UNESCO UNESCO Desire – Net projectDesire – Net project

Sustainable DevelopmentSustainable Development

Pietro LamendolaPietro Lamendola

lamendola@casaccia.enea.itlamendola@casaccia.enea.it

UNESCOUNESCORome, 2006 12 JuneRome, 2006 12 June

WHAT DOES SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT MEAN?

• The expression “sustainable development” comes from the political language, from social sciences and economics

• It is often used by mass media

• Availability for all inhabitants of sufficient and complete feeding

• Access to water for drinking, hygiene, agriculture, and other uses, being sufficient quality and quantity for everybody

• Availability of houses, in order to ensure a suitable microclimate for human life, even where the environment is unfriendly

• Opportunity for all young people to learn and reach the necessary knowledge about the natural and social environment where they will be live in

• Capacity to prevent, to treat illness, through sanitation and diffusion of knowledge, skills, and therapeutic means

• Capability to move people and goods in security, conveniently, and in time according to the available technologies

• Availability of energy in sufficient quantity and quality, in order to achieve the above mentioned goals

STATISTICAL DATA

• Food calories and nutrients used per day by population

• Cubic meters of water of several typologies, being available for each inhabitant per year, and related homogeneity of distribution

STATISTICAL DATA

• Calories and electrical kW/h per year to use for needs regarding living standards

• Average longevity of population, diffusion of specific pathologies connected to sanitary deficiency and living condition; statistical data on child and maternal mortality

Other factors of development are those concerning the relationship and culture:

• Availability of free time • Artistic cultural and recreational activities • Sport and physical activities • Free participation in administration and the

collective organisation • Equality of rights and duties• Information and diffusion of ideas and culture

THE “ENVIRONMENTAL” POINT OF VIEW

• An opposite ideologically attitude is the one considering in a negative way every human action which modifies the natural environment where the community live

• This is, in fact, more a trend than a principle

THE “ENVIRONMENTAL” POINT OF VIEW

• Even without the presence of mankind, the environment has continuously and deeply changed for biological, geodynamic and astronomical causes, causing the extinctions and complete renewal of species

“HUMAN-CENTERED” APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT

• The perspective focusing on mankind uses the word “development” meaning a general improvement of living standards of the population of a country

• HOW DEVELOPMENT IS DEFINED AS “SUSTAINABLE”?

and

• WHAT IS THE ENERGY ROLE ?

• The “development” concept in the human-centered point of view, taking into account the needs of human community, considers acceptable all the changes made by human being in the environment and territory, if they are in order to improve living standards

SUSTAINABLE HUMAN ACTIVITIES

Some requirements of the so-called “sustainable” or “eco-efficient” activities are:

• Prevention of negative environmental behaviours;

• Reversibility of changes on the environment;

SUSTAINABLE HUMAN ACTIVITIES• The possibility of putting anew the materials

used in the technological processes in the environment at the end of the cycles;

• Multiple “cascade” use of materials and different forms of energy that deal with the process, with the aim of obtaining a decrease in the size of the transformations.