An urban approach to planetary boundaries

• Published in: Ambio Vol. 45; no. 5; pp. 567 - 580
• Main Authors: Hoornweg, Daniel, Hosseini, Mehdi, Kennedy, Christopher, Behdadi, Azin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer 01.09.2016; Springer Netherlands; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences; Biophysical Phenomena; Biosphere; Boundaries; Brazil; China; Cities; Climate change; Conservation of Natural Resources - economics; Conservation of Natural Resources - methods; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecology; Emission standards; Emissions; Energy consumption; Environment; Environmental Engineering/Biotechnology; Environmental Management; Environmental monitoring; Environmental Monitoring - economics; Environmental Monitoring - methods; freshwater; GDP; Greenhouse gases; Gross Domestic Product; India; infrastructure; monitoring; Physical Geography; Socioeconomic Factors; socioeconomics; Sustainability; Sustainable development; Urbanization; Urbanization - trends; ISW, India, Maharashtra, Greater Mumbai Dist., Mumbai; Senegal, Dakar; Canada, Ontario, Toronto; China, People's Rep., Shanghai; Brazil, Sao Paulo; Brazil; China; India; Urbanization; Planetary boundaries; Bio-physical and socio-economic limits; Cities; Sustainability
• DOI: 10.1007/s13280-016-0764-y
• ISSN: 0044-7447; 1654-7209

The achievement of global sustainable development goals subject to planetary boundaries will mostly be determined by cities as they drive cultures, economies, material use, and waste generation. Locally relevant, applied and quantitative methodologies are critical to capture the complexity of urban infrastructure systems, global inter-connections, and to monitor local and global progress toward sustainability. An urban monitoring (and communications) tool is presented here illustrating that a city-based approach to sustainable development is possible. Following efforts to define and quantify safe planetary boundaries in areas such as climate change, biosphere integrity, and freshwater use, this paper modifies the methodology to propose boundaries from a city's perspective. Socio-economic boundaries, or targets, largely derived from the Sustainable Development Goals are added to bio-physical boundaries. Issues such as data availability, city priorities, and ease of implementation are considered. The framework is trialed for Toronto, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Mumbai, and Dakar, as well as aggregated for the world's larger cities. The methodology provides an important tool for cities to play a more fulsome and active role in global sustainable development.