--- title: Sustainability & Policy description: This subject examines the laws, regulations, and economic frameworks used to address environmental degradation. Learners will understand how governments and organizations design, implement, and evaluate policies to promote sustainable development and resource conservation. category: sciences subcategory: earth-and-environmental-science difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/sustainability-and-policy --- # Sustainability & Policy This subject examines the laws, regulations, and economic frameworks used to address environmental degradation. Learners will understand how governments and organizations design, implement, and evaluate policies to promote sustainable development and resource conservation. ## Available Resources 1 Books • 6 Courses • 5 Websites ## Websites ### 1. Stockholm Resilience Centre Research centre at Stockholm University publishing work on social-ecological systems, including the planetary boundaries framework. The site hosts research summaries, data visualisations, and policy briefs explaining how ecosystem thresholds constrain economic and governance decisions. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.stockholmresilience.org/ **Tags:** planetary-boundaries, resilience, environmental-policy, social-ecological-systems ### 2. drawdown.org Drawdown.org is a hub of evidence-based climate solutions from Project Drawdown. It features profiles and data on 100+ solutions across sectors (energy, land, food, buildings, and more), plus interactive tools, case studies, and policy guidance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://drawdown.org **Tags:** websites, science-research, earth-science ### 3. iisd.org The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is a global think tank focused on sustainable development policy, climate, energy, trade, and governance. Its website offers research reports, policy briefs, data tools, news, events, and practical resources for policymakers and researchers. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://iisd.org **Tags:** websites, science-research, earth-science ### 4. wri.org World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global environmental policy research organization that offers data-driven analysis, reports, and interactive tools on climate, energy, forests, water, and sustainable development to inform policy and business decisions. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://wri.org **Tags:** websites, science-research, climate-action ### 5. ipcc.ch Official site of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, publishing authoritative climate science assessments and policy-relevant summaries. It hosts Assessment Reports and Working Group contributions, Summaries for Policymakers, methodological guidance, data resources, and news. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://ipcc.ch **Tags:** websites, science-research, climate-action ## Courses ### 1. Introduction to Sustainability This course introduces the academic approach of Sustainability and explores how today’s human societies can endure in the face of global change, ecosystem degradation and resource limitations. The course focuses on key knowledge areas of sustainability theory and practice, including population, ecosystems, global change, energy, agriculture, water, environmental economics and policy, ethics, and cultural history. This subject is of vital importance, seeking as it does to uncover the principles of the long-term welfare of all the peoples of the planet. As sustainability is a cross-disciplinary field of study, this foundation requires intellectual breadth: as I describe it in the class text, understanding our motivations requires the humanities, measuring the challenges of sustainability requires knowledge of the sciences (both natural and social), and building solutions requires technical insight into systems (such as provided by engineering, planning, and management). **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/sustainability **Tags:** sustainability, environmental-policy, ecosystems, environmental-economics ### 2. Global Environmental Management **Author:** Henrik Bregnhøj, Steffen Foss Hansen Technical University of Denmark course on global environmental trends and how environments are managed, with cases from Greenland, China and Denmark. Covers water supply, wastewater and solid waste, stormwater, soil management, groundwater protection and integrated water resources management, comparing management approaches. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/global-environmental-management **Tags:** environmental-management, water-resources, waste-management, groundwater-protection, sustainable-development ### 3. Sustainable Development Goals – A global, transdisciplinary vision for the future In 2015, the UN launched the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Adopted by 193 member states, the goals represent an important international step in setting humanity on a trajectory towards sustainable development. Within this course, you will get a historical overview of how sustainability has been understood, as well as a thorough introduction to the SDGs – what they are, how progress can be measured, and how the SDGs are relevant for the management of the global systems supporting humanity. The course will examine how various societal actors are responding to and implementing the SDGs. While all of the SDGs are essential to sustainable development, SDG 13, Climate Action, is usually perceived as the most urgent in terms of the need for a swift implementation on a global scale. Therefore, particular focus is given to this SDG. Through the course, you will gain up-to-date knowledge of the current understanding of human impacts on the Earth at the planetary level. Progress towards establishing global management of human interactions with the climate system within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is also discussed. The course is designed and taught by Professor Katherine Richardson, who is a member of the 15-person panel appointed by the UN General Secretary in 2016 to write the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report. In each lecture, Katherine interviews experts who provide insights relevant to the topic at hand. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/global-sustainable-development **Tags:** sustainable-development, sdgs, climate-policy, planetary-boundaries, global-governance ### 4. Climate Solutions **Author:** Dave Reay, Galina Toteva, Mike Robinson University of Edinburgh course on responding to climate change: the carbon cycle and emission sources, 1.5-degree and net-zero targets, mitigation versus adaptation, climate justice, and national policy agreements. Learners finish able to weigh policy options and estimate their own carbon footprint. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/climate-solutions **Tags:** climate-change, climate-policy, mitigation, adaptation, net-zero, climate-justice ### 5. Sustainability University of Illinois course covering the tools sustainability consultants use, including life cycle analysis, footprinting, ESG reporting and LEED standards. You will finish able to read an LCA report critically and apply life-cycle thinking to a supply chain. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/sustainability-consulting **Tags:** courses, science-research, earth-science ### 6. The Great Sustainability Transition: Global Challenges, Local Actions **Author:** Paul Behrens, Thijs Bosker Leiden University introductory course covering biodiversity loss, climate breakdown, pollution and the systemic barriers to sustainability transitions, pairing lectures with local assignments such as citizen-science observation, so learners can connect planetary boundaries to practical community-level action. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/sustainability-global-challenges-and-local-actions **Tags:** sustainability-transitions, planetary-boundaries, biodiversity, pollution, collective-action ## Books ### 1. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming **Author:** Paul Hawken Project Drawdown's catalogue of 100 climate solutions, from refrigerant management and reduced food waste to onshore wind, each ranked by modeled emissions reduction and cost. Readers learn which technologies and practices could reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases most by 2050. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0141988436?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, science-research, climate-action --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/sustainability-and-policy