Sense & Sustainability – How 3 Women Changed Our Approach To Sustainability

Jane Jacobs was an urbanist and activist whose 1961 treatise, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, introduced ground-breaking ideas about how cities function, evolve and fail. Rachel Carson was an American marine biologist whose influential book Silent Spring (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement. The author of Spaceship Earth and Only One Earth as well as the founder of the International Institute for Environment and Development, Barbara Ward was a pioneering economist, writer, and lecturer. She was one of the first people to articulate the concept of sustainable development and what was needed to underpin it. So how did these 3 remarkable women change our understanding of sustainability and how important are their ideas today?

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this presentation, you should be able to:

• Outline how Jane Jacobs, Rachel Carson and Barbara Ward influenced our approach to sustainability.
• Explain how important their ideas are today.
• Identify and implement lessons from their message to help repair the damage done in our built environment.

(Competency codes: PC 3, PC 24, PC 28, PC 31)

This session offers one formal CPD point.