Prof. Dr. Tawfiq Abbas Abdoun
Karbala University / College of Administration and Economics / Department of Economics
The concept of sustainability appeared in the seventies of the last century, and it may mean prolonged time, durability and stability, and it involves exploring the external environment for opportunities, changes, trends and risks related to it, as well as achieving a balance between the economic, social and environmental fields.
In other words, it focuses on preserving biological diversity so that human activity does not drive living organisms to extinction and deprive future generations of seeing them. It also focuses on protecting the provision of drinking water in the future and reducing waste in general and the uses of plastic in particular.
There are several reasons for caring about environmental sustainability, as follows:
1- Reducing hazardous emissions and managing waste that increases the pollution problem due to the expansion of industrial activities.
2- Reducing resource depletion and environmental degradation.
3- Promoting important values to define consumption standards within environmentally reasonable limits, as everyone needs them to achieve a fair distribution of natural resources between different generations.
4- An unprecedented loss of biodiversity, and thus the habitats of living organisms are exposed to pollution and destruction, as many species of living organisms become extinct, and the accumulation of pollutants Resulting from economic activities reduces the ability of ecosystems to regenerate, making the impact on humans in addition to plants and animals.
Its objectives are:
A- Achieving a balance between available resources and basic needs.
b- Expanding the use of renewable resources and reducing non-renewable resources.
C – the use of modern technology to reduce pollution.
D – the need to build a balanced relationship between human activities and the environment and the need to consider natural systems as the basis of human life.
The environmental sustainability indicators are:
1- Awareness of environmental sustainability to encourage alternative and sustainable consumption patterns through advertising campaigns and awareness programs to make consumer behavior preserving the environment through green and environmentally friendly products.
2- Recycling of waste by using the damaged materials again to produce new materials close in quality to the original materials, thus reducing the cost and reducing the labor force used in manufacturing the material again.
There is another concept related to urban environmental sustainability, which is related to several axes, as follows:
1- Urban governance: It is that decision-making is as close as possible to citizens through decentralization. Many countries in South Africa have changed policies in line with constitutional changes to grant local governments the powers of planning, management and decision-making.
It requires the participation of the local community in planning, budgeting, basic services, crime prevention and disaster response. Many different countries have resorted to several policies, including facilitating women’s participation in urban decision-making. Information technology has also been used to enhance citizens’ participation in this governance and deepen dialogue between them and local authorities. .
2- The right to adequate housing: Adequate housing is an important component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and therefore governments have sought to provide an enabling environment to enhance this right, and this matter is very important to enhance the guarantee of a safe life, and to replace forced and arbitrary evictions through negotiation frameworks that adopt To provide affordable and well-located land so that it can become a human settlement for the poor.
Therefore, all parties must participate to provide the appropriate conditions to achieve this goal and apply the best standards for housing and support civil society organizations, as well as international measures.
3- Basic urban services: related to the provision of water, sanitation, waste management, and transportation, which are still out of reach in many developing countries, resulting in poor water quality, environmental pollution, and the growth of slums, as well as low-income settlements with minimal infrastructure and basic services, which necessitates Reducing the disparity between services provided to urban areas and those provided to informal settlements, as well as the qualitative disparity between sanitation and waste disposal facilities on the one hand and water supply on the other hand, and the continued neglect of inadequate transportation services in cities.
It is also necessary to direct future policies and investments towards reforms that are realistic in terms of cost and to rehabilitate existing infrastructure and services before adding new ones.
4- Sustainable environmental urbanization: The sustainable development of human settlements is closely linked to land conditions, and therefore it is necessary to focus on good planning and efficient management of land outside urban boundaries, which can affect both urban and rural areas. Desertification results in environmental refugees, who have no alternative. Except for migration to the city, and achieving sustainable urbanization is related to rural areas through the optimal use of productive lands in urban and rural areas, protecting ecosystems by rationalizing land uses and management, and employing land needs to serve productive economic sectors such as agriculture, industry, transportation, urban development, green aids and protected areas.
5- The coastal urban environment and the phenomenon of global warming: The phenomenon of global warming causes many countries to lose the ability to achieve sustainable nutrition for their populations and the sustainability of their lands due to their limited ability to adapt to the potentially dangerous changes of this phenomenon at the level of climate, land uses, agriculture, and the rise in sea and ocean water levels and public health. .
This phenomenon faces several challenges, represented by the lack of scientific research dealing with this phenomenon and its effects on urban development, with the need to preserve environmental and urban sustainability.
Sources:
Prof. Dr. Ghani Dahham Al-Zubaidi, Muhammad Falih Hamza, Achieving Environmental Sustainability According to Green Human Resource Management Practices, Journal of the Baghdad University College of Economic Sciences, Issue (63), 2021, pp. 82-84.
Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), Urban Environmental Sustainability with Special Focus on Housing, Land and Security of Tenure (A Regional Perspective), United Nations, New York, 2001, separate pages.
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