Sustainable Living and Innovation System Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Sustainable Living and Innovation System. Answer: Introduction Often, people describe sustainable living as requiring long-term and joint outlook by the community that integrates economic, environmental, and social objectives(Livermore, 2012). Currently, the contribution of the private sector is through innovation which comes from the development and the better use of the environment, and eco-efficiently to provide and produce services and goods and create wealth and employment(Livermore, 2012). Extending and delivering this contribution beyond eco-efficiency relies upon innovation that is continuous, and which can be made possible through the application of better technologies and effective design. This literature review paper discusses aspects of sustainable living and innovations that can ensure sustainability. According to (Hautamki, 2010), sustainability is defined as the study of the function, diversification, and the production of what is needed by the natural system to keep ecology at a balance. Sustainability acknowledges that civilization of the human beings utilizes resources to sustain the contemporary way of life. (Likhotal, 2014) argues that in the history of human civilization, there are several instances where civilization has adversely affected its chances of survival by damaging its own environment. Sustainability is concerned with how human beings can coexist in harmony with their own surrounding through the protection of the environment from destructions and damages. Sustainable living refers to the process of reducing the natural resources demand by ensuring that one replaces what is used to the best of ones ability(Christa Lidtke, 2012). In some instances, it means not settling on consuming a product or service which has been produced through methodologies that do not support sustainability. In some situations, it means changing how an individual do thigs so that one can take an active role of the life cycle. Currently, human beings live in a highly modernized world and mostly in urban setting, especially in developed countries, and as result, there is a very high rate of consumption of the natural resources. In most of urban centers power is consumed more as compared to rural areas(Livermore, 2012). Whereas the power that is consumed urban areas is more than average. This power is utilized mostly to power appliances, lighting streets, heating homes, and other household activities. However, that does not mean that sustainable living only focuse s on individuals who resides in urban areas. This is because there are efforts to make improvements in every corner of the world. On average, it is estimated that people in urban areas uses every year more than 40% resources than what they can replace(Courvisanos, 2012). Sustainable living and sustainability focuses on striking a balance between competing needs, which include the economic needs, environmental needs and the social needs. Sustainability does not focus only on the environment, but also about the health of individuals in a given society. It ensures that no life or a person should suffer as a consequence of environmental legislations. Sustainability analyses the long-term consequences human actions and seeking solutions on how it can be increased. The World Summit on Social Development in 2005, identified three main aspects that makes up the social science Social science of sustainable living. In several certification schemes and standards of majority of the countries, these aspects form a foundation for handling the key areas that are faced with the world(The General Assembly, 2005). According to the Commission of Butland, sustainable living is described as the living or development which is able to meet the present needs without comprising the need of the future generation. Therefore, there is the need to consider the future, when making our decisions about the present(The General Assembly, 2005). This study discusses economic and environmental protection as the two core aspects of sustainable living. Economic Sustainability Economic aspect among the political class continue to be a challenging issue. This is because politically, people continues to disagree on what is economically sound and what is not, and how it influences the businesses and to some extent, the employability. It is concerned with also providing businesses with incentives to help them adhere to the guidelines of the sustainability which stretches beyond the businesses normal legislation threshold. It entails also encouraging and availing incentives for an average individual to continue engaging in sustainable living where they can(John C. V. Pezzey, 2002). The economic sustainability works with assumption that individual as own may not be able to achieve much, however, when they are working collectively, they can be able to achieve a lot together. The market of supply and demand in nature is consumerist. Also in each day, the modern lifestyles need a lot of resources(Courvisanos, 2012). For the environments sake, the most important iss ue is to get under control all that is consumed by people. Economic sustainability is concerned with providing people what they require without necessarily compromising the life quality, more so in the developing economies, and decreasing the financial load by doing the right thing. Majority of people are quite aware of what they can do to manage and conserve environment. Environmental protection entails recycling of waste products, decreasing power consumption by powering of electronic devices that are not in use, not taking buses for walkable distances, and other measures(Ram Chhavi Sharma, 2017). Enterprises are regulated to keep their carbon emissions low and to prevent them from polluting the environment. Most developed countries provide incentives to individuals and businesses which install renewable power sources. As an aspect of sustainable living, environmental protection is considered by many as a major concern of the humanitys future. Environmental protection defines how people should study and protect air quality, ecosystems, sustainability and integrity of their resources by focusing on areas that strains the environment. It is also concerned on how the green future will be driven by the technology. According to EPA, the development of biotechnology and technology is key to the environmental sustainability(Ram Chhavi Sharma, 2017). At such, there is need to protect the future of the environment from the possible dangers that may be brought as a result of technological advancement. Sustainable Living and Innovation Since the times of Industrial Revolution, organizations have continued to apply technology as a driver of progress. This brought the opportunity to utilize the physical world for the benefit of human generation(Ronaldo MotaEmail, 2014). Innovation refers to successful implementation of new ideas. Innovation highly relies on technological advancements. However, technology has continuously availed the opportunities to sell new services and products in a much more safer and cleaner ways. Most of the current economic and social developments are as a consequence of new innovations and developments in fields such as energy supply, information processing, communication, and health sciences. Innovations delivers tailored solutions that are smarter to accomplish various tasks. Rather than being colossal in approach, the techniques are applied by responsive and dynamic networks of large and small, private and public firms, working in competition and together ways that were not never possible before. The opportunities are enormous and changes tremendous, however, it is becoming vivid that technological advancement is only a segment of attaining sustainability and that its impacts are positive always, as many people may think(Martin Charter, 2007). Additionally, other aspects that can support and drive progress are changing themselves and should be understood. For instance, the social categories that was well defined and upon which the post-war institutions of the Western were developed, does not fit anymore with the values and aspirations of the people(Courvisanos, 2012). Most of the developed economies are experiencing a movement towards a diverse Mosaic Society which is increasingly becoming a multidimensional with needs that are uncertain. However, these societies are becoming more concerned with numerous subjects which includes technology and science. Concurrently, irrespective of existence of higher impacts than at any other period in the history, majority of the global popu lation continues to be poor despite of the new innovations(Martin Charter, 2007). According to this population, the significance of the global markets and the social and economic importance of globalization are increasingly being doubted. Most of the researchers have offered visionary and persuasive ideas of enhanced sustainability and which can be achieved by clarifying the developments that have occurred in the recent past. To achieve sustainability through innovations, different major companies have designed their sustainable development approaches by applying and following some of the innovative principles as follows: By making sure that the corporate world understands what is expected from them by the society. This is expressed by the organization values. The organization then reinforces its values in styles that enforces the spirit of continuous improvement which stretches the organization. Through the development of approaches and tools to raise performance across the environmental, economic, and social aspects of sustainable living and to integrate these techniques within the daily operations of the enterprise. For the existing business processes and which are going through the normal process of business development, these principles are conjointly reinforced(Courvisanos, 2012). They give an effective and positive framework that organizations can apply in controlling the public mistrust and the impacts of the environment(John C. V. Pezzey, 2002). Unlike two decades ago, where majority of the firms based on regulatory requirements to measure their standards of performance, many companies today have decided to get beyond regulations. This is because they see the commercial essence of not basing their performance on regulations. They have established innovative practices in areas such as quality management, which have shown that adhering to sustainable principles goes hand in hand with the organizational development. References Christa Lidtke, M. J. W. H. R. J. N., 2012. LIVING LAB: user?driven innovation for sustainability. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 13(2), pp. 106-118. Courvisanos, J., 2012. Environment, Innovation and Sustainable Development: Introduction to an Interdisciplinary Approach. Journal of Innovation Economics, 2(1), pp. 3 - 10. Hautamki, A., 2010. Sustainable Innovation: A New Age of Innovation and Finlands Innovation Policy. 1 ed. Helski: Edita Prima Ltd. . John C. V. Pezzey, M. A. T., 2002. The Economics of Sustainability: A Review of Journal Articles, Washington, D.C: Resources for the Future. Likhotal, A., 2014. Environmental Acceptability as the driver of New Civilization. Cadmas, 2(2), pp. 24-34. Livermore, J., 2012. Simple, Sustainable Living: An Illustrated Journal, s.l.: Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. Martin Charter, T. C., 2007. Sustainable Innovation. 1 ed. Farnham, UK: University College for the Creative Arts. Ram Chhavi Sharma, N. S., 2017. Influence of Oxides of Nitrogen, Carbon Monoxide and Sulpher Dioxide on Surface Ozone Level in Different Meteorological Seasons in Haryana State, Northern India. American Journal of Environmental Protection, 5(1), pp. 1-8. Ronaldo MotaEmail, J. F. O., 2014. Combining innovation and sustainability: an educational paradigm for human development on earth. Brazilian Journal of Science and Technology. The General Assembly, 2005. Resolution adopted by the General Assembly, s.l.: United Nation.