4 Making it happen – sustainability in practice

4.1 Three approaches to global environmental change

How many ordinary people know that sustainability is the concept that is meant to save the world? How many people who believe in the concept are convinced that it can capture the public imagination? The answer to both questions is ‘not many’. It is easy to lay the charge that the idea has been much talked about in some closed circles, but has no purchase on the public imagination and is little practised. This section takes the three different approaches to global environmental change described in Section 2, and offers examples of how their visions have been put into practice. These are intended as no more than sketches but by the end of this free course you will be in a good position to weigh up the claims of the different camps to have found routes to sustainability.