This book presents a novel way to enable people, regardless of their scale of influence, to take responsibility for global environmental problems including climate change. It introduces a new framework called Planetary Accounting, which allows the Planetary Boundaries, non-negotiable limits for the environment, to be translated into limits for human activity. It shows how such limits can be broken down into chunks that can be managed at different levels (from individual and community, to business and sector levels, to cities and regions), and at any level of government. The book begins by summarising the science of climate change and introducing the notion of the Anthropocene – the “human age”. It highlights the importance of returning to and remaining within the Planetary Boundaries but shows that we can’t realistically do so unless we have a new approach to environmental accounting. The book then outlines how Planetary Accounting furnishes this new approach by combining sustainability science, change theory, and environmental accounting to create a scalable framework for environmental management that encourages systemic and individual change. The details of the science of and our human contribution to ten critical human pressures are then presented, and the book concludes with a guide for those seeking to apply Planetary Accounting in practice. Planetary Accounting could form the scientific underpinning of behaviour change programs, guide the development of policy and regulations, and provide both the basis for environmental laws, and the foundation of future global environmental agreements. It has been 50 years since the first views from space showed a blue planet alone in our solar system. This book is an historic opportunity to provide humanity for the first time with sufficient information to begin implementing Planetary Accounting.

A timely and fascinating account of the revolution going on in the world of finance from the acclaimed author of Double Entry. This is the story of a twenty-first-century revolution being led by the most unlikely of rebels: accountants. Only the second revolution in accounting since double-entry bookkeeping began, it is of seismic proportions, driven by the 2008 financial crash and our ongoing environmental crisis. The changes it will wreak are profound and far-reaching and not only will transform the way the world does business but also will alter the nature of capitalism. While the wealth of nations and corporations has been vital to the global economy, increasingly the world is coming to realize that such endless growth is limited by the earth's resources and comes at a huge price to the planet and to human well-being. It simply cannot be sustained. This revolution demands that we go beyond merely accounting for traditional financial and industrial capital and take account of the benefits and detriments to the natural world and society. It urges us to include four new categories of wealth: intellectual (such as intellectual property), human (skills, productivity, and health), social and relationship (shared norms and values), and natural (environment). Making them part of our financial statements and GDP figures may be the only way to address the many calamities we face. Just two years ago this revolution seemed idealistic and unlikely. Today it is quickly unfolding. In 2012, the sea-change year, two key initiatives took root: an international movement to transform how corporate accounting is calculated and the rise of incorporating the effects on the environment to the accounting of national and global economies. Six Capitals tells the story of this coming new age in capitalism, evaluating its promise and the disaster that lies ahead if it is not implemented.

This book asks, how would a stable, prosperous economy of the future look if one started with a blank sheet of paper? Given that the world’s economy is locked into a coevolution with nature, the urgency of this question is brought into stark relief by the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and ongoing climate change. While physical technologies to build such an economy mostly exist, the social technologies, in the form of institutions, governance and policies, do not. The development of these social technologies will necessitate a reconsideration of economic norms: in particular, what is the economy for, and what are we, as actors within it, striving for? This book integrates normative, institutional, political and economic requirements into a systematic framework to drive our present growth economy toward a future planetarian one. It outlines a suite of interrelated policies to increase the economy’s material efficiency, establish a basic living standard, and reform the money system, while along the way eliminating economic debt and balancing government budgets. The framework and policies together form a paradigm of market planetarianism: the idea that the power of markets may be used to steer the economy toward a desired long-term goal. The methodological aspects of this paradigm are covered in the companion volume, Economics of a Crowded Planet.

For decades now, organizations have been struggling to find the best way to address their social and environmental responsibilities alongside their economic obligations. In other words, they want to know how best to effectively manage their operations based on a triple bottom line (3BL)--one that reflects social, environmental, and economic performance. Recently, an international standard for integrated reporting has emerged that in principle emphasizes the importance of managing toward a triple bottom line. But it fails to provide specific guidance on how to do so. Organizations have been left to their own devices to respond. How should 3BL management actually be done? In this book, sustainability and performance experts Martin Thomas and Mark McElroy introduce the world's most advanced 3BL performance accounting methodology: The MultiCapital Scorecard. It is the first context-based integrated measurement, management, and reporting system. And, it can help corporations, public institutions, and other organizations answer the question they should be asking themselves for every aspect of their operations: "How much is enough for us to be sustainable?" The answers set internal performance standards against which operations and their impacts can be measured. Nothing less will do! The MultiCapital Scorecard describes this open-source methodology, which consists of a structured, quantitative measurement and reporting system that complies with international standards for 3BL integrated measurement and reporting. Moreover, the MultiCapital Scorecard is designed to help organizations assess their own 3BL performance in their own contexts with context-based metrics of their own choosing. An eminently practical management aid for integrated thinking, it can be tailored to any organization's needs. The authors also describe how and why businesses are gradually shifting from managing impacts on only one type of capital (economic) to managing impacts on multiple types. They also provide detailed examples of worked reports, showing how organizations might develop and quantify the interim and long-term goals to meet their obligations to their employees, community, shareholders, and the environment. The examples also show how an organization can use the Multicapital Scorecard methodology to assess their progress in meeting those goals, and convey that progress to their stakeholders.

This book proposes a paradigm shift in how human and nonhuman well-being are perceived and approached. In response to years of accelerated decline in the health of ecosystems and their inhabitants, this edited collection presents planetary well-being as a new cross-disciplinary concept to foster global transformation towards a more equal and inclusive framing of well-being. Throughout this edited volume, researchers across the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences apply and reflect on the concept of planetary well-being, showcasing its value as an interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral changemaker. The book explores the significance of planetary well-being as a theoretical and empirical concept in sustainability science and applies it to discipline-specific cases, including business, education, psychology, culture, and development. Interdisciplinary perspectives on topical global questions and processes underpin each chapter, from soil processes and ecosystem health to global inequalities and cultural transformation, in the framework of planetary well-being. The book will appeal to academics, researchers, and students in a broad range of disciplines including sustainability science, sustainable development, natural resources, and environmental humanities. Calling readers to assess, challenge, and rethink the dominant perceptions of well-being and societal activities, this rich resource that explores the interconnection between human and nonhuman well-being serves as a tool to foster transformative action towards a more sustainable society. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

A groundbreaking essay collection that pursues the rise of geoculture as an essential framework for arts criticism, The Planetary Turn shows how the planet—as a territory, a sociopolitical arena, a natural space of interaction for all earthly life, and an artistic theme—is increasingly the conceptual and political dimension in which twenty-first-century writers and artists picture themselves and their work. In an introduction that comprehensively defines the planetary model of art, culture, and cultural-aesthetic interpretation, the editors explain how the living planet is emerging as distinct from older concepts of globalization, cosmopolitanism, and environmentalism and is becoming a new ground for exciting work in contemporary literature, visual and media arts, and social humanities. Written by internationally recognized scholars, the twelve essays that follow illustrate the unfolding of a new vision of potential planetary community that retools earlier models based on the nation-state or political “blocs” and reimagines cultural, political, aesthetic, and ethical relationships for the post–Cold War era.

Two issues are bothering the humanity at present. Firstly, the contemporary national and international scenarios in socioeconomic, political, ethnic, and cultural domains are throwing up many issues, problems, and challenges relating to development, environment, human rights, human security, communal harmony, peaceful coexistence among nations, and world peace and security. Secondly, existing global institutions are proving to be wanting in their structures and authorities in solving these problems. Alternatively, a new global independent organization with enforcing authority is needed to act upon and solve these issues. The need for replacement of UNO seems to be justified because of failure to solve global problems. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed revivals of proposals for world government that were fueled by positive developments, such as technological progress in travel and communications that enabled rapid economic globalization as well as negative developments such as the devastating impact of wars fought with modern technology. The author's approach of the formation of the world parliament is through proportional representation of nation's parliaments, thus avoids direct election process for its formation. All the nations and their people's representatives are involved in the formation of the World Parliament and the world government. Based on this line of thinking, the structure for a new federal world government and the new federal world constitution are presented in this book.

This handbook showcases the broad spectrum of diverse approaches to environmental accounting which have developed during the last 30 years across the globe. The volume covers a range of physical issues such as water, carbon and biodiversity, as well as specific accounting matters such as management control, finance and audit. Moreover, seven chapters present environmental accounting issues that arise in the regions of Africa, Asia, Europe, MENA, North America, the Pacific and South America. The handbook also highlights future challenges in all the topic areas addressed as well as introducing new topics, such as links between environmental accounting and the circular economy, and the issues associated with animal rights. Edited by leading scholars in the area and with key contributions from across the discipline, and covering a diverse range of perspectives and locations, the volume is divided into five key parts: • Part 1: Framing the issues • Part 2: Financial accounting and reporting • Part 3: Management accounting • Part 4: Global and local perspectives • Part 5: Thematic topics in environmental accounting This handbook will act as a significant publication in drawing together the history of the field and important reference points in its future development, and will serve as a vital resource for students and scholars of environmental accounting and environmental economics.

The Routledge International Handbook of Valuation and Society builds on the growing research interest in practices of valuation throughout contemporary society, providing an up-to-date overview of the different facets of research in the sociology of valuation. The handbook is divided into five major sections with attention to the treatment of valuation in major areas of sociological theory, as well as its key concepts, discourses, and approaches: Part I: Theoretical perspectives Part II: Central valuation practices in societal spheres Part III: Cross-cutting valuation practices Part IV: Valuation and societal change Part V: Reflections Together, the chapters in this book characterize distinctive practices of valuation across different societal spheres, such as education and science, arts and culture, economic life, the environment or digital culture and social media. They also examine the role of valuation in contemporary society and consider the ways it effects social change. This seminal handbook aims at taking stock of the development of the study of valuation with a selection of topics that are important for understanding core perspectives and developments as well as anticipating its future orientation. It will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interest in the ubiquity of the valuation practices and its effects on social life.

Smart Cities and Artificial Intelligence offers a comprehensive view of how cities are evolving as smart ecosystems through the convergence of technologies incorporating machine learning and neural network capabilities, geospatial intelligence, data analytics and visualization, sensors, and smart connected objects. These recent advances in AI move us closer to developing urban operating systems that simulate human, machine, and environmental patterns from transportation infrastructure to communication networks. Exploring cities as real-time, living, dynamic systems, and providing tools and formats including generative design and living lab models that support cities to become self-regulating, this book provides readers with a conceptual and practical knowledge base to grasp and apply the key principles required in the planning, design, and operations of smart cities. Smart Cities and Artificial Intelligence brings a multidisciplinary, integrated approach, examining how the digital and physical worlds are converging, and how a new combination of human and machine intelligence is transforming the experience of the urban environment. It presents a fresh holistic understanding of smart cities through an interconnected stream of theory, planning and design methodologies, system architecture, and the application of smart city functions, with the ultimate purpose of making cities more liveable, sustainable, and self-sufficient. Explores concepts in smart city design and development and the transformation of cities through the convergence of human, machine, and natural systems enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI) Includes numerous diagrams to illustrate and explain complex smart city systems and solutions Features diverse smart city examples and initiatives from around the globe