What does sustainable development mean for the United States? How are the principles and strategies essentially designed for the developing world applicable to the United States? Those are the very questions tackled in the comprehensive new volume, Agenda for a Sustainable America, published by Island Press (2009).
Edited by John C. Derbach and featuring articles from a powerhouse team of forty environmental law and policy experts, scientists, public health experts, and leaders from business and government, Agenda for a Sustainable America examines trends in 28 areas of American life and evaluates recent U.S. performance from a sustainability perspective. Beyond providing a report card across the metrics of sustainability in the U.S., the book also provides a valuable roadmap for sustainability for the next 5 to 10 years.
In Agenda for a Sustainable America, Derbach and company suggest that the U.S. has, in fact, made significant progress in at least six areas: local governance, brownfields redevelopment, business and industry, higher education, K-12 education, and religious organization. But the authors also suggest we have a long way to go:
“All of that said, the United States is not on the verge of actually becoming sustainable. Far from it. Since 2002, we have most often moved in the wrong direction—toward greater consumption of energy, materials, land, and other resources, and more negative environmental impacts, with damaging social, economic, and security consequences. But we are at least reaching a point where decisionmakers understand issues within a sustainability framework, and understand why that perspective is both attractive and necessary.”
The book’s systematic treatment of particular areas of sustainability—and plans of action to address those areas—is in the tradition of the bookends of the sustainability literature, such as, the UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development report, Our Common Future, which, in 1987, laid out what is perhaps the most accepted definition of sustainability to date, and; the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which produced a group of principles called the Rio Declaration and a sustainability action plan called Agenda 21.
From policymakers, business leaders and NGOs, to students in law and graduate programs, the broad scope and forward-looking tone of Agenda for a Sustainable America would make it a valuable addition to the bookcases of nearly anyone interested in sustainability.
About Timothy B. Hurst
