-cycling	The cycle of transformation of matter and energy in an ecosystem; the nutrient and waste loop closure in human settlements; reconnecting human settlement wastes to a primary production; recycling and refuse resource coupling in industrial situations.
Eco-efficiency	Product, process or service design that minimises energy, resources and waste.
Ecofeminism	A theory or paradigm that seeks to expose cultural assumptions that are used to legitimise ecological destruction. Ecofeminists have argued that human opression and the exploitation of nature are closely linked.
Eco-industrial park	A complex of industrial producers that create 'multi-dimensional' recycling systems or 'foodwebs' between companies and industries.
Eco-innovation	adresses social and environmental needs while greatly reducing net resource/energy consumption or increasing positive social, economic and environmental spin-offs.
Eco-logical design	Design that is ecologically and socially responsible (empowering, restorative, eco-efficient, transformative)
Ecological footprint	The equivalent land (and water) area required to support a given human population and its material standard indefinitley, including the local and global effects caused by resources used and wastes produced (ie the carrying capactiy from other places)
Ecological modernisation	A discourse that recognises the structural character of environmental problems, but nonetheless assumes that exisiting insitutions can internalise care for the environment.
Ecological sustainable design	using, coserving and enhancing the communities resources so that ecological processes are maintained, and the total quality of life, now and in the future can be maintained and improved.
Eco-Marxism	A philosophy which considers that environmental degradation is a direct result of class society and its forces of production and can be reversed through a classless or socialistic political system.
Economic growth	A real increase in gdp, usually in total gdp but should be in gdp per capita
Economies of scale	the reduction of average costs of production with increasing output, due to the sharing of fixed costs over a larger number of units means that the lower extra (marginal) cos of each additional unit causes the average cost per unit to fall.
Eco-socialism	A phylisophy which identifies individualism and economic forces are the central causes of environmental destruction and calls for a more egalitarian social structure.
Ecosystem services	the role played by organisms in creating a healthy envrironment for human beings, from productions of oxygen to soil formation and maintenence of water quality
Ecosystem	A community of mixtures of plants, animals, and their physical, chemical, biological & atmopspheric environment, functioning togther as a relativley independent unit. It represents a complex dynamic recycling system, linking the biotic and abiotic worlds
Edible landscapes	designed landscapes that produce food
Efficiency	A measure of output per unit of input. Eco efficiency means reducing resource consumption, pollution and waste.
Emobodied energy	The total energy required by all the activities associated with a production process, including all proportions consumed in all processes 'upstream' (to aquire, transport, process, manufacture and install a material or product)
Embodied energy cont.	In relation to the full life cycle of material or product, it would also include the energy required for maintenence and repair, as awell as the demolition and disposal and reuse, nd the share of energy used in making equipment nd other supportingfunction
Emissions trading	A market based system that allows firms (or other entites) to buy the pollution rights of less polluting entitites
End of pipe controls	Technologies used to minimise environmental pollution after it has been created. They are often criticised for not encouraging the prevention of pollution.
Energy	The enthalpy of fossie fuels and derivatives , or the enthalpy of the equivelent fossil fuel source.
Environmental audit	A means of assesing how well a buisness or building is meeting its environmental objectives
Environmental justice	Environmental impacts and other burdens of development are not equally distributed between rich and poor in most countries and between Noth and South globally. Environmental justice is an area of research that seeks to adress these issues.
Environmental Managment Systems (EMS)	An approach aimed at developing best practice for a companies managment of its environmental impacts.
Environmental Problematique	The team recognising that environmental problems require social, economic, and political as well as ecological responses.
Environmental services	non-marketed goods and services, such as the aesthetic and recreational services of old-growth forests or the health-sustaining properties of clean air.
Environmental space	The total amount of energy and resources (including land water and forests) that can be used sustainably, divided by the global population. It is a means of determining the fair share of resources for a country or individual.
Ergonomics	The science of designing equipment and products so as to reduce human fatigue and discomfort (human factors engineering)
Externalise	To pass on the environment and social costs of production and development to the public and future generations. (see internalise)
Externalities/Externality costs (or benefits)	The non-marketed, non compensated negative (or positive) consequences to third parties arising from the economic actions of others (eg the cost of river pollution that results from an industry upstream)
Feng Shui	The chinese system of aranging the built environment so that we can live more hamoniously with the environment.
Fleece Factor	The are of carpet and soft furnishings divided by the volume of the room. The fleece factor indicates the size of the reservoir of dust and chemicals which continuosly exchange with the air, leading to degraded air quality in enclosed spaces
Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)	A measure that adjusts GDP for a range of social and environmental factors, including income distribution, unpaid household and voluntary work, crime, pollution and resource depletion, in order to provide a better measure of progress.
Globalisation	The progress of colonisation by large corporations throughout the world; economies become increasingly dependent through flows of capital and trade and trans-border asset ownership
Green Consumerism	Consumption behaviours that minimise ecological and social impacts
Green Optimum	The idea of optimising the health and well being of the whole system in ways that do not make people worse off, or les equal, in contrast to the Pareto Optimum
Greenhouse Gas	Atmospheric gases which contribute to global warming as carbon dioxide, CFSc and Methane
Greens	An evnironmental movement which identifies industrial growth and ill-advised government policies as major causes of environment destruction, and seeks social change through greater ecological understanding and more sustainable practices.
Greywater	Refers to household water used for washing purposes, and not contaminated with sewage.
Gross Domestic Product GDP	The total value of all final goods and services produced within a nation over a given period, usually a year.
Hemp	The fibre of the canibis plant that can substitue for many materials made from timber
Incrementalism	The planning philosophy that believes large mistakes will be avoided be progressing towards a goal through small rather than large steps.
Indigenous design	Design which uses local materials and traditional methods of construction rather than the industrial processes or materials
Indirect Energy	The energy consumed in the provision of inputs of goods and services to a process.
Industrial Eco-system	Industrial systems which emulate natural ecosystems by, for example, making maximum use of recycled materials in new production, optimising use of materials and embedded energy and using 'wastes' as raw material for other processes.
Industrial metabolism	The rate which industry uses energy and produces waste
Inherent value	The idea that something has value apart from it usefullness to humans, the opposite of instrumental value.
Instrumentalism	The belief that things have value only to the extent that they contribute to human welfare.
Integrated pest managment	Pest managment approaches that place priority on non-chemical control measures to achieve maximum effect with minimum impact.
Life Cycle Assessment	An analysis that traces the impacts of materials and non material inputs to the product or system (eg equipment used in manufacturing and operating the system, and disposing or recycling at the end of the products life.
Life Cycle Cost Analysis	Looks at the cost over the full life of an asset.
Life Quality Indicators	Qualitative measures that can be used to understand and measure the health of natural and human systems.
Light Shelves	Reflective horrizontal window panels used to increase the amount of natural light in a building or space.
Linear Metabolism	Practice of allowing (urban or industrial) wastes to be created or disposed of in a manner which increases the use of resourcces, and in many cases does not support the functions of human and ecological systems.
Living Machines	A sequence of cyclinders containing ecological systems supporting micro-organisms that treat chemicals and wastes.
Material Flow Analysis	A whole system approach to sustainability auditing that goes beyond simple input-output models to map the stocks and flows of materials through urban, industrial or regional areas.
Natural Capital	Natural or environmental assets that can be exploited by economic activity
Natural Resource Managment	Environmental managment that focuses on regional areas as a whole, including mining, agricultural and industrial systems.
No Loop Systems	Products, industries, buildings, or cities designed such that vitrully no pollution or waste is created by the activity in the first place.
Offsets	Where there are tradable pollution rights, firms are sometimes allowed to expand their production by paying for reductions in emisions from facilities to cpmpensate (offset) their own emissions.
Old growth forest	Forest that is ecologically mature and has been subjected to negligible unnatural distrubance such as logging, mining road building and clearing.
Open system	A system which is not self-contained or that cannot be isolated from external influences
Operating Energy	The energy consumed in heating, cooling, lighting and otherwise living in a building (including construction)
Parabolic Louvres	Metal grids that help reduce glare from artificial lighting
Parameter Analysis	An approach that divdes the design process into three phases 'parameter identification' or (problem setting). 'creating synthesis' (or problem solving), and evaluation. Undestanding the model allows the designer the freedom to look at one stage at a time.
Pareto Optimum	The objective of making individuals or firms better off without making others worse off.
Permaculture	A system of design for sustainable and agriculturally productive landscapes and gardens based on the symbiotic diversity of natural ecosystems.
Perverse subsidies	Subsidies to industries that are hidden, which makes enrivonmentally harmful activities more economically feasable.
Performance Regulation	These specify a standard or certain criteria (eg a maximum amout of emissions or a product energy rating) and allow businesses or industries to meet these criteria They can provide incentive to develope efficient tech that save costs and compete better.
Plantation	Treed areas lacking most of the principal characteristics and key elements of native ecosystems resulting from planting, sowing or intensive silvicultural treatments
Playgardens	A creative play environment where the play structures are fully intergrated with the landscaping to encourage children to explore nature while developing physical and social skills.
Polluter pays princple	The idea that an industry can (in effect) pollute, as long as it pays compensation for the damage (eg through emissions charges, fines, tradable pollution rights) because industry will reduce pollution in order to save money or increase profits.
Post-industrial economy	A term to descirbe the nature of a fundamental cultural transition from a manufactoring to an urban office-based information economy, and the range of politicl, social, environmental and workplace changes that have accompanied this shift.
Primary Energy	the enthalpy or energy value of energy resources or flux sources in their natural state (for example, the enthalpy of raw coal or the energy value of wind or solar energy)
Primary Industry	Industry the utilises raw materials, like forestry, mining, energy production and agriculture
Pyramidal Design	Design that externalises the social costs of extraction, conversion, distribution of resources, and tends to concentrate land, material and energy in the interests of the powerful.
Quality of life	Refers to the total well-being which includes physical, mental, social and spiritual well being (not just material)
Rebound effect	Refers to the fact that a portion of the income saved through more efficient production is often spent on increased material consumption elsewhere
Rhizone	The woody underground portion of the plant from which both roots and shoots grow, Clumpers (sympodial) and runners (monopodial) have very different forms of rhizomes, which accounts for their very different growth habit.
Scenario Planning	A methodology that tries to analyse the consequences of alternative futures
Sick Building Syndrome	Illnesses caused by buildings, such as off-gassing of chemicals from synthetic furniture and building materials, air conditioning and so on. Not enough air changes per hour etc poor ventilation
Silt	A natural deposit formed from the disintergration of rock, which can be used as a binder, or natural cementing ages, in the construction of earch walls.
Sink effect	Where contaminants are absorbed into the material of soft furnishings.
Social ecology	A philos
Social Impact Assessment	An analysis that examines the social consequences of a proposed development
Social Sustainability	This reflects the relationship between cultural ethics, social norms and development. An activity is socialy sustainabe if it conforms with ethica values and social norms, or does not stretch them beyond a community's tolerance of change
Standard of Living	The measure of material living conditions and well-being. Standard of living is usually measured as per capita GDP, and a rising standard of living is equated with economic growth
Suburban Sprawl	undifferentiated, low-rise urband development, typically lacking any obvious focuss except shopping centres and highly dependent on long distance machine transportations
Sustainability	The ability for future generations to achieve the same level of natural, social, and cultural resources enjoyed by the current generation.
Sustainable development	Development that does not interfere with the functioning critial ecological process and life support systems.
SWOT Analysis	A group planning process for identifying 'strenghts. weaknesses, opportunities and threats' with the aim of developing stratergies (strenghts and weaknesses refer to internal factors, opportunities and threats refer to external influences.
Symbiotic	A mutually beneficial association between members of the same species.
Synergy	Where elements acting in combination produce an effect greater than the sum of the parts or has an unexpected or enhanced effect
Techno-addiction	A non rational attraction to or reliance on technology
Technology	All of the products of design ranging from very simple artefacts such as toothpicks or shoes, to complex networks of systems, such as nationwide electrical powere distribution systems.
Termite Barrier	A method of termite control that relies of a physical barrier, such as stainless steel mesh or a graded stone that prevents termites gaining access to wooden structures.
Termite colony nest	A centrl location of the queen and nurseries for a termite colony
Thermal Mass	The potential heat storage capacity of a material
Thermodynamics (first law)	Material conservation; a process (eg combustion) that has the same amount of materials before and after the chemical reaction.
Thermodynamics (second law)	Entropy or the degradation of energy from a concentrated form to a less concentrated form.
Tradeable pollution rigths	Rights to trade the difference between a pollution standard and the pollution allowed by exisiting laws.
Transparent Process	A popular term with policy makers, implying that the steps and method used in a process are made clear to the public
Tyranny of small decisions	The aggregate negative effect of large numbers of apparently innocuous small decsions, especailly as applied to planning.
Urban consolidation	Higher density urban form achieved by ;filling in the gaps; in the exisiting build form, seen as an opportunity to reduce the ecological footprint or urbanisation while enhancing social interaction.
Urban decitralisation	The distribution of the population into small self suffiecient communities as opposed to urban consolidation
Urban metabolism	Refers to the material and energy inputs needed to meet the demands of living and non-living components of urban systems, and waste material and energy outputs.
Urban villiage	Small urban communities that are considered to rude the environmental impact of urban development, through mixed land uses, urban design and shared facilities.
Urbanisation	The shift of population from rural to urban areas.
User Pays	Where the public pays a charge to use resources, such as fees to enter parks or for fishing licences.
Utilitarian	Designed for function and usefullness rather than aesthetics
Utilitarianism	A philosphy best known for the idea that the public decisions should be based on the greatest good for the greatest number.
Waste	Anything which, from a particular perspective and point in time, is no longer seen as usefull to some set of practices. Something that might be considered waste from one perspective or at one time, may be considered useful from another perspective or time
Western model of development	A development charactercised by industry and systems of production based on fossil fuels and high energy and mateial input (as opposed to a carbohydrate economy)
White noise	A mixture of noise of all frequencies, in the same way that white light is a mixture of all frequencies. White noise can be used to control and reduce the impact of ambient noise
Worker productivity	The term used to identify worker output measured by things like worker absenteeism
Xenobiotic chemical	Human made chemcials

Created by: Maddie Alice

"Know" box contains:
Time elapsed:
Retries: