Sustainable Scenarios of Energy and Ecological Footprint

Dear Colleagues,

The famous baseballer–philosopher Yogi Berra once said: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

We now possess an abundance of scientific literature articulating the various ways in which human activities can be shown to be unsustainable. Ecological Footprint analysis is one method to compare human consumption patterns with our environment’s biocapacity to produce food, fibre and forest products and to assimilate the carbon emissions resulting from fossil fuel combustion. People in different nations, cultures and communities consume goods and energy at different rates, relative to local and global biocapacities, and the combined global ‘footprint’ of our species greatly exceeds the carrying capacity of the planet. We understand the potentially catastrophic impacts on our life support systems (including climate, soils, oceans and ecosystems) if we continue to grow our human population and activity. In short, we have an increasingly clear— and disturbing—vision of where we should not be going.

Now, as the world emerges from the immense disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, what we desperately need is a clearer vision of where we should be going. We understand that we live on a finite planet with a large—but ultimately limited—capacity to sustain ongoing yields of renewable energy, food, forest and fibre products. However, currently unresolved questions in the scientific literature, which should be central to our future vision as a species, include:

• What is a safe and sustainable level for the human population?
• What level of per-capita energy consumption can be sustainably and regeneratively supplied from renewable sources?
• What dietary patterns are consistent with a sustainable future that leaves room for nature?
• How can our social and economic structures facilitate the necessary transitions from unsustainable growth to regenerative futures?

To help guide our vision, we require scenarios of desirable futures that are compatible with the finite world in which we live. This is the purpose of the forthcoming Special Issue in Sustainability, titled "Sustainable Scenarios of Energy and Ecological Footprints".

This Special Issue will focus on tangible scenarios, which may be quantitative (e.g., based on modelling) and/or qualitative (e.g., based on narratives). Perspectives on sustainable futures are particularly encouraged from First Nations people and from people living in the Global South. The intent of the Special Issue is to help us understand how future human civilisations may be functionally different from the unsustainable present-day examples and what these may look like.

There are numerous ways to formulate such future scenarios, and therefore, the scope for this Special Issue is broad and multi-disciplinary. Articles are sought from topics including, but not limited to:

• System dynamics (e.g., integrated environment/social/economic system simulation);
• Ecological economics (e.g., degrowth and steady-state economic paradigms);
• Renewable energy (e.g., future energy transitions);
• Ecological footprint analysis (e.g., sustainable diets, food and forest systems);
• Geospatial modelling (e.g., sustainable landscape forms);
• Social science (e.g., sustainable behaviour and communities).

The articles in this Special Issue will complement the growing body of literature on unsustainable human activity. In short, these scenarios should collectively help to inform a more hopeful vision of where we should be going.

Dr. James Hopeward
Prof. Dr. Paul C. Sutton
Dr. Keri Hopeward
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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• future scenarios
• sustainable systems
• regenerative
• footprint
• energy