The Sustainability Project

By Various

A new series by Haus published from January - June 2009

e-Books now available   

www.haus-ebooks.com

Are we using the Earth’s resources wisely?

Is our natural environment in danger?

What do we have to do to secure our future on planet Earth?

The Sustainability Project presents twelve books facing up to the challenges posed by globalization offering practical solutions for the 21^st century.

Review from Pete Burden - Conscious Business

'Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.

For ages I have tried to get my head around sustainability. What a difficult and complex thing it is.

So it was great to hear of the launch of the Sustainability Project by Haus Publishing – the creation of twelve books written in an accessible way but based on scientific and other expert opinion.

It is a complex topic – so there is an introductory book then eleven others covering population, water, food, health, energy, the oceans, climate change, natural diversity, resources, economics, and politics.

You can see the whole list here and buy them as a set, or buy them individually.

Now that is what I call summer reading!'  __________________________________________________________________

Review from the School Library Journal ('SLJ' September 2009 edition):

A gift to sustainability science by German businessman and editor Wiegandt, the “Sustainability Project” (www.the-sustainability-project.com) is a 12-volume, 3000-page series (of which these four titles were submitted for review) initially published in Germany. The aim is to present current research on complex topics in a manner accessible to general readers while keeping content scientifically sound. The series succeeds, but by no means is it a walk in the park; Wiegandt makes no apologies, asking 12 leading experts to explore critical environmental, economic, and social pressure points that must be addressed in the next 30 years. A survey of some of its constituent titles suggests this set’s breadth: Our Threatened Oceans, Feeding the Planet, The Demise of Diversity, Overcrowded World?, Climate Change, and The New Plagues. The volumes are not numbered, but Jill Jäger’s Our Planet: How Much More Can Earth Take?, with its discussion of planetary “overshoot,” generally introduces the other titles, while Harald Müller’s take on future world governance in Building a New World Order: Sustainable Policies for the Future provides a fitting conclusion. The argument carried relatively uniformly through all 12 volumes—i.e., confront the dismal truth about conditions, then suggest possible courses of action—lends the set unity, as does the way project authors refer to one another’s work (an obvious method of linking the pieces together, a cumulative index, is lacking). Many of the solutions offered are practical and well known, e.g., label consumer products with metrics that will inform potential buyers of their real ecological cost and use less energy. Other recommendations are sensible but tough, e.g., “dematerialize” American society by a factor of ten within a few decades and make the knowledge presented here part of the educational curriculum from kindergarten through university. But one of Müller’s recommendations, though wished-for, seems downright contrary to (human) nature—his suggestion to outlaw war. Verdict Glossaries, graphics, and brief reading lists help to make the dauntingly comprehensive “Sustainability Project” palatable for advanced readers. While academic and large public libraries will no doubt want the entire set, smaller libraries could safely buy the relatively inexpensive individual titles on hot topics like climate change and water resources. _______________________________________________________________