SLP Risks and Socio-Environmental Sustainability

Students and professionals have been increasingly showing interests to enroll for a short learning programme that offer knowledge and competencies in environmental risk assessment, principles and premises of social and environmental sustainability as well as sustainability science.  

This demand is necessitated by the growing realization at various geographical scales that human activities are undertaken in an unsustainable manner and we are likely to exceed the limits of acceptable environmental change, thus depleting our natural capital and impairing the functioning of the biosphere.

Thus, it is the important to introduce a governance strategy that can ensure that the environmental impacts of our lifestyles, products and processes do not adversely affect the biosphere. One way to achieve this goal is through environmental management compliance and meeting a growing number of sustainability targets and goals as minimum requirements for carrying out successful strategies for planning, especially at a regional and global scales. 

Furthermore, developing knowledge and interrogating issues around sustainability is in line with many of the Sustainable Development Goals announced by the United Nations in 2015. For example Goal No. 11 seeks to improve resource use and reduce pollution and poverty within human settlements and neighbourhoods by emphasizing pollution prevention and where this is not possible, the removal of wastes from pollution sites for recycling purposes. 

Similarly, Goal No.12 is about sustainable consumption and production through resource and energy efficiency, sustainable infrastructure, and providing access to basic services, green and decent jobs and a better quality of life for all.

In addition, sustainability is also demanded when it comes to most international environmental conventions which offer guidelines in the development of international codes of good environmental practices. Even at a local scale, manufacturing and service-oriented companies are forced to commit themselves to produce environmentally friendly goods and services. 

Given these mega imperatives, there is a surge of interest in the hiring of environmental managers and other professionals with a sustainability outlook, a concept and skill that is not always addressed in a satisfactory manner at high school and university level in terms of what it means, and how it can be measured and enhanced. It is therefore important to orientate all stakeholders towards environmental risk management while creating awareness of the value of sustainable business practices. Sustainable solutions are those that offer stability, durability, resilience, and robustness in specified qualities of human wellbeing, social equity and environmental quality.

Therefore, understanding and managing the different environmental risks associated with human activities and companies is critical towards achieving long term sustainability goals such as saving energy, reducing air and water pollution, and recycling wastes, thus improving environmental quality.