About Sustainability…

• SDG10 and Beyond: Ensuring a Just Transition for All

  Join us on "About Sustainability," a podcast by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES). In this episode, we explore what the just transition means, tracing its roots back to labour movements of the 1970s and its evolution into international debates and sustainable frameworks. Our guests share innovative case studies that showcase how just transition principles are being implemented locally across the world, with a special focus on Asia. The conversation also explores the ongoing challenges and successes in implementing these principles in various contexts.SpeakersDr. So-Young LEE is a Research Manager at the Integrated Sustainability Center at IGES. Her work focuses on governance in sustainability transitions and climate social co-benefits for the underprivileged.Dwayne Appleby is a Programme Manager in the Sustainable Consumption and Production team at IGES. His work focuses on issues of sustainable consumption and production at the local, national, regional, and global levels.References & Further Reading:Lee, So-Young. “Net-Zero Transitions for All? Considering Applications in Asia”. (2023). Ashish Kothari, Ariel Salleh, Arturo Escobar, Federico Demaria, and Alberto Acosta. Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary (2019), which explores diverse local sustainability practices.Michael Sandel's course on Justice at Harvard, a freely available course on Youtube which investigates the philosophical underpinnings of justiceGarrido, Leonardo and Kate Hughes. “Policy Options for Just Transitions in Asia.” (2023). A report identifying impacts associated with low carbon development in Asia, and policies for just transitions.Wang and Lo. “Just transition: A conceptual review” (2021). A review summarising the pre-pandemic positions on the Just Transition.Newell and Mulvaney. "The Political Economy of the 'Just Transition'" (2013). Discusses political trade-offs in policy design for just transitions. Henry, Brazilian, and Markuson “Just transitions: Histories and futures in a post-COVID world” (2020). This paper delves into the significance of "the pace of change, and the extent to which communities have a say in what comes next", as well as outlining how "the socio-economic aspects of the energy transition remain both emergent and essential to an equitable transition"."About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

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• Depopulation, shrinking cities and urban-rural migration

  In this episode Alice Yamabe and Andre Mader speak with two IGES colleagues, Fernando Ortiz Moya and Yasuo Takahashi, about the phenomenon of depopulation. Fernando has been studying shrinking cities, and Yasuo has been doing research on urban to rural migration, so we have two quite different angles on this subject.To many it may seem counterintuitive to worry about depopulation in a world in which the human populations continues to grow. But population growth rates have been slowing for decades, and have become negative in a growing list of countries. Interestingly, at least in Japan, this has not necessarily been good for people or the environment. On the other hand, perhaps we need to accept and adapt to this reality. "About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

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• Let's talk about the material footprint and its significance for sustainability

  In this episode of About Sustainability, we talked to Heinz Schandl, who joined us from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), which is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. He is an expert on natural resource use, and international resource flows. Among other things, Heinz explained about resource efficiency, the socioeconomic drivers of resource use, and about the possibilities of decoupling economic development and human well-being from resource use. He also explained how resource use is measured through what we call the material footprint, and why it is important to capture the international dimension of that footprint. We also learned about progress in indicators and data availability so that the international linkages between resource extraction and final consumption can be tracked and managed.  All these items are important for measuring progress across several SDGs including SDG 8 on decent work and economic growth, and SDG 12 on sustainable consumption and production.  "About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

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• A few perspectives on UNEP's 6th Environment Assembly and its "OECPR"

  In this episode Alice and Andre talked to Simon about the United Nations Environment Assembly, also known as UNEA, which is the decision-making body of the United Nations Environment Programme. UNEA takes place in Nairobi every second year and it is always preceded by the so-called OECPR, which stands for the Open-ended Committee of Permanent Representatives. This committee functions as the working level meeting that prepares decisions and resolutions for official approval by UNEA. This year, UNEA-6 took place in late February and I joined some of the preparations for that meeting, so in this episode we discuss some of the things that took place during the OECPR and UNEA to draw attention to those processes of international environmental governance that influence the agenda of domestic environmental policy making. Join us and listen."About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

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• Looking back on the career of emeritus IGES Executive Director, Hideyuki Mori

  On this episode of About Sustainability…, Andre,  Alice and Simon celebrate the contribution of an IGES legend, Mr Hideyuki Mori. Mori-san has been a leader at IGES for most of the institute’s history, following diverse experience at other institutions including the United Nations Environment Programme and Asian Development Bank. He retired last year and we wanted to speak to him about his career including his long tenure at IGES. In this discussion we also reminisce about long-time colleague Peter King, who appeared on the podcast last year, but unexpectedly passed away a few months ago.  Mori-san and Peter were friends, and played a key role in steering IGES’ course as in international institute.This episode will probably be of particular interest to IGES staff members or prospective IGES staff, but there should be something for anyone who is interested in careers in the environment. "About Sustainability..." is a podcast brought to you by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), an environmental policy think-tank based in Hayama, Japan. IGES experts are concerned with environmental and sustainability challenges. Everything shared on the podcast will be off-the-cuff discussion, and any viewpoints expressed are those held by the speaker at the time of recording. They are not necessarily official IGES positions.

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