Sample - SEA Study Guide
Sample - SEA Study Guide
SEA
Sustainability
Excellence
Associate
Study Guide
Revised First Edition
Presented by:
©2021
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Copyright © 2021 by the International Society of Sustainability Professionals. All rights reserved.
The International Society of Sustainability Professionals (ISSP) authorizes individual use of this SEA Study Guide
to those who purchase it. As a purchaser of the guide, you agree to:
• Retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained in the SEA Study Guide
• Not sell or modify the SEA Study Guide, and
• Not reproduce, display, or distribute the SEA Study Guide in any way (including either in print or digital formats)
for any public or commercial purpose, such as to display on a website or at an event or classroom use.
Unauthorized reproduction, reproduction, or display of the SEA Study Guide—even if offered free of charge—
violates copyright and is strictly prohibited.
Disclaimer
This SEA Study Guide is intended to assist candidates in preparing for the Sustainability Excellence Associate
exam. It is not intended to be the sole source of information and knowledge needed to pass the exam will be
supplemented from a variety of sources, including the body of knowledge for the profession and exam-takers own
professional experiences. Using this SEA Study Guide is not a guarantee that a candidate will successfully pass
the exam. As a condition of use, the user agrees to waive and release the International Society of Sustainability
Professionals, its Governing Board, staff, and volunteers from any and all legal responsibility, claims, demands,
and causes of action for any injuries, losses, or damages that the user may now or hereafter have a right to assert
against such parties as a result of the use of, or reliance on, the SEA Study Guide.
We welcome feedback!
The SEA Study Guide is a living document with periodic updates. As the profession evolves, so will our education-
al materials. Please address all questions and comments to us at: [email protected].
ISBN: 978-0-9983925-2-3
INTRODUCTION | pg 1
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Acknowledgments
The SEA Study Guide is a valuable tool for sustainability practitioners preparing to attain the Sustainabili-
ty Excellence Associate professional credential. We are extremely grateful to those who were involved in the
creation of this resource.
INTRODUCTION | pg 2
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Table of Contents
Introduction�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4
Ch. 1 Issues, Trends, Impacts and Perspectives ������������������������������������ 10
Ch. 2 Social Justice, Impact, and Responsibility ����������������������������������� 48
Ch. 3 Frameworks and Principles��������������������������������������������������������������� 65
Ch. 4 Systems Thinking and Interdependencies ����������������������������������� 84
Ch. 5 Business Case for Sustainability Practices������������������������������������ 99
Ch. 6 Historical Background and Events������������������������������������������������ 118
Ch. 7 Global Institutions, Policies and Initiatives��������������������������������� 136
Ch. 8 Regulatory Trends and Policies������������������������������������������������������ 157
Ch. 9 Standards, Protocols, and Certifications������������������������������������� 182
Ch. 10 Technology, Tools, and Innovations��������������������������������������������� 211
INTRODUCTION | pg 3
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ISSP Developed the Sustainability Excellence Professional
Credentials Through Research and Stakeholder Consultation
Background
The field of sustainability has grown exponentially since the 1970s, as businesses, nonprofits, and governments
worldwide have adopted sustainable practices—creating the need for more professionals with the expertise to
guide them. In response to this demand, thousands of people working across multiple disciplines have taken on
the work of “sustainability professional.”
Practitioner diversity enriches and informs the growing field. It also creates a need to qualify the co-defined
skills, knowledge, and capabilities expected of a sustainability professional in order to ensure a baseline level of
excellence for the profession. Many in our community have called for the development of a rigorous set of KSAs—
the knowledge, skills and attributes a sustainability professional will need—to guide performance. Over the years,
ISSP has taken a central role in developing universal standards of competency, based on KSAs that consistently
meet the highest expectations of the profession. We believe this builds the profession’s credibility in the eyes of
clients, colleagues, employers, and the public.
ISSP was formed in 2007 with the mission to empower professionals to advance sustainability in organizations and
governments throughout the world. Early on, the organization took on the task of certifying sustainability profes-
sionals in alignment with our vision and mission. This meant we provided training for professional development at
all levels, especially when there were few institutions of higher learning offering sustainability curriculum.
Nowadays, colleges and universities offer a wealth of sustainability programming, and ISSP continues to lead the
sustainability community in developing the standards of practice for sustainability professionals. These standards
remain at the core of ISSP’s work to provide education for the Sustainability Excellence Associate (SEA) and
Sustainability Excellence Professional (SEP) credentials, now administered by GBCI.
INTRODUCTION | pg 4
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The SEA provides assurance that a professional has the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required of
sustainability practitioners—regardless of specialization,
experience, or geographic location. These KSAs have been
organized into six interconnected “domains” in the Body of
U ST 3.
P
Knowledge (see Figure 2). ISSP’s Sustainability Professional J H
A K E O LD
LA
AD
ST
Job Task Analysis (JTA) further specifies the key “job tasks” E
N
within each of these domains.
6.
1.
2.
G A G M ENT
AT
M
INTRODUCTION | pg 6
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Job Task 1.1 – Explain ideas, concepts, and Job Task 1.2 – Choose appropriate third-party
importance of sustainability to various audiences sustainability resources
• Demonstrate familiarity with global and local • List applicable regulatory trends and policies as
economic, social, and scientific issues, by they relate to sustainability
describing key trends, impacts and perspectives • Demonstrate familiarity with greenhouse gas
relevant to sustainability inventorying and its relationship in areas such as
• Explain sustainability frameworks and principles buildings, transportation, and materials
• Identify issues of social justice and social impacts • Define sustainability claims, eco-labels, and
• Explain and apply systems thinking certifications
• Summarize historically significant events related • Describe key aspects of the landscape and architec-
to sustainability ture/hierarchy of global institutions, frame- works
and standards relevant to the organization, its
• Describe current trends in and interplay among
sustainability issues and its stakeholders
various sustainability issues
• Identify relevant trends, technologies, and approach-
• Explain the importance of sustainable practice
es related to common sustainability initiatives
and how it can contribute to social, environmen-
tal, and business objectives
Sustainability is a very broad topic and, at its most basic, is about systems and systems thinking. As such, it is
difficult to create a linear outline of all the topics encompassed in sustainability. Also, as with every system, it can
help to view the system structure from different perspectives. As a result, although the SEA Study Guide follows
a different outline than the Job Task Analysis, it does include information from all twelve knowledge areas of Job
Tasks 1.1 and 1.2 described above.
INTRODUCTION | pg 7
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es were selected for their credibility and current relevance. The sustainability field is still young and constantly
growing and expanding. The SEA exam and Study Guide will change and grow with the field.
The body of the Study Guide is organized as follows:
Chapter 1: Issues, Trends, Impacts, and Perspectives
Chapter 2: Social Justice, Impact, and Responsibility
Chapter 3: Frameworks and Principles
Chapter 4: Systems Thinking and Interdependencies
Chapter 5: Benefits of Sustainability Practices
Chapter 6: Historical Background and Events
Chapter 7: Global Institutions, Policies, and Initiatives
Chapter 8: Regulatory Trends and Policies
Chapter 9: Standards, Protocols, and Certifications
Chapter 10: Technology, Tools, and Innovations
Each Chapter begins with a table of contents outlining the material that is covered in the chapter. Key words and
phrases are hyperlinked to the glossary where you will find their definition. At the end of several chapters, you’ll
find links to high-quality, third-party sources where you can go to gain a deeper knowledge of the subject.
Although the SEA-level competency focus is on the first Domain (Core Sustainability Concepts), the SEA Study
Guide has gone beyond merely providing a glossary list of concepts that need to be understood at the SA level.
Still, keep in mind that knowledge alone does not make a sustainability professional good at her or his job. An
SEA needs to understand how things fit together as a whole. The chapters, taken collectively, provide important
context. Having an understanding of how all the pieces fit together, and how to tailor the tools in your toolbox, are
key to becoming successful sustainability professionals. Good luck!
Help Us Improve!
While the SEA Study Guide is intended to be as global and diverse as possible, in some cases the United States or
European Union standards are listed. Readers are encouraged to research the equivalent in their local context. We
have made every attempt to provide accurate, up-to-date information to our readers. However, new information
rapidly comes to light. Please reach out to us at: [email protected] and provide us with feedback.
INTRODUCTION | pg 8
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SEA
Sustainability
Excellence
Associate
Chapter 1
Purpose������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
Overview ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
Defining Sustainability and Sustainable Development��������������������������������������������13
Valuing All Forms of Capital ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������14
Weak versus Strong Sustainability���������������������������������������������������������������������������������15
Limits to Growth������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������16
The I=PAT Equation ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������17
The Tragedy of the Commons �����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������17
Interconnectivity ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������17
Donut Economics��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������18
Overview
This chapter provides an overview of sustainability and some of the most pressing social, environmental, and
economic sustainability issues. The first half of this chapter reviews key terms and concepts; the remainder
covers key social, environmental, and economic issues.
CHAPTER 1 | pg 12
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Interpretations have indeed varied. However, at their foundations, most definitions include the concepts of:
• Equity and fairness
• Operating within the limits of the world’s ecosystems
• Having a long term, multi-generational view
• Understanding the interconnections between the economy, society, and environment
At its most basic level, sustainability is the goal of sustainable development.
Image: Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, addressing the UN General Assembly on Environment and Development, 19
October 1987. Source: UN Photo
CHAPTER 1 | pg 13
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rapid reductions in natural capital that cannot be made up by other capital forms. As described in
Natural Capitalism:
“Our continuing progress is restricted not by the number of fishing boats but by the decreasing numbers
of fish; not by the power of pumps but by the depletion of aquifers; not by the number of chainsaws but
by the depletion of primary forests.”8
NATURE
NATURE
SOCIETY
sustainable
development
SOCIETY ECONOMY
ECONOMY
WEAK STRONG
sustainability sustainability
(Based in Brundtland 1987) (Giddings 2002)
Pioneering ecological economists such as E.F. Schumacher stressed that the environment is a critical source of
capital for economic activity and development:
“… we are estranged from reality and inclined to treat as valueless everything that we have not made
ourselves. … Far larger is the capital made by nature and not by man—and we do not even recognize it as
such. Let us take a closer look at this ‘natural capital.’ First of all, and most obviously, there are the fossil
fuels. No one, I am sure, will deny that we are treating them as income items although they are undeni-
ably capital items. If we treated them as capital items, we should be concerned with conservation; we
should do everything in our power to try and minimize their current rate of use…”10
In addition to proper valuation of resources such as fossil fuels, fish, and timber, this concept has been
developed to include valuation of the potentially irreplaceable services of healthy natural systems, as well as
the promotion of economic development strategies that embrace investments in such natural capital. Such
“ecosystem services” include nature’s ability to purify air and water, protection from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet
waves, and “aesthetic beauty and intellectual stimulation that lift the human spirit.”11
CHAPTER 1 | pg 14
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In 1997, when the annual global gross national product (value of all economic output globally) was estimated to
be US$18 trillion per year, the annual value of all Earth’s ecosystem services was estimated to be US$33 trillion.12
An updated valuation of ecosystem services in 2018 by the WWF’s Living Planet Index increased the estimate to
US$125 trillion per year.13
A key point of natural capital valuation estimates is that traditional economic measures do not include these
critical contributions, creating a skewed perspective of both present and future economic health.14
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is a global initiative that continues the effort to understand
ecosystem value by focusing on “making nature’s values visible.” Their mission is to mainstream the values of
biodiversity and ecosystem services into decision-making.15
Alongside these valuation methods stands the generations-long understanding that Indigenous People have
about ecosystems and landscapes. Traditional Ecological Knowledge, also called Indigenous Knowledge or
Native Science, refers to the evolving knowledge acquired by indigenous and local peoples over hundreds or
thousands of years through direct contact with the environment. TEK is an accumulating body of knowledge,
practice, and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural transmis-
sion, about the relationship of living beings (human and non-human) with one another and with the environment.
Limits to Growth
Related to the concepts of weak and strong sustainability is the idea that there are limits to the availability of
natural resources, including ecosystem services, generally referred to as limits to growth. Pioneering sustainabili-
ty thought leaders identified this system archetype as a fundamental flaw in the relationship between the human
economy and the Earth’s ecological capacities. Although the Earth is finite, the demands placed on it by society
are growing at an exponential rate. An exponential rate of growth means that a given measured item grows every
year, year after year, like the compounding interest of a bank savings account.
This exponential growth therefore causes a reinforcing loop that continually feeds back into the system, building
upon itself at a faster rate than most people expect. A $100 savings account earning 3% compounded interest, for
example, would double in about 24 years (seven years sooner than it would take the same account accruing 3%
simple interest per year). At 8% annual growth, the original amount would double in 9 years.
The economist Al Bartlett provides a rule-of-thumb formula for estimating this doubling time, given a specific
rate of growth:
“…[T]ake the number 70, divide it by the percent growth per unit time and that gives you the doubling
time. So, our example of 5% per year, you divide the 5 into 70, you find that growing quantity will double
in size every 14 years.”16
The conundrum of exponentially growing human population and economic activity occurring on a finite planet
was first explored by economist Herman Daly and the authors of the 1972 book The Limits to Growth.17 This book
concluded that humankind faced two core problems: The Earth’s limits would be reached within 100 years, and
the likely scenario when they are reached would be a disastrous “overshoot and collapse”:
“In any finite system there must be constraints that can act to stop exponential growth. These constraints
are negative feedback loops. The negative loops become stronger and stronger as growth approaches
the ultimate limit. In the world system the negative feedback loops involve such processes as pollution of
the environment, depletion of nonrenewable resources, and famine.
“The delays inherent in the action of these negative loops tend to allow population and capital to
overshoot their ultimately sustainable levels. The period of overshoot is wasteful of resources. It
generally decreases the carrying capacity of the environment as well, intensifying the eventual decline in
population and capital.”18
Avoiding the overshoot and collapse scenario for Earth’s ecosystems is a critical outcome of sustainability
efforts worldwide.
CHAPTER 1 | pg 15
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The IPAT equation is a conceptual model used to describe the relationship between the three main drivers
of humanity’s Earth impacts—population, affluence, and technology. Developed by Paul and Ann Ehrlich of
Stanford University, this model suggests that humanity’s impact on the systems that sustain our existence can be
approximated by the following equation:
I=PxAxT
Where:
• I = society’s negative impact on the ecosphere
• P = population size
• A = affluence of average individual (consumption)
• T = technology and services driving consumption19
The equation illustrates that, given humanity’s general unwillingness to limit growth through regulations and
that humanity generally seeks to increase the affluence of individuals, it becomes critical to reduce the impact
multiplier of technology. This can be accomplished through sustainable energy sources and increasing the
efficiency with which materials and energy are used. Therefore, a key competency of the sustainability profes-
sional is to support the rapid adoption of more sustainable technologies and resource efficiency.
Interconnectivity
Both “Limits to Growth” and “The Tragedy of the Commons” are examples of
challenges that arise because the world is a system with complex interconnections. NATURE
NATURE
Individuals live, work, and play in their communities. The economic viability of
institutions depends on the labor provided by individuals who are also customers. SOCIETY
sustainable
Governments serve, protect, and defend order within society so that people and
development
SOCIETY
businesses can thrive. And society, collectively, is wholly dependent onECONOMY
Earth’s
ECONOMY
ability to support daily activities.
WEAK STRONG
sustainability sustainability
(Based in Brundtland 1987) CHAPTER 1 |
(Giddings 2002) pg 16
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Creating a sustainable economic, social, and environmental world requires whole systems thinking. Unlike the
standard Venn diagram that shows these spheres as only overlapping in a small area, a true representation of the
Earth’s system is one of concentric circles—with the human economy existing within the social sphere, which in
turn exists within the environmental sphere.
Donut Economics
Economist Kate Raworth leveraged the concepts of planetary boundaries and Fundamental Human Needs to
develop an economic model known as Donut Economics.
In this model, the outer dark green ring represents the planetary boundaries, or an ecological “ceiling”. The inner
dark green ring represents the “floor” or foundation below which people may fall if they are not having their
needs met. Humanity should remain in the light green space—in the regenerative and distributive economy. It is
a space within which we can thrive.25
The 12 dimensions of the “donut’s” social foundation—health, education, housing, water, etc.—are derived from
the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
We should be designing our economies to avoid the shortfalls and the overshoots, to stay within the two
boundaries. In the hole of the donut is critical human deprivation. We are currently falling short on many of these
foundational social needs and have a lot of work to do to bring everyone into an equitable economy.
CHAPTER 1 | pg 17
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