Unit Definition

Why this for an image of sustainability?

Two reasons, actually.

1. This is the Lion Gate at Mycenae, Agamemnon’s palace before he set off to wage  the Trojan War (if there really was one … and on the evidence of Michael Wood, at least, I think there probably was!) more than 3,500 years ago… it has passed the test of time largely unoccupied and remote.

2.  What chance is there of long-term sustainability of this site in the modern world now it is beseiged by hordes of tourists whose presence (their feet, the mild acid and salt from their sweat and the CO2 from their breath) is slowly but surely having an impact upon these stones?

So, let’s get down to business and the Unit Descriptor for this course….

Sustainability principles & practices:

ancient and modern, personal & professional.

Aims and objectives:

• to offer students the opportunity to consider the personal and professional challenges presented to the modern and future world by the principles, practices and sheer necessity of sustainability
• to challenge students to take a stance in their personal and professional lives upon the issue of sustainability once in possession of the key facts and arguments and suitable tools of analysis and evaluation.
• to give students the opportunity to consider their lives, lifestyles, consumption, attitudes and habitudes and their impact upon others present and future and upon the planet and its resources.
• to give students the opportunity to reflect upon the tensions between a commercial world profit motive and the need to incorporate sustainability within the business model.
• to consider the ancient origins of sustainability and how these were ‘lost’ with the impact of money, population growth, capitalism, consumerism and marketing.
• to consider the origins and rationales for the emergeance in the 1980s of the modern concept of Sustainability as originally defined in the World Commission on Environment and Development report of 1987 (‘The Brundtland Report’) called Our Common Future / Notre Avenir à Tous.
• to analyse and evaluate the systems and processes operating at global, international, national, regional and local levels which can influence (positively or negatively) the advancement of sustainability.
• to consider the respective roles of political systems, key players, activists and associations in the present and future of sustainability.
• to make things local: consider the role of the M2A, Mulhouse and the Commune of Brunstatt in furthering the cause of Sustainability as a positive example of  a suitably joined-up approach.
• Building upon and applying students existing and developing knowledge of English in order to consider and learn from worldwide resources in English concerning sustainability.

Indicative work: classroom and assessment:

• A personal sustainability anlysis.  An individual task whereby each student analyses and evaluates his/her own life and activities in terms of their impact upon the planet, involving ‘A Day in the Life’ and a Carbon Footprint analysis.
• Group cumulative impact analysis, whereby individual results are combined in order to establish where the students’ generation is heading in terms of impact upon the biosphere and the sharing of the planet’s resources.
• A group identification of the ‘inhibitors’ preventing us all as individuals from lessening our impact upon the environment.
• Consideration of creative and workable soultions to the inhibitors and the means by which they may be sucessfully introduced. Advocacy of an Action Plan (personal, professional, commercial, political) to address such inhibitors (in Alsace or Haut Rhin as a pilot project).

Resources.

• your tutor
• each other
• Tonyversity and pre-prepared links to further resources
• the www
• key texts available in the library or online

Output & outcome.

M2 students of this unit should leave with their awareness of the challenges of sustainability significantly raised and with a motivation to apply appropriate approaches and tools in their personal and professional (and possibly political) lives in order to reduce the impact of their lives and decisions upon others and upon the ability of the planet to support life for the future.