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Can Better Accounting and Finance Methods Chart a Path toward a More Sustainable World System?
Citation:
Campbell, Dan, H. Walker, M. Mainelli, AND F. Pulselli. Can Better Accounting and Finance Methods Chart a Path toward a More Sustainable World System? Frontiers in Energy Research. Frontiers, Lausanne, Switzerland, , n/a, (2016).
Impact/Purpose:
This product responds to a request by Frontiers in Energy Research for a topic designed to solicit theoretical and empirical papers and discussion on how urban and rural systems in underdeveloped countries can be made more sustainable. This discussion will provide a larger systems context for work at the USEPA on urban sustainability and management with the city of Chicago as a focus. We expect documents published under this call to the global community of scientists to address the important topic of how the whole world can become more sustainable. Better knowledge of the global aspects of the sustainability question is key to the successful completion of our research on the sustainability and management of urban systems.
Description:
The Problem:Concerns about urbanization, climate change and the recognition that global fossil fuel resources are finite, provide important motivations for major environmental, economic and societal adjustments in the 21st century to achieve a more sustainable world. The developed countries of the world have made progress toward becoming more sustainable by increasing the efficiency of energy use, decreasing reliance on fossil fuel energy and increasing the use of renewable energy inflows for generating electricity. However, people living in the world’s underdeveloped countries still suffer from a lack of the basic amenities (e.g., clean water, clean air, adequate infrastructure, sufficient wealth, etc); things that those in the developed world take for granted. The truth is that no matter how successful the current strategies to make urban systems in the developed world more sustainable, the world as a whole will not become more sustainable without a successful effort to bring the state of development of the underdeveloped countries up to the standards experienced by those in the developed world. Thus, in the long run creating a more sustainable world system will be predicated on the judicious use of some of the world’s remaining fossil fuel resources to strategically develop the urban and rural systems of the world’s underdeveloped countries. The Opportunity: The world is emerging from the Great Recession (2008-2013), which was the greatest perturbation in resource use and economic activity since the Great Depression (1929-1939). As a result of the lingering effects of this slow down and the development of new technologies to extract tight oil and shale gas, fossil fuel production exceeds demand, globally, and as a result the price of oil is relatively low. Thus, the fossil fuel energy needed to support further development of the underdeveloped countries is available on the world markets now. What is lacking is a plan and the means to apply this readily useable fossil energy to the task of increasing the quality of development in urban and rural systems of the underdeveloped world. Research Needs: This Research Topic proposal calls for discussion and research on this problem through full length research papers, review papers, short communications, policy papers, and online discussions that will result in strategies for advancing development of the world’s underdeveloped urban and rural systems. Energy, economic and social restructuring in both the developed and underdeveloped countries may be needed to accomplish this end. New economic and noneconomic (e.g., emergy) methods and new approaches (e.g., Confidence accounting and Blockchain technology) for retrospective accounting and forward-looking finance are needed to relate the stocks and flows of energy, material, and information to environmental, economic and social outcomes. Research topics of interest include, but are not limited to:(1) New accounting and finance theories and methods(2) Methods to identify nations with acceptable economic, social and environmental returns on investment(3) Energy sector restructuring(4) Economic restructuring(5) Societal integration needed to prioritize “win – win” opportunities.
URLs/Downloads:
http://journal.frontiersin.org/researchtopic/5020/can-better-accounting-and-finance-methods-chart-a-path-toward-a-more-sustainable-world-system